someguy3How many people listened to audiobooks on cassette tape? (Or anything non-music.)
The library had books on tape in those big molded plastic cases. Like 20 tapes per book sometimes. We’d take a couple of those anytime we’d go on an overnight trip out of town.
BjörnNot audibooks but as a kid I had tons of radio plays on cassette. Are those only popular in Germany?
The most popular ones were about groups of 3-6 kids doing detective work or going on other adventures. The biggest one was ??? (The Three Questionmarks). I think there are still new episodes coming out today with the protagonists being adults by now. I even went to a live performance once. It was awesome.
But often TV shows got also turned into radio plays. More often than not they would take the audio from the show 1:1 and put it on cassettes. I had Ducktales, TMNT and a weird Playmobil one. For some of these I would actually see the original TV episode much later but would finally realise what the weird sound effects were supposed to represent.
krdoI never new The Three Investigators were continued later. I remember reading those in Danish as a child.
The three investigators were continued in Germany only. It’s still a huge thing thanks to the radio plays. The first ones were released in 1979 based on the original English novels. After the series was discontinued in the States, German writers took over and published new books. With the radio plays we’re now at episode 250 with the original voice actors from back in the day who are now in their 50s / 60s.
And they’re doing live events in large concert halls for their fans.
Radio plays are not exclusive to Germany, but their popularity in Germany is 2nd to none. In Great Britain, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis) started out as a radio play on BBC before it was published as a book.
thehatfoxYes, I had a few audiobooks on cassettes. In the 90s PG Tips (a brand of tea) had some sort of promotion that gave out free kids audiobook cassettes, I think we had the complete collection.
Language learning courses were popular on cassettes too.
Language learning courses were popular on cassettes too.
I still have one!
I had a bunch of disney audio books on red cassettes in the early 90’s
I don’t know if it counts, but there is a christian denomination group that recorded the Bible on cassette tapes. The Jehovah’s witnesses, IIRC…
In the 90s, I used to record my favorite movies (from VHS) onto cassettes so I could listen to them at my summer job on the assembly line. What were those movies, you ask…
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Back To School UHF Trading Places
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Back To School UHF Trading Places
SUPPLIES!
hahaha!!!
GhostalmediaMy dad used to cassette audio books in the car all the time in the 90’s.
They used to have a rental program for audiobooks at Cracker Barrel.
I listened to my dad’s Clear and Present Danger cassettes in the early 90s, partly on my knockoff Walkman, IIRC.
If it counts, I bought a cast recording of an old production of Hamlet on cassette as well, when I was in college.
The experience is generally fine. The linear nature of books works fairly well with cassettes.
spittingimageJust one. I listened to an audiobook version of Fatherland narrated by Werner Klemperer, the actor who played Colonel Klink in the Hogan’s Heroes TV show. So weird listening to him do the female characters.
I used to record my favorite jokes and songs from Animaniacs.
My truck only has AM/FM and cassette. I still have some of my Weird Al tapes in there for when I’m driving it a lot.
You know they make adapters that can connect with an aux cord or Bluetooth right?
They’re pretty neat and last time I needed one like 3-4 years ago Walmart had them for like $5.
Not ragging your choices, just looking for my 1/10000
They have cigarette lighter chargers with Bluetooth. ETA :
(Car cigarette lighter or whatever the charging port is called now )
What do you do with Bluetooth on a cigarette lighter charger?
Listen to podcasts from a phone? Music?
Oh, it has a speaker built into it?
Rofl! My apologies! I was on a study break, and ASSumed since the conversation was about cars, my meaning would be clearly inferred. My apologies, I edited the post.
Mossy Feathers (She/Her)I actually still use one of these. A new stereo is too expensive when the tape works fine. I can’t imagine that I’d notice the difference since the car’s noise dampening isn’t very good.
Yeah, I had one and it burned out years ago. I rarely drive that truck, so it’s pretty low priority.
OkamiI remember having the Batman Forever and Batman Knightfall audio books on cassette back when I was a kid.
I listened to them so many times the voice and cadence of the narrator is permanently burned into my subconscious. I still quote them from time to time without really thinking about it.
Had Krishna’s story in cassette my mother had as a present, in Italy, from some Orange people like they had in the '70s. Now I am Buddhist.
Sure, lots. Mostly audiobooks for road trips or commutes. I even had a genuine Sony Walkman.
The first time I got a portable listening device other than a plain cassette player was in my mid-twenties and a wealthy neighbor gave me an Apple iPod mini.
I did in the late 90s early 2000s. Now I do it through my phone when cooking or commuting to the office.
👍Maximum Derek👍We didn’t have money for Sony, but I listened to countless hours of audiobooks, standup, and I’m sure other stuff on my (probably Daewoo) portable cassette player.
And for some reason this sparked the memory of having one of these as a kid. It took forever to come up with the search terms to find it. 
Search YouTube for “Story Teller Tapes”. That’s what my grandmother sent me.
We had a little robot that would tell you stories and you got to pick the adventure by pressing buttons
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆I had a Teddy Ruxpin that was like that. I still have the regular Teddy Ruxpin, and some of the story tapes; but not the original tape player.
My mom had also gotten my siblings and I some kind of edutainment set of cassettes that had, like, skits and such like an episode of Sesame Street all about learning various things. I forgot what the heck they were called though. They were super popular in the 80’s/early 90’s and predated Hooked on Phonics.
kids books often came with a cassette or 7 inch record of the text
I had quite a few
As a kid I had the Dinotopia audiodrama tapes and my family would get old radio shows like Jack Benny from the CrackerBarrel store on road trips.
ComradeSharkfuckerI need need need need neeeeeed the magnus archives on tape holy shit i didnt know how much i needed that
The idea of an audio drama on casette never occured to me
I had a few comedy albums. Some of them like Monty Python had a mix of music and skits. I wasn’t super into audiobooks. Probably the longest thing I ever listened to was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in its (original?) BBC Radio rendition.
The hitchhikers’ radio series on cassette started my love of audiobooks. I listened to it dozens of times as a teen. Went to sleep listening to it.
sgibson5150I actually won a walkman. Second prize in a rap contest. Well, I wrote the rap. I didn’t have to perform the rap. Oh no no you would not want that.
Anyway, I want to say I listened to the Hitchhikers Guide radio plays on mine.
As a teenager, I would record the audio from movies onto cassettes, then listen to them on long bike rides. Damn near wore out MASH and Coming to America.
owenfromcanadaBorrowed audio books on cassette from the library for long drives. You’d have the book thing open on the passenger seat for easily switching to the next tape. Never could afford to buy them outright.
CrackhappyI listened to a ton of music on my walkman in the 80s, but the one thing I listened to that has stuck with me since then was the binaural recording of The Mist. I listened to it late at night during a very intense monsoon. Just amazing.
I also listened to that very same recording of The Mist, on my walkman. I remember reading in the liner notes they used a “Kunstkopf” (“false head”) system to make it sound like some things were behind you. Holy sweet fuck that was great to listen to. Then a bunch of years later I’m playing Half Life for the first time and when things went to shit all I could think was “oh, Arrowhead Project”
I listened to „chasperli“ in the mid-late 00s
When I was in elementary school we would go to the scholastic book fair, and they had a lot of kids’ books that had audiobooks on cassette bundled with them. My parents got me my own player and I’d sit up in my room playing with blocks or dolls or whatever while listening to The Seven Chinese Brothers or Swimmy or whatever. Some thirty years later my husband let me use his Audible account and I rediscovered the joy of listening to books while doing random stuff around the house.
When I was really young I’d check out audiobooks from the library, but I preferred reading books over listening to them. My grandparents loved audiobooks though. They had a cottage in Michigan they’d go to every summer, and they’d listen to them during the trip up there and back.
soliNever did it on a walkman, but when I was a kid I was taken on a few multi-day road trips where they’d throw an audiobook on.
VanthDiscman portable CD players got big in what, 1995 timeframe?. So anyone born before 1990ish has good odds of having listened to a cassette tape.
36 and yes, I listened to cassette tapes in my youth. My dad also got a vintage car with an 8-track player that I sometimes drove as a teen so I have also listened to 8-tracks. I had to search through several thrift shops to find them.
Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends read by the author. Peter and the Wolf with orchestral accompaniment.
My mom had a tape that guided you through isometric exercises to do in the car. There was a large tape book always around my house of like 12 cassettes that somehow taught you how to speed read, but I don’t think anyone ever used it.
Justas🇱🇹My parents would play fairy tales for us. On vinyl.
On phone with wired earphone.
Because I am too poor to buy tape or walkman, or even buy the audiobook.
I ride the high sea with my shitty android phone on a cheap no brand China headphone