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Mutoscope
The Mutoscope was an early motion picture device, patented by Herman Casler on November 21, 1894. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen, and provided viewing to only one person at a time. Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system — marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company) — quickly dominated the coin-in-the-slot 'peep-show' business.
The Mutoscope worked on the same principle as a 'flip book.' The individual image frames were conventional black-and-white, silver-based photographic prints on tough, flexible opaque cards. Rather than being bound into a booklet, the cards were attached to a circular core, rather like a huge Rolodex. A reel typically held about 850 cards, giving a viewing time of about a minute. The reel with cards attached had a total diameter of about ten inches; the individual cards had dimensions of about 2-3/4" x 1-7/8" (7 cm x 4.75 cm).
Mutoscopes were coin-operated. The patron viewed the cards through a single lens enclosed by a hood, similar to the viewing hood of a stereoscope. The cards were generally lit electrically, but the reel was driven by means of a geared-down hand crank. Each machine held only a single reel and was dedicated to the presentation of a single short subject, described by a poster affixed to the machine.
The patron could control the presentation speed only to a limited degree. The crank can be turned in both directions, but this does not reverse the playing of the reel. Nor could the patron extend viewing time by stopping the crank because the flexible images were bent into the proper viewing position by tension applied from forward cranking. Stopping the crank reduced the forward tension on the reels causing the reel to go backwards and the picture to move from the viewing position; a spring in the mechanism turned off the light and in some models brought down a shutter which completely blocked out the picture.
The typical arcade installation included multiple machines offering a mixture of fare. Both in the early days and during the revival, that mixture usually included "girlie" reels which ran the gamut from risqué to outright soft-core pornography. It was, however, common for these reels to have suggestive titles that implied more than the reel actually delivered. The title of one such reel, What the Butler Saw, became a by-word, and Mutoscopes are commonly known in England as "What-the-Butler-Saw machines." (What the butler saw, presumably through a keyhole, was a woman partially disrobing.)