Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I was thinking about the old Viewmaster my brother owned when we were young kids. From what I remember, there was a little blurb to read before you looked at each set of pictures, and when you looked -- wow! Illuminated 3-D images.

The Viewer was lost decades ago, and I think a younger sibling thought it amusing to poke out all the little plastic pictures from the discs.

I always remembered two Viewmaster strips I liked. I'm positive this is one of them (random images from the net):

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/Aldous1/Mighty_Mouse_1.jpg)   (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/Aldous1/Mighty_Mouse_2.jpg)

I remember that cover very well, and I believe the story started with a baby mouse being left anonymously (anonymousely?) on a kindly couple's doorstep.

The other was of course a favourite, and was a Superman story with beautiful pictures involving a bank robbery, maybe Lois, and Superman ripping open a bank vault door..?

I would get a kick out of seeing these again, but I don't know if they make the viewmaster anymore, or if any of the old reels would be reissued. They're a relic of the past no doubt, and very tame compared to what kids have now. In my childhood they were something special.

I think we may have touched on the subject briefly years ago on the old DC boards.

I don't suppose anyone else owned that Superman one?

I used to own a Viewmaster of some Disney film, perhaps The Aristocats, though I can't really remember, and a very boring one of Monuments of Italy. There were some others, but I can't call them to mind right now.

If you have some cash to spare, I'm sure you can find old Viewmaster reels (or whatever you call them) on the Internet, provided you can bear the irony of using modern technology to get hold of obsolete stuff. I'd be very surprised to learn that they still make Viewmasters; since the birth of my nephews, I have spent a lot of time in toy shops (hey, any excuse), and I certainly can't recall seeing them. Let's face it, a Viewmaster isn't really going to compare with videogames.

I wish...

I loved my Viewmaster, I had a lot of old reels and a viewer from Sawyer, before they were taken over by GAF (Fisher-Price still makes the brand today)...

One thing I noticed on my "cartoon" reels like Tom and Jerry etc. was that the characters were usually made out of three dimensional plastic or clay...was that true in the Superman reels?

I had the Superman one when I was a kid.. IIRC it was Filmation style cartoon pictures. The cover had a scene of Supes flying and letting a lightning bolt hit his chest to save an airplane...

There's one on ebay and this is the picture I got...

(http://i5.ebayimg.com/01/i/08/b2/92/8d_1.JPG)

They still make them, one of my favorite toys as a kid.

http://www.fisher-price.com

Unfortunately, the genius who molded those Viewmaster models for many reels, including Dracula, Peanuts, Dinosaurs, etc, never got around to a Superman in the "clymation" style.  Superman is available only as a cartoon version and as Christopher Reeve.  The woman sculptor (and a male assistant, I think) was quite talented and the those reels in particular give you the feeling that you are entering a bizarre 3-dimensional fantasy world that looks like you can reach out and touch it.  There are some other live action superheroes: I believe Adam West is immortalized in 3-D, as well as Linda Carter and a variety of 70s features from Krofft like Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.

It is possible to buy a vintage camera with 2 lenses that allows you to take your own Viewmaster pictures --it is a simple matter to take apart a worthless modern reel and insert the slides of the new pictures you have taken to create your own Viewmaster reels.  This way, using your own models, action figures or friends, you could create new Superman adventures.

There are also these:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000JNDPTG/theamalgamatronA/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000GK9ZXW/theamalgamatronA/

Not with the Superman one I remember. To my ten-year-old eyes, the images were captivating all the same.

What were those very early attempts at moving pictures called? Nickelodeon? Do I have the right word? I'm thinking of the device where you put your eyes to the viewer and crank a handle... Anyway, the Viewmaster sort of had that feel about it, that you were peering (peeking) into another world, maybe a secret world. Maybe kids of yesteryear were easily impressed, but it definitely had that quality about it. You could feel transported.

That's exactly how I felt about it...one of my brothers got a Viewmaster "projector" for Christmas one year, it projected the images large on a wall, of course not stereo...we never used it, the fun was looking into the viewer.

I know that Edison's first go at motion images was called the Kinetoscope, something people had to look into individually.

take a look at these:

http://www.victorian-cinema.net/machines.htm

I LOVE that stuff... 8)

I think I've read that Edison's patent included perforated film for advancing it, and I know his machine was successful enough that his machines were set up and people popped money into them.

What would our world be like if Thomas Edison had never lived?

And what did the gentlemen of the day prefer to watch on their Kinetographs? I don't have to tell you...

I found this link to one of the first pieces of moving pictures (just a couple of seconds) on a King Kong site the other day...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5439252528405852269

The joke there was that Peter Jackson had bought the rights and was proposing a four hour remake of it.... :)

I recently acquired the Superman reels on eBay and I'm working on adding scans to my site.  It's slow going, though, as I need a special scanner I don't often have access to, plus the images have taken on a reddish cast over the years so there's some meticulous Photo-shopping involved.  But stay tuned.

As for the Adam West Batman, yes he did get the GAF treatment, and it involved special photography during the filming of the first Catwoman two-parter.  Scott Sebring's got a Flash version up at his wonderful "Batfriend" website.  Here's a direct link (you'll need the Flash viewer):


http://www.batfriend.com/splashes/gaf/viewer.swf (http://www.batfriend.com/splashes/gaf/viewer.swf)

DC Direct should issue those golden cats as bookends!