Disney’s Boardwalk: The Clamshell Mutascope
I’ve gone on and on before about how much I adore Disney’s Boardwalk Inn & Villas and its quirky refusal to be anything but itself – from its nanny chairs to its Pennywise pool to its old school boardwalk contraptions and machines. One such machine is this clamshell mutascope – one of the original machines manufactured from 1895 to 1909 by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. These machines were essentially giant mechanized flipbooks that the viewer would hand crank to watch. A sort of penny arcade silent movie.
We were at the Boardwalk today and, while I was yet again holding my kids up one at a time to crank the handle and watch the movie, it occurred to me that we should take a video of the footage for all of you.
So here it is!! Enjoy!!
