Description

First manufactured by Playskool in 1979, Major Morgan was a hand-held musical toy. It was chunky, hard-wearing, able to withstand being dropped or thrown about and cheerfully decorated in bright colours.

Major Morgan was designed to look like a drum major from a marching band; he sported a blue outfit with yellow epaulettes and sleeve stripes and a red hat with yellow decoration. The unit had a speaker in the back and it used a 9 volt battery.

Major Morgan’s torso was made up of a touch screen divided into two parts with a slot at the bottom. Before you inserted one of the cards that came with him the top screen displayed his name in capital letters while the bottom one showed 16 letters (A to G twice) which, when pressed, played the corresponding musical note, both high and low. A quick press resulted in a short note and holding it down for longer gave you a continuous note.

The cards that accompanied the Major were plastic and double-sided and featured well-known nursery rhymes and songs, such as ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ and others: ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, ‘Old McDonald’ etc.