Remembering classic toys, I

The Viewmaster

The viewmaster was introduced in 1939. It's still around, though considering the advancements of media since then, it's a wonder kids would play with it. Essentially, it's a kids version of a peep show. You put those little disks of pictures in, press the lever and presto! Instant depth.

I probably had a lot of the viewmaster disks, but I only remember three; views of the Grand Canyon (which was apparently one of the original disks), Disneyland and scenes from the movie Old Yeller. I also have one eye that doesn't work all that well, and I could never take advantage of the illusion of 3-D that that the Viewmaster offered. You would see the same image with each eye, the brain put them together and make forced perspective. Actually, considering that most people's eyes don't work exactly the same and that one eye is generally dominant, it's wonder that it worked for anyone or that 3-D movies ever became popular.

Really, the value of a Viewmaster is that you could look at pictures and never worry about your parents sneaking up on you and wondering why you might be lingering on a photograph too long. The image on the Disneyland disk of the giant eye looking at your through a microscope on the old "Adventures in Inner Space" ride was a particular obsession of mine, both because it scared me when I was a kid and because I wanted to get over being scared by it through viewing repetition. It never worked, but I didn't want anyone to think I was weird. I could look at it through the privacy of the viewmaster. I'm surprised the adult film industry never figured out a way to make bootleg porn discs for the Viewmaster. Then you would see every business man on an airplane looking at viewmaster.

Some of the Disneyland photographs tried to show the inside of the dark rides like Peter Pan, but they had to take the pictures with some ancient 1950s flash camera that made it look like some tabloid photographs. Two bespectacled, poodle-skirted riders glaring at a flash camera: Headline: "Caught! Riders necking on Peter Pan! And smoking some Mary Jane!".

Old Yeller was a particular obsession of mine as kid, probably the cruelest movie ever produced by Disney. The Viewmaster illustrated the story: cute little pup, boy bonds with dog, dog saves boy's life, then dog gets rabies and euthanasia as payment. I remember a photograph of the father in the movie stalking the dog with a shotgun. Of course, we know what happened next. I don't know why I always watched the movie like a festering sore that I examined every minute in the mirror. It was always on TV and used to watch it endlessly, and then I would relive the movie in the Viewmaster. Come to think of it, I think I spent half my childhood crying and Old Yeller was the cause. I still can't look at the bags of Old Yeller dog food in the supermarket. Way to go, Disney.

The Grand Canyon images were unspectacular, but to me I imagined them to be like the lunar surface. I didn't get to see the Grand Canyon in the flesh until I was 23. I did have an opportunity to visit it when I was 10 because we were travelling through the area, but we had to make a choice between visiting it and the Dinosaur National Monument, due to time constraints and because my stepfather was an asshole. I was in the throes of the dinosaur curriculum in elementary school I chose the skeletons. I still had the Viewmaster version to fall back on.