A father’s video of his children trying to figure out how to listen to old cassette tapes has gone viral.
James Crane, from Essex, discovered the collection while visiting his father with his children 12-year-old Archie, 10-year-old Oscar and nine-year-old Grace.
Mr Crane, 39, giggled from behind the camera as he filmed the trio struggling to work out how to play music from the cassettes.
Archie held a tape to his ear and said: ‘I’m just getting rattles. How do you turn it on?’, while Oscar pointed out various holes that could be old-school headphone jacks.
Grace suggested they might need a TV to get the tapes blaring out some tunes – but Oscar dismissed that theory because, obviously, ‘they didn’t have TVs back in those days’.
Mr Crane thought it was hilarious that his children were convinced no one in the 1980s had any concept of television.
He asked the boys if they could hear any music yet, but Archie told him he could just hear ‘rattles’.
Archie then wondered if the silent tape needed batteries. He then admitted: ‘I don’t know how you listen to music on this thing.’
By the end of the video, the helpless children were no closer to realising they were missing a tape player.
Tape modern: James Crane, from Essex, discovered an old collection of tapes while visiting his father. The 39-year-old giggled from behind the camera as Archie (left) and Oscar (right) struggled to work out how to activate the silent cassettes
Mr Crane said: ‘I thought they were all winding me up at first until Archie looked at me. I know he was being deadly serious and had no idea what it was.
‘I was actually looking for some placemats but found these tapes in the drawer. I thought I would show my kids, as I knew they would have never seen them before.
‘I thought maybe 50 of my friends might get a laugh from it but I never expected it to go so far.’
Mr Crane said: ‘I thought they were all winding me up at first until Archie looked at me. I know he was being deadly serious and had no idea what it was’
Mr Crane posted the footage to his Facebook friends on Monday with the caption: ‘Just shown my boys some tapes, they were told this is what I used to listen to music on. Their idea of how to listen to it had me in stitches.’
Since then the video has been viewed more than 48,000 times – but Archie, Oscar and Grace have still not heard any music from the tapes.
Mr Crane said: ‘I am trying to get my hands on a tape player now so they can see how it actually works. I will have to see if they can work out how to put the tape in next.’