Monday, December 15, 2008

Christmas in The World of Wonder: Boldly Going Where No Wishbook Has Gone Before


Before Star Wars, there was of course, Star Trek. Don't get me wrong, Star Wars still rocks and the toys that they put out for Star Wars were and still are awesome. But the toys for Star Trek were a little more, I don't know, adult feeling. Take for instance the Star Trek Communicators.

These babies were real. Heavy plastic with real working walkie talkie parts! They came in a package of two and you could use these anywhere! What was really cool was when you hit the little red button on the side it made a high pitched squeal that if hit at the same time as the talk button, could be broadcast to the other communicator! How cool is that?!?!? I still have one of these communicators and it still works! I also had the super cool phaser gun that shot discs! This rocked as well. You loaded up the phaser with the discs (mine were multi-colored, not like the ones in the picture) and just pulled the trigger. Toys like this would never be approved today but back then, they were the best!!!! I'm sure my poor sister took many a plastic disc to the body and face from this plastic weapon.


The action figures for Star Trek were more like the old super hero action figures. They were tall and wore real uniforms complete with utility belts, tricorders and small phasers. Again, these small pieces would never pass inspection today. I had Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and a Klingon. These came with the Enterprise Playset!

This was an amazing toy! On the outside was a drawing of space with the Enterprise soaring through it. The inside was the bridge of the Enterprise, complete with Captain's Chair, Command Center and a screen that could be changed with various scenes of planets and aliens and such. The coolest feature was, without a doubt, the transporter. You would put an action figure in the transporter and spin the dial on the top. There were two buttons to stop the spinning. The red one put the action figure facing the outside while the green one put them facing the inside. Super cool!!!!!! This toy was designed really well because when you were done playing with it, you just folded it up with everything inside and stored it on the shelf (or on top of the toy chest in our house!)

The last Star Trek item I want to show you is the Telescreen Console. This was pretty cool. You could sit Captain Kirk (or any other character for that matter) in the Captain's Chair and then play a pseudo-video game where you would have to hit various asteroids and planets and such. It was pretty cool and from what I can tell, very rare. I haven't seen too many of these around, even on e-bay. They're hard to come by! Anyway, it provided me with lots of good times! A special thanks to Plastic Stallions and The Mego Museum for the pictures. I know not all of the pictures are from the Wishbook, but I assure you that they were in there!!!!

2 comments:

Vlad said...

Ah my friend...you have taken Vlad back through the ages to a Christmas morning long ago when Santa brought Vlad not only the Star Trek playset, the bridge crew, the walkie-talkie communicators and the phaser but also the telescreen console! (Vlad had been very, very good that year...or perhaps Santa was just frightened what might happen if I did not get such wonderful gifts!) The Phaser made the sound effect from the show and the discs were not used to shoot across the room but to project the image of the picture cut out of the discs when light was emitted. Vlad still has all of the toys listed in your post from that Christmas morn (and yes, the communicators, as you say, "rocked") although the Telescreen Console has not worked for many years. Vlad must take it out of its smashed up box and see if he can fix it! And Vlad agrees completely...the Star Trek toys were very well designed, manufactured and seemed less "kiddie" and more adult. Vlad thanks you for your wonderful site and for bringing the Star Trek Christmas morning back to Vlad!

George said...

OMG! I just happened to stumble upon your blog, as it were... and now I can't tear myself away. Many, many memories... funny ones, fond ones!
Thank You! I will come back and read my way through every post from front to back!

Blog Widget by LinkWithin