Major Morgan the Electronic Organ, from Playskool, 1979.

Major Morgan the Electric Organ, plastic children’s toy in original colour-printed cardboard packaging, complete with colour-printed instruction leaflet. The toy is made from moulded plastic in the shape of a male figure, wearing a guardsmen-shaped hat and with its arms by its sides. The hat is red, with yellow detailing, and a blue peak moulded into the plastic. The face has two blue eyes, a nose, a smiling mouth and yellow hair on each side between the tops of the ears and the hat. There are yellow epaulets on each shoulder. There are two military stripes in yellow on each arm. The main body of the figure consists on an inset rectangular, divided into two sections. The rectangular area has a grey background, with the background in the smaller top section printed with ‘Major Morgan TM’ in blue over the grey. In the bottom section, the letters A-F are printed on the background, arranged in rows of four. To the back of the figure there is a battery holder in the hat area, and a circular speaker towards the feet. Included with the toy are six colour-printed, laminated rectangular cards depicting shapes, numbers or colours. When slotted into the rectangular area to the front of the toy, a sequence of figures, colours or shaped appears in the top section. The shapes, colours or numbers in the bottom section can be used to play a tune, when pressed in the sequence depicted in the top section.

This is a Major Morgan electronic toy from Playskool. It was designed to teach children the basics of playing a musical instrument. The main play area of the toy consists of a membrane that, when pressed in different areas, connects an electrical circuit and produces an electronic sound producing a scale of 16 notes.

Major Morgan comes with a set of six cards which can be slotted into his body. These have a code to follow along the top section with matching symbols or colours for the main section. If the symbols are pressed in the order presented by the code, they should produce one of the ten tunes on the double sided cards; these include Mary Had a Little Lamb, This Old Man, On Top of Old Smokey, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, London Bridge, Old Macdonald, Row Row Row Your Boat, Yankee Doodle, Pop goes the Weasel and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. These nursery rhymes would be recognised by children, and so the concept of rhythm is not represented by the toy, but would be played according to the child's knowledge of the song. One card features the actual letters of the musical notes played and one card is blank for a child to create their own tune. The instruction booklet introduces the concept of musical notation.

B.82:1 to 11-2011