Moo box

Last updated
A moo box Meuh box.JPG
A moo box

The moo box or moo can is a toy or a souvenir, also used as a hearing test. When turned upside down, it produces a noise that resembles the mooing of a cow. The toy can be configured to create other animal sounds such as the meowing of a cat, the sound of a bird, or the bleat of a sheep.

Contents

Construction

The moo box consists of a block and a bellows. The bellows is sealed to the bottom of the box and to the block. The block is heavy and perforated, and used to actuate the bellows, producing the sound.

When the box is inverted, the block falls away from the bottom, filling the bellows with air. When the box is turned right side up, the air is expelled through a vibrating blade (which makes it a free reed instrument) producing the sound. After passing the blade, the air passes through a duct of variable length, which determines the pitch of the sound.

Block and bellows Open Moo Box.JPG
Block and bellows
Block showing blade Inside Moo Box.JPG
Block showing blade
Block with duct Outside Moo Box.JPG
Block with duct

Moatti test

The toy can be used to perform the Moatti test to test infants' hearing at different frequencies, conceived by doctor Lucien Moatti. It uses four boxes at different frequencies, all calibrated to generate a sound pressure level (loudness) of sixty decibels at two metres. The test can be used to screen the hearing of children aged from six to 24 months.

The tester knocks down the boxes out of sight of the child. If the child hears the sound, they will turn their head towards it.

Notable appearances in pop culture

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Onomatopoeia</span> Words that imitate the sound they describe

Onomatopoeia is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as oink, meow, roar, and chirp. Onomatopoeia can differ by language: it conforms to some extent to the broader linguistic system. Hence, the sound of a clock may be expressed variously across languages: thus as tick tock in English, tic tac in Spanish and Italian, dī dā in Mandarin, kachi kachi in Japanese, or tik-tik in Hindi and Bengali.

<i>Amélie</i> 2001 film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Amélie is a 2001 French-language romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Written by Jeunet with Guillaume Laurant, the film is a whimsical depiction of contemporary Parisian life, set in Montmartre. It tells the story of a shy, introverted and quirky waitress, played by Audrey Tautou, who decides to change the lives of those around her for the better while dealing with her own isolation. The film features an ensemble cast of supporting roles, including Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Lorella Cravotta, Serge Merlin, Jamel Debbouze, Claire Maurier, Clotilde Mollet, Isabelle Nanty, Dominique Pinon, Artus de Penguern, Yolande Moreau, Urbain Cancelier, and Maurice Bénichou.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">THX</span> Theater standard and American audio company founded in 1983 by George Lucas

THX is a suite of high fidelity audiovisual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, video game consoles, car audio systems, and video games. The THX trailer that precedes movies is based on the Deep Note, with a distinctive glissando up from a rumbling low pitch.

<i>Monsters, Inc.</i> 2001 American computer-animated film

Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn, Mary Gibbs and Jennifer Tilly, the film was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and produced by Darla K. Anderson, from a screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Daniel Gerson. The film centers on two monsters, the hairy James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (Goodman) and his one-eyed partner and best friend Mike Wazowski (Crystal), who are employed at the titular energy-producing factory Monsters, Inc., which generates power by scaring human children. However, the monster world believes that the children are toxic, and when a little human girl Boo (Gibbs) sneaks into the factory, she must be returned home before it is too late.

<i>The City of Lost Children</i> 1995 film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet

The City of Lost Children is a 1995 science fantasy film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, written by Jeunet and Gilles Adrien, and starring Ron Perlman. An international co-production of companies from France, Germany, and Spain, the film is stylistically related to the previous and subsequent Jeunet films, Delicatessen and Amélie.

Jean-Christophe "Pitof" Comar is a French visual effects supervisor and director notable for Vidocq and Catwoman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yann Tiersen</span> French musician and composer (born 1970)

Yann Pierre Tiersen is a French Breton musician and composer. His musical career is split between studio recordings, music collaborations, and film soundtracks songwriting. His music incorporates a large variety of classical and contemporary instruments, primarily the electric guitar, the piano, synthesisers, and the violin, but he also includes instruments such as the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, piano accordion, and even a typewriter.

<i>Knick Knack</i> 1989 film directed by John Lasseter

Knick Knack is a 1989 American animated short film produced by Pixar that was written and directed by John Lasseter. The short is about a snow globe snowman who wants to join the other travel souvenirs in a summer-themed party. However, the glass dome that surrounds him prevents him from doing so, thus leading to his many tries to break out of his snow globe. Knick Knack is Pixar's fourth short and the final short produced during the company's tenure as a hardware company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conductive hearing loss</span> Medical condition

Conductive hearing loss (CHL) occurs when there is a problem transferring sound waves anywhere along the pathway through the outer ear, tympanic membrane (eardrum), or middle ear (ossicles). If a conductive hearing loss occurs in conjunction with a sensorineural hearing loss, it is referred to as a mixed hearing loss. Depending upon the severity and nature of the conductive loss, this type of hearing impairment can often be treated with surgical intervention or pharmaceuticals to partially or, in some cases, fully restore hearing acuity to within normal range. However, cases of permanent or chronic conductive hearing loss may require other treatment modalities such as hearing aid devices to improve detection of sound and speech perception.

<i>Maggie and the Ferocious Beast</i> Canadian animated childrens television series created by Michael and Betty Paraskevas

Maggie and the Ferocious Beast is a Canadian animated children's television series created by Michael and Betty Paraskevas. The program was based on the 1996 book The Ferocious Beast with the Polka-Dot Hide and its sequels, which were also written by the Paraskevas. Two years later, the show started off as a series of shorts aired on the Canadian channel Teletoon in 1998. The first full-length episode first premiered on Nickelodeon as part of the Nick Jr. programming block on June 5, 2000, in the U.S. before premiering on Teletoon on August 26 of that same year in Canada. The series ran for three seasons, airing its final episode on June 9, 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audiogram</span> Graph showing audible frequencies

An audiogram is a graph that shows the audible threshold for standardized frequencies as measured by an audiometer. The Y axis represents intensity measured in decibels (dB) and the X axis represents frequency measured in hertz (Hz). The threshold of hearing is plotted relative to a standardised curve that represents 'normal' hearing, in dB(HL). They are not the same as equal-loudness contours, which are a set of curves representing equal loudness at different levels, as well as at the threshold of hearing, in absolute terms measured in dB SPL.

<i>La Valse des monstres</i> 1995 studio album by Yann Tiersen

La Valse des monstres is the first album released by Breton composer Yann Tiersen. It includes several pieces he wrote as an accompaniment for short films and plays, together with original material. Most tracks had been used for the theatrical adaptation of Freaks, a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film directed by Tod Browning, or for the classic Japanese musical drama The Damask Drum, rewritten by Japanese author, poet and playwright, Yukio Mishima in 1955.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheep</span> Domesticated ruminant bred for meat, wool, and milk

Sheep or domestic sheep are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term sheep can apply to other species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sheep. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are also the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female is referred to as a ewe, an intact male as a ram, occasionally a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a young sheep as a lamb.

<i>Micmacs</i> (film) 2009 French film

Micmacs is a 2009 French comedy film by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Its original French title is MicMacs à tire-larigot. The film is billed as a "satire on the world arms trade". It premiered on 15 September 2009 at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival as a gala screening at Roy Thomson Hall.

<i>Demonic Toys 2</i> 2010 American film

Demonic Toys 2 is a 2010 American horror comedy slasher film written and directed by William Butler and produced by Charles Band. It is a slasher film featuring killer dolls. It is technically the fourth film featuring the evil ‘Demonic Toys’ in the Demonic Toys film franchise. It follows two previous crossover films that expanded lore into both the Dollman universe, with 1993’s Dollman vs. Demonic Toys and the Puppet Master franchise with 2004’s Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys. It is the official direct sequel to the 1992 original classic, Demonic Toys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shepherd's whistle</span> Whistle placed in the mouth and used to communicate with sheepdogs

A shepherd's whistle is a specialized, modulatable, variable-pitch whistle used to train and transmit commands to working dogs and other animals. Unlike other whistles, they are placed inside the mouth. The pitch is controlled by the placement of the tongue; physically, shepherd's whistles are vessel flutes with the tongue forming one side of the resonating chamber, and controlling its size. Like tin whistles, while simple, they can be used as musical instruments in their own right.

<i>The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet</i> 2013 adventure-drama film

The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet is a 2013 adventure drama film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and co-written with Guillaume Laurant, an adaptation of the 2009 book The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet written by Reif Larsen. The film stars Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, Callum Keith Rennie, and Kyle Catlett.

<i>The Shape of Water</i> 2017 Mexican-American romantic dark fantasy film by Guillermo del Toro

The Shape of Water is a 2017 Mexican-American romantic dark fantasy film directed and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor. It stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, the film follows a mute custodian at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid amphibian creature, and decides to help him escape from death at the hands of an evil colonel. Filming took place on location in Ontario, Canada, from August to November 2016.

<i>Bigbug</i> 2022 science fiction comedy film

Bigbug is a French sci-fi black comedy film, written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, that was released on 11 February 2022 by Netflix. It stars Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty, Youssef Hajdi, Alban Lenoir and François Levantal. Set in the world of 2045, where communities have robotic helpers, a group of suburbanites are locked in for their own protection by their household robots, while a rogue, sentient AI android revolt uprising outside.

References

  1. "Jean-Pierre Jeunet (site officiel), Delicatessen". Jean-Pierre Jeunet (in French). Retrieved 2016-01-13.
  2. "THE ULTIMATE TOY BOX: - CineNow".