Tim Says Goodbye @grandillusions

Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

Visit Tim's Toy Shop, at grand-illusions.com
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The AI version of Tim uses quite a bit of slang. Here are some translations...

G.O.A.T. means Greatest Of All Time

No cap means without equal

Totally rad is short for "radical," meaning something totally cool, exciting, or impressive

Gnarly can mean something very difficult or challenging. In slang, it can also mean very good.
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OK - as you will have realised by now, Tim is NOT retiring. And you will be pleased to learn that we have no plans for AI presenters on the Grand Illusions YouTube channel! Tim will be back as normal this Friday. This is just an April Fool video from Grand Illusions. Or Poisson d 'Avril if you are in France. Quite a few people in Western countries play jokes and tricks on each other on April 1st every year. And sometimes the media join in on the fun.

Back in 1957 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) showed this film of the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland - youtube.com/watch?v=P2CO_a28R9U - it fooled a lot of people at the time.

THANKS TO - David Chaudoir, our Motion Graphics expert, who created the AI version of Tim. davidchaudoir.myportfolio.com

MUSIC COPYRIGHT

1. Pixabay - liecio-space-sound-hi-109577
2. Bensound, Track Fiddlesticks, Happy Fingers (PRO: PRS, Boyle Jonathan, 484424442), Royalty Free Music Licence Certificate #2210421

$Tim Channels His Inner Hippy! Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 Tim opens a case of toys from 1993 and finds some intriguing and unusual items! First up is the Day-Dreamer Psychedelic Toy. The company describe this as being like a Kaleidoscope of the Mind. You hold it up to your face, and blow into the tube, which causes the inner disc to rotate. Your eyes should be closed, and you should be outside on a sunny day. You should point the device in the general direction of the sun, but not directly at the sun. Remember, you eyes are supposed to be closed. The spinning disc causes a stroboscopic effect on your eyelids, and this strobe or flicker effect creates what the instructions say are phosphenes, which in turn excite the visual part of the cortex, giving rise to 3D type moirés, lattices and grid like patterns. Sadly we cannot show you the effect in this video, as the images only appear in the mind! Next, magnetic levitation - Tim shows the development of a toy that started in the US as a wooden rod with attached magnets that would hover above the base. It then was developed into a toy where it was an actual pen that was floating in mid air. So it was a desk toy that you could actually use. Often the pen was decorated to give unusual effects when you spin it. Diffraction grating paper for example. A spinner on a wire rod with diffraction grating paper, and a spinner on string also with diffraction grating paper. Finally a toy with a handle and a plastic tube with little lights in it. As Tim says at the end, if you can remember the 1990s, then you werent really there! Oh no - that was the 1960s!$