P3D Where have all the View Masters gone?

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Long time passing.
Where have all the View Masters gone?
Long, long time ago.
Where have all the View Masters gone?
Gone to garage sales every one.
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn.

Well I think I'll stop with the filk lyrics there.  At least you
didn't have to listen to me sing.  :)

A few weeks ago I went into the Toys R Us near my office (the one at
34th Street and Herald Square in Manhattan) and picked up a copy of
the Hot Wheels Pro Racing reel set.  This Toys R Us had a small
display (compared to the Hot Wheels, or any of the action figures or
other toy collections) with some of the reels sets, a few viewers in
blister packs with the single demo reels and boxed sets of viewers and
three reels, all in the pre-school children's section.

After viewing the reels I decided to get a viewer and this set of
reels for my father to go with a set of Jello stock cars.  (I'm
keeping the Jello molds. :)

My wife is intrigued by the idea of making our own View Master reels
and I thought this would be a neat way of making sure my parents had a
viewer in the house so that we could surprise them with personal reels
as future gifts.  My brother's wedding is coming up and we think
personal reels of the wedding would be great.

When I went back to this Toys R Us they no longer had a View Master
display.  There were a few boxed sets with the Rugrats stuff and
hidden behind that a red viewer in a beat up blister pack and a couple
of reels sets (a Winnie the Pooh and something similar).  There was
nothing else on the shelves, and nothing in the Hot Wheels section.

I found the sales staff at Toys R Us, Kay Bee, KMart, and FAO Schwartz
(four of the biggest toy stores in Manhattan) completely ignorant of
View Master.  None had any View Master merchandise other than the key
rings (and the leftovers mentioned above).

I had hoped that with Mattel's acquisition of View Master and the
release of a Hot Wheels reel set that View Master displays would
become more prominent.  The back of the Hot Wheels reel set even shows
a Hot wheels boxed set and a Hot Wheels version of the new talking
View Master.  Every toy store I've been in is heavily pushing
merchandise for the Hot Wheels/Kyle Petty race car feature in this
reel set.  I thought that if a store didn't have a View Master display
they might at least have a few reels available with the Hot Wheels
race car.

Does anyone know where I can get the Hot Wheels reel set?  I figure
that they are probably available on track at one of the NASCAR races,
but I won't be able to get to one any time soon.  None of the tourist
attractions in NYC seem to have the scenic View Master reels.

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Humans explore the Universe with five
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              |   senses and call the adventure science."
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/ | - Edwin P. Hubble


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