TomR

I'm the TomR

A human.


morayati
@morayati

This, about the then-popular line of interactive children's book CD-ROM software, Living Books, is one of the most detailed and fascinating Wikipedia articles I have ever read. (Which of course means that Wikipedia has a big, supposedly scary warning at the top telling people to make it less detailed or fascinating.1) Here are some excerpts:

As Broderbund didn't have a recording studio, sound designer Tom Rettig individually recorded and saved each audio file in a small office.[4] Living Books' first full time sound designer and musician, Joey Edleman, wrote the Living Books theme and dance themes for their earlier stories.[4] Edelman had previously worked at Computers and Music, a pioneering audio software company that would be used to develop the sound of Living Books; software companies Digidesign or Opcode asked Edleman what sounds they wanted for his projects to be released in upcoming versions of their programs.[27] Roy Blumenfeld served as audio engineer for The Cat in the Hat.[28] When Schlichting created a sound effect for a falling leaf, he named it "Ode to Goofy" in honour of the Disney character.[7] Schlichting sought colleagues to serve as voice actors, and this process helped the office to become invested and champion the project.[4] Often, ancillary characters were played by Living Books staff;[29] Grandma in Just Grandma and Me was played by Schlichting himself [8][30] and his son played Little Creature;[8] meanwhile sound designers Bob Marshall and Edelman played Tortoise and Hare in The Tortoise and the Hare.[31] One scene containing in motion cabbages required the entire staff to go into the sound studio and run around.[8] It took up to 15 takes to record words and sentences correctly; they had been recorded carefully in order to get speech right.[8]

Originally designed for children in preschool and early elementary aged three to eight,[77][8] the storybooks found audiences ranging as young as two and some programs reached kids nine and older,[13][8] Schlichting noted that while younger players would click the words in sequence to "map the story", older players will click the words out-of-order to build their own silly sentences,[46] allowing for "greater language play".[88] In Harry and the Haunted House, older players found amusement in creating the sentence "the zombie has a stinky but[t]".[11] This was a serendipitous form of play Schlichting never intended or expected.[11]

After spending months on a prototype for New Kid on the Block, Schlicting presented the interactive version to the book author Jack Prelutsky; afterwards he turned to Schlicting and exclaimed, "Will you marry me?".


  1. if you haven't been to Wikipedia in a while, the philosophy of the place has shifted from "delete things that are factually inaccurate, unverifiable, or about which little to no reliable information exists" to "delete everything possible," the recent nadir being then-leading US Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield being denied a page on the grounds of being "non-notable,"2 to which Jimmy Wales himself had to step in and be like "literally what the fuck has happened to this place?"

  2. specifically, that SEO advertising exists, and thus any article on a candidate running for office must necessarily be an SEO political ad, which is the height of paranoia


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