Two Eyes On The View-Master

I recieved a Viewmaster for my 4th or 5th birthday. Being an early reader and a farm kid, I should have been entertained to no end by this complex little toy. Not only does it come with a little book, but it showed, in living 3D, distant lands brought into my little rural hands.

Much the opposite happened: it was probably the least-used toy I had at that age. Legos, Tinker Toys, bike; I spent my time beating those into the ground, but the View-Master didn’t appeal to me. The reason didn’t become evident until I was a little older and began failing eye exams. It turns out I couldn’t actually see what the Viewmaster was trying to show me. As I did with binoculars, I had to close one eye just to see the image in a Viewmaster, so I missed out on all the 3D magic. Using a View-Master required my eyes to do things it wasn’t able to, so I let it collect dust in the closet. Even today, it takes a while to begin to see the image, but I can force my eyes to make it happen now. I’ve mastered the Viewmaster; now if only I can get those Magic Eye pictures to work…but I digress.

Like most abandoned toys, my View-Master had the chance to last well into my adult years. That’s it in the picture towards the end of this article, next to my daughter’s View-Master from a couple years ago. Once I learned what exactly View-Masters are supposed to do, I’ve started to acquire the 3d reels. The 3D is what makes the View-Master a View-Master; without it, it’s little more than a overly complex picture book. Using both eyes allows the viewer to see things, especially cartoons, in an extra dimension they hadn’t envisioned before. As this is the internet, and online 3D is still lacking in quality, I’ve used a visual trick to approximate two genuine View-Master images as examples of what I missed for all those years.

Many of the ‘live action’ reels, even into the 1980s (as the Dukes of Hazzard reels show) were photographed with a special stereographic camera. The stereophotographic reels were the bread-and-butter of early View-Master owners, who were now able to view distant foreign lands, Mount Rushmore, even dinosaurs, all in realistic 3d from their own homes.

Of particular interest to comic and cartoon collectors were the 3D adaptations of 2D animations. What the frame lacked in live-action it made up for in 3D glory. Some reels were disappointingly converted by cutting out the characters and rearranging them differently for a flat, uninteresting 3D effect. Others, however, were painstakingly re-drawn by professional artists to evoke a 3D effect. The poorer 3D adaptations simply had closer things moved further to the left and right, but in the higher quality 3D separations the artists realized that closer things are rotated slightly, and distant objects were flatter. Because these specially-drawn Viewmaster reels did not appear on the screen, they account for a previously overlooked source of rare cartoon and animation cels.

The View-Master began life as a successor to the Stereoscope, a 3D process that had rather large image frames mounted on a card, one view on each card. The stereoscope was quite popular from the late 19th, and into the 20th century. The advent of color film and the multi-view ‘reels’ that embody the style of View-Master brought this new technology to a wider audience. Early reels were sold singly, later in packs of three, and focused primarily on travel and educational subjects. Through the 1950s, and after the purchase by GAF, subject matter changed to more entertainment-related, particularly Walt Disney Productions. Through further purchases and transfers over the years, the View-Master how belongs to Fisher-Price, who still produces View-Master reels today.

The life of the View-Master has spanned over 67 years since its debut at the 1939 World’s Fair, so collectors have quite a bit to select from. The change in the product over the years, starting with single ‘postcard’ reels, progressing to triple-reel sets with an envelope and booklet, to the 3-reel blister packs today, provides a wide variety of reels to collect. Genre collectors, such as Disney or regional attractions, have significant interest in collecting the various image disks that relate to their favorite collectibles. The Viewmaster itself, appearing in numerous forms over the years, are collectible on their own. The viewers and reels have remained happily compatible since the earliest days, so one can collect 1940s reels without having to track down a 1940s-era viewer. Enthusiastic View-Master afficianados have also been nice enough to compile the View-Master Ultimate Reel List, an online database of every known Viewmaster reel in existence.

While they may not have changed their basic format over the years, the various companies (particularly GAF) tried to expand the View-Master’s media in a couple ways. The View-Master Projector has been attempted a number of times, enabling friends to share their View-Master adventures with a group, but sacrificing the trademark 3D images. In the 1970s, sound was added via the Talking View-Master. The early versions had a transparent plastic record album mounted on the back of the image disk, which played as the reel was viewed. The talking View-Master has been revived today, using a ’sound cartridge’ which is played while the reel is viewed. While these alternative media do have appreciative collectors, the plain stereo viewer is still the embodiment of View-Master’s art.

While I may have missed the magic of the View-Master as a child, I’ve done my best to recover some of what I had lost in the meantime. Despite its association with childhood, the View-Master started out as entertainment for grown-ups, and the artistic quality of most reels demonstrate the attention to detail and quality in producing these three-dimensional images. Even though numerous other forms of new media have appeared since its inception in 1939, the View-Master has remained quite popular both to new customers and collectors alike. From new reels devoted to modern pop culture (including custom reel production) to rare historical reels, collectors have numerous opportunities to build their View-Master collection.