MGA’s Miniverse Goes Analog With a Working Retro TV and Tiny VHS Tapes

Everything old eventually becomes new again. Apparently, that also applies when you shrink it down to miniature size.

After turning everything from food and lifestyle products to recognizable brands into tiny collectibles, MGA’s Miniverse is embracing the technology of yesterday with its next releases. This time, the brand is going analog with the MGA’s Miniverse Real TV Player, a working miniature retro television accompanied by something younger fans may have only heard their parents talk about: VHS tapes.

Well, miniature versions of them, anyway.

Priced at $24.99, the MGA’s Miniverse Real TV Player is more than a miniature television designed to sit on a shelf. The retro-inspired TV actually works with a collection of tiny playable video tapes, each containing a 30-second clip from a recognizable movie or television series.

The Real TV Player comes with one playable mini video tape, a miniature TV stand and a video display case, creating a rather impressively small entertainment center. Additional tapes can then be collected through the accompanying MGA’s Miniverse Real TV Videos line.

And suddenly, building a video collection is back in style.

The Real TV Videos arrive in mystery capsules priced at $11.99, with each containing three mystery mini video tapes and a keychain that can be used to display a favorite. More than 30 tapes will be available to collect, pulling from movies and television series including “Back to the Future,” “Shrek,” “Kung Fu Panda,” “The Office” and “Saved by the Bell.”

Unlike plenty of miniature recreations that are made purely for display, however, these tapes actually have something on them. Each can be inserted into the separately sold Real TV Player to watch its corresponding 30-second clip.

There is something particularly fun about Miniverse embracing VHS for this release. For adults, sliding a tape into a television brings back memories of shelves packed with movies, rewinding tapes and deciding what to watch based on whatever happened to be sitting in the video cabinet. Yet for younger collectors, VHS has increasingly become a piece of retro technology from a world before streaming put seemingly endless entertainment a few button presses away.

Now those two experiences get to meet somewhere in the middle.

Kids get a functioning miniature gadget and the surprise of discovering which tapes are hiding inside each capsule, while older collectors get recognizable movies and shows packaged inside a format they may remember from their own childhoods. Even the little display case leans into the fun of actually building a miniature video library instead of simply collecting another assortment of figures.

Perhaps there is some irony in needing modern miniature technology to recreate the experience of decidedly older technology, but that may also be what makes the idea so charming. In an era of streaming, downloads and screens that seemingly follow us everywhere, MGA’s Miniverse is asking everyone to build a VHS collection again.

The MGA’s Miniverse Real TV Player and Real TV Videos are currently available for pre-order at Target, priced at $24.99 and $11.99 respectively.

Just remember one important piece of VHS etiquette.

Be kind, rewind.

Even if the tape is only a few inches tall.