Does anybody remember the Viewmaster, that higher-tech version of the Victorian-age stereoscope? It was invented in the late 1930s by Wilhelm Gruber and Harold Graves to use 16mm Kodakchrome film and flourished for decades, initially allowing vicarious travel, later carrying a wider range of story reels for kids.
I remember them well. We had one, and a lot of reels. Here’s a picture of some of them.
I have to explain the selection. The 1960s set the space age exploding across the world. Every kid wanted to be an astronaut – well, I had ambitions of being an astronomer, actually. Space was cool. Space was neat. It was the future. I was five. And although we lived in import-restricted 1960s New Zealand, my mother had a penfriend in Minneapolis who was able to source and send some of the Viewmaster titles that just couldn’t be got in New Zealand. Hence the reels on Minnesota. I also had a Tom Corbett adventure, which wasn’t in the box I found – though you can check it out online these days (naturally).
Today they’re period pieces, the photos reminders of a bygone age. One that we imagine was simpler, but of course it wasn’t to those who had to live through it, Yet the slides – real Kodachrome film – have stood up well, they’re still rich and bright, still filled with that same exaggerated 3D I remember as a kid. Supremely cool. I’ll blog another time about why stereoscopic 3D looks phony – there are good scientific reasons.
Did you ever have a Viewmaster – and what do you remember watching on them?
Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013