Another thing I was pondering today (and yep, this was one of the stops on the circuitous path that had me discovering Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution) was Viewmaster Reels.
It was my chosen banter fodder du jour-- a two parter question to anyone who would engage me-- a) Did you have a Viewmaster as a young pup? and if yes, then b) WHAT was your favorite reel/reels?? I remember a lot of my reels (Tom & Jerry, The Christmas Story, Huggabunch..) but without a doubt, my two faves were my 3 reel set of the Thriller video and my 3 reeler of King Kong (more specifically it was of the 1976 movie with Jeff "the Dude" Bridges & Jessica "Dwan" Lange) I remember finding both scary as hell, but I just couldn't get enough of 'em...
I was on the Viewmaster website (part of the Fisher Price website, as Viewmaster is an FP owned brand now..) and all the reels offered there are LAA-AME. (Dora the Explorer, Winnie the Pooh, UGH..witness for yourself the rampant lameness) So clearly, Viewmaster has , by this point in history, evolved into a strictly kid-stuff industry. But it wasn't always this way. I mean, my two faves from my childhood are not exactly G-rated, and from the Viewmaster reel related research I've done today it looks like they used to be popular as tourism propaganda, and also used as sort of comemorative newsreels. Anyways it saddens me that VM seems to be going the way of the dodo but considering the suckiness of the reel selection kids have nowadays it's no flippin' wonder...
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