When you were still a kid do you remember going to novelty stores or going with your parents to home stores? When you move into your own room, do you remember what your first lamp looked like? If your parents got you a motion lamp for your room, then you were just one among many. A motion lamp was all the rage for some time back in the 60s and 70s. It was so simple yet so creative; it is still being sold today. Motion lamps had cylindrical lampshades that would rotate and the light would illuminate a scene on the lamp shade.

A motion lamp was so simple yet seemed so ingenious to kids at that time. A traditional motion lamp had a picture or pictures printed or drawn on the lampshade. The picture usually involved some sort of action or a character in the process of movement. When the light bulb inside the lamp heats up, the cylinder begins turning. This cylinder inside the lamp moves the outer lampshade so that the images printed on the shade appear to be moving.