Viewmaster making a Cinematic Comeback

Go figure! As a Movie Geek, one of my favorite toys as a kid was my little red plastic Viewmaster. The classic toy, for those of you unfamiliar with it, enabled kids of all ages to view all sorts of cool stuff in an easy, portable way.

A kid could acquire round white disks with small pictures like the vacation slides your dad used to enjoy forcing family to view during visits. These disks had the image arranged in a circular fashion, coincidentally looking a little like a squashed reel of film.

There were lots of Viewmaster disks available, from landscapes to wildlife and history. Of course, as kids, we couldn’t care less about those. We wanted to “cool” stuff. I remember having disks of ‘He-Man’ and ‘The Smurfs’ and Disney movie versions and the list went on.

I don’t remember what ultimately happened to my Viewmaster, but I imagine it probably ended up in a garage sale. That’s too bad, as it appears the original Viewmasters and their disks are something of a collector’s item now.

We need not fret however, as it appears the Viewmaster may be making a comeback… and, what better way to do this than to be featured in a feature film. DreamWorks is apparently thinking just that as they are currently negotiating the acquisition of movie rights to Mattel’s Viewmaster.

Apparently, the plan is to have Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, producers of ‘Transformers’, develop the project from a screenplay that Brad Caleb Kane (Fringe) is setup to write. Naturally, details are being kept tightly guarded, but Kane did pass a hint to the Twitter crowd that the film would be 80’s style, along the lines of ‘Goonies’.

So, in light of the playful news, I’d like to hear from readers who remember this simple yet fascinating toy from their youth. If you have fond memories of the Viewmaster, leave us a comment below about your favorite Viewmaster memory, favorite picture disk and just maybe a good story about you and your Viewmaster.

[source: Hollywood Reporter]