Viewmaster, and Pirates of the Caribbean electronics!

I went into a Toys R Us yesterday. I like doing that, checking out all the toys that are available to kids these days... some of which I'd buy if I only had room to put them!

And I came across a very small section devoted to the Viewmaster, and picked up Wall-E, Dinosaurs and Atomic Betty.

Wall-E was okay - except the adventure on the rocketship with the tubby humans was not shown at all, it was just the robots.

Dinosaurs - drawings in 3D, rather than what they've used in the past, actual models

Haven't looked at Atomic Betty yet - I bought it because it's based on a cartoon in which the girl is the hero, something you verrrrrrrrrrrry rarely see in cartoons for children. It's always the boy that's the hero and the girl that's the sidekick. (Yeah, there's Kim Possible, dressed in the latest fashion with her belly-button showing, and she's got a male sidekick, but that's the exception that proves the rule.... well, her and the Powerpuff Girls.)

Anyway, I can remember 20 years ago when I used to buy Viewmaster reels. (And unfortunately my collection is long gone...). You bought a package and each disc would be in its own folder, and all three folders fit into a larger folder with a picture of the movie on it...

Today all you get are the discs, and that's it. OF course, they do make Holders for the discs, and you can get quite a few of them in there... but still..

I did some research on Viewmaster at Wikipedia, and learned that the Viewmaster has been around since 1919, albeit in a slightly different form, and it was even used during WWII to teach soldiers how to recognize different kinds of planes.

On the other side of the store, I came across some stuff that I'd really like to have if I hadn't already recently bought a new TV and CD walkman.

The Pirates of the Caribbean has a TV out, and a portable DVD player, and a CD player. The CD player case looks like the compass that Captain Jack is always using. I really coveted that, but I just couldn't justify spending the $30 on it.

But on the off-chance that my readers here would like these items, and they are sold out of your local Toys R Us - you can pick a few of them up from Amazon. (The TV doesn't seem to be available - too heavy to ship, I suppose.)