First introduced in 1935, this color slide film became very popular for professional color photography. The vivid, high contrast and saturation colors it produced not only looked awesome but were very accurate. The only downside of this film was the complex processing and was often sold with processing fees included in the purchase price. Due to such low demand for film nowadays there is only one Kodak certified facility capable of processing this film in Kansas, USA. I’ve always wanted to try this film but of course it was too expensive and impractical.
Some of you may remember the famous 1984 portrait of Sharbat Gula, the “Afghan girl” for the National Geographic magazine. Yes, it was shot on Kodachrome 
On June 22, 2009 Kodak made the announcement of retiring this film, concluding a 74 year run as a major photography icon. The lab in Kansas will continue processing Kodachrome film till December 2010 and that will be the end of it.
Its closest replacement, the Ektachrome E100VS is easily available and can be processed at most professional labs. Coincidentally I have some on the way along with some Velvia 50 film too. While I love the colors in Velvia and shoot almost exclusively with for my landscape work, the color shift is somewhat undesirable in certain circumstances. The Kodak E100VS would make a perfect sidekick.
For those interested, here is a slideshow of some Kodachrome Moments and a collection of images on Flickr tagged under Kodachrome.