Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Only 24 shopping days...

In the mid-70s, Star Trek was enjoying its second life as a syndicated phenomenon. Along with this new success in reruns, came a huge merchandising push aimed at kids who were too young to have seen the show the first time around.

Every holiday season, I - and many other kids of my generation - eagerly awaited the annual Christmas "Wishbook" catalogs from the major chain retailers. These catalogs were full of colorful photographs of all the new toys (and old favorites) that would be in stock for the season.

I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I spent pouring over those pages, dreaming of getting every single Mego Star Trek and Planet of the Apes action figure under the Christmas tree... not to mention the Enterprise bridge playset! (Never got that, sadly.)

(Click on the image for a larger view.)
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

7 comments:

  1. Matthew SlepinDecember 1, 2009 at 4:30 PM

    I did get the bridge! It was awesome. Well, it was pretty neat anyway. The best part was the transporter booth. Man, I had kind of forgotten about that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael S/ChgowizDecember 1, 2009 at 5:39 PM

    I recently brought home my Star Trek bridge set. The vinyl is falling apart, but the Transporter still works. Captain Kirk is missing limbs, for some reason...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christopher MillsDecember 1, 2009 at 9:40 PM

    "Captain Kirk is missing limbs, for some reason..."

    Sounds like the transporter *isn't* working all that well after all... :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Robert Saint JohnDecember 2, 2009 at 2:03 AM

    My avatar is me at about the age of 10, opening up my birthday present... a Mego Star Trek bridge set!

    I also remember endlessly combing through those catalogs at the holidays. I seem to remember one year -- probably '81 -- when all of a sudden the toy section was *really* skimpy and uninteresting. Maybe part of it was getting older. But I think once the big Star Wars push got old, there must have been some change in the industry.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Michael S/ChgowizDecember 2, 2009 at 7:47 AM

    @Chris: Ahahaaha!! No, I'm fairly sure it was during that GI-Joe (12" of course) and $6mil Man crossover episode that he lost his legs. It looks like the little inner cording snapped. Damn Maskatron...

    ReplyDelete
  6. vidsawDecember 3, 2009 at 11:12 PM

    I had the bridge playset - wish I still did - that transporter was awesome, but I put my stickers on wrong, so the "effect" was never quite right :)

    I had that phaser light thing too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Baron GreystoneMay 22, 2010 at 2:25 AM

    I had the action figures, bridge set, phaser and communicator. Was in high school I believe, much too old for those things. But a budding collector nonetheless. There was also an alien idol/temple thingie, had that too.

    Better was the communicator I build from a kit.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)