Toys TOYS

View-Master

Kids of the Noughties get their fix from a trip to the IMAX cinema; kids of the 90s would crowd into a sick-inducing Simulater at the seaside; and kids of the 80s held coloured sweetie wrappers against their eyes. What are we talking about? The quest for 3D effects, that's what. Ok, so not all kids had to resort to sweet wrappers back in the 80s - if they were very lucky, they had a View-Master!

Iconic in its design, everyone remembers the clunky red plastic GAF 'Model J' Viewer that had us all oohing and aahing. It was our first foray into virtual reality, after all. Basically, the View-Master was a special kind of slide viewer - back when people took slides instead of photographs - which took circular slide discs with pictures of your favourite cartoons on them. There were all kinds of discs produced for the View-Master - from educational wildlife sets, The Seven Wonders Of The World and even a 25-volume anatomy of the human body, through to tales of Popeye and Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, Here's lucy and The Beverly Hillbillies. Each frame also featured a line of text to give a bit more depth to the stories. It was wonderful, apart from when the unreliable trigger mechanism resulted in the frames not quite aligning.

The responsibility for this - well, the View-Master in general - lies with a photography buff named William Gruber. In 1939, he envisioned a contraption that could take a slide, consisting of two overlapping images, that when looked at through two eyepieces would present a three-dimensional picture. When Gruber crossed paths with a tourist named Harold Graves during a visit to the Oregon Caves National Monument, this idea turned into an actuality. A year later, they set out to create their first prototype of the red wonder we all know and love. It was an instant hit.

When America went to war in the early 40s, the military took interest in the devices as a cheap way to train troops. They purchased a staggering 10,000 View-Masters and over six million reels. Then, in 1951, Sawyer acquired the Tru-Vu stereo Film Company. This deal included the rights to their Stereochrome viewers and, more importantly, Disney characters. Soon, kids everywhere were begging for a View-Master. In 1966, a company called The General Aniline and Film Corporation (or GAF) purchased Sawyer’s invention. A maker of Super 8 film and slides, they were able to license to rights to dozens of films and TV shows over the next two decades. With a heavily slant towards tourism still remaining, spots such as Universal Studios, Marineland and the Detroit Zoo were also quick to produce disks.

The View-Master reached its peak of popularity in the early 80s when it went hand in hand with all the 3D programmes TV channels were clamouring to broadcast at that time. Remember getting those red and green plastic glasses free with your weekly comic or copy of the TV Times? It's probably still stuck down the side of some peoples' sofas.

Since 1939, 25 variations of the View-Master have been rolled out, including a Talking View-Master and different-coloured designs, and 1.5 billion disks have been produced. It's so famous in fact, that the toy has appeared in the movies - in Dawn Of The Dead and Hot Shots! Part Deux to name but two. The View-Masters are still popular today, although in 2008 Fisher Price announced it would cease producing slides of tourist attractions. Luckily for us it would continue with its range of animated character slide sets, though. We can't wait to see what's next...


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Do You Remember View-Master?

Do You Remember View-Master?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    still remember watching...lot of fun and very entertaining
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I had one of these in the early 80s with a set of reels with photos from a 'Doctor Who' story (I was an hardcore 'Who' fan at the time). I didnt bother to get any more reels and my interest in 'Doctor Who' waned, so eventually the viewer and reels were thrown away. Then, a couple of years ago, I was thinking about the old toys that i used to have, and it occured to me what a great product View Master was. So, I decided to find out if it was still available, with a view to starting collecting some of the reels. Unfortunately, after calls to a few toy shops, and a letter to Fisher Price UK, it transpired that new viewers and reels were no longer being sold in Britain (though it's still going strong in the US). And, since I didn't have a credit or debit card, I couldn't buy second hand reels on-line. Still, I'm planning to buy a viewer and start collecting reels in the future. Unfortunately, at the moment I'm on benefits and having to save my pennies.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I had an orange, round bottomed version, (Genuine view master brand) with Tom and Jerry, the three mousketeers and disneys, The lady and the Tramp reels.I Have never seen this round, orange version anywhere else? I got it for xmas in about 1976-77.
  • lokirat
    on
    still making them? awesome. i had a projector for them, wasnt in 3d tho. we had an old reel from god knows when with 8 wonders of the world. il never forget the huge zeus statue in his chair. memories :)
  • Gojira
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    I had the Viewmaster Grand Prix game, a F1 racing circuit with 4 Matchbox cars. The race track was a huge fold-out cardboard affair which never quite lay flat, so the cars would often go rolling around instead of staying where they were put.
  • EDDIE1
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    I HAD THE JUNGLE BOOK REEL! I CAN STILL SEE IT NOW. FANTASTIC!!!!!
  • Anonymous user
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    I had a white talking view master. My favourite reels were the sesame street ones.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    The magic was in the 3D effect. I thought it was really cool. They used to come with three different slide discs. I had a Mr Men disc and a nature disc with real butterflies on and stuff, and the other one must have been really boring as I can't remember what was on it. The slides were pretty random.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Wow! Id totally forgotten about these! I had one, but it had lots of random kind of holiday snaps of other people and stuff, nothing I was really interested in, but I would still look at them over and over again though! The crazy things kids do.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Yeah I loved the way the pictures were in 3D without having to have those red and blue glasses