Before streaming and Apple Music, iTunes and portable devices, there were LP Records. But before LP Records, there were cassette tapes. But but and before before cassette tapes, there were annoying 8-Track tapes the size of city buses that held maybe two songs on a good day. And they cost $1,299.99 a piece!

And now… the truth.

Everything in that opening paragraph was true except the details about 8-Track tapes. Of course, they were fairly big and cumbersome to store and annoying in that you had to toggle between set tracks instead of between individual songs, but that was the way we rolled back in the day!

And if there was a technology to exploit, Disney put it into a Box Set with a book:

Mickey Mouse had his 50th Anniversary in 1978 and this was part of the merchandise line to promote that celebration. It contained five 8-Track tapes with a selection of music from the movies, television shows, and Theme Parks of the Disney brand.

As always, I buy these oddities for the commemorative books they contain. Although I know more about Disney than a normal person would ever want to know, I do manage to learn something knew with each of these that I read.

Let’s have a look at some the pages:

And now for a trip back in time to when, if you wanted to take your music with you, you needed a wheelbarrow:

I remember my father bought an old Fargo van that had an 8-Track player in it. The former owner left a few tapes behind and I played them while I drove it. This happened so long ago that the van had three-on-the-tree. If you know what that is… you’re old too!

I have several of these box sets in my media collection. Some have cassettes, some have LP records. All of them have a wonderful booklet full of interesting information. You just never know exactly what you’ll find when you open one of these boxes!

Two other box sets might be of interest, each have VHS tapes and other inserts. One is Beauty and the Beast while the other is Fantasia.