Thursday, September 29, 2011

Fourth Coolest Toy Ever: Mego STAR TREK Communicators

When I was in fifth or sixth grade (circa 1975-76), my pal Mark Usher and I formed a short-lived Star Trek "club." There were four of us in all, as I remember, and once a week, we'd all go over to Mark's house after school and basically play Star Trek all afternoon. He lived on an old farm, and his parents cleaned out an old outbuilding for us to use as a clubhouse - or, in our case, "starship." His father even made a sign that said "U.S.S. Enterprise" and placed it over the door. (I vaguely recall that he misspelled it somehow, but I could be misremembering.)

His mother was an artsy-craftsy sort, and she wanted to make sure that we weren't getting into trouble, so she actually created Trek-themed projects for us to do. We made plywood "control panels" for our "ship" - including a "transporter console" with sliding levers (wide beads on strings) - which Mark's father mounted on the walls of the shack. We made uniforms out of appropriately colored tee-shirts, which his mother helped us draw insignias on with fabric paints, and we made papier-mâché planets, which we suspended from the ceiling of our clubhouse/starship with fishing line.

But mostly, we role-played being crew members of the Enterprise, and explored the alien cornfields and woods on the Usher property. We kept in touch with the Mego Star Trek Communicators, which were - as the advertising proudly exclaimed, "real, working walkie-talkies!" But unlike the other walkie-talkies we had as kids, these had flip-up lids, just like the ones on TV. Of course, they were considerably larger than their television counterparts, colored blue, and had telescoping antennae - but they worked.

If you didn't wander too far apart, anyway.

Mark also had the "Command Communications Console," which was a nicely Trek-styled base set tuned to the same CB frequency, and the only actually working piece of equipment in our ramshackle starship. It didn't get used much, as I recall, because no one wanted to be the Communications Officer and stay behind "on the ship" while the rest went exploring.

For those keeping score, the coolest 70s toy ever was the Mattel Space: 1999 Eagle Transporter. The second-coolest toy of the Space: 1970 era was Kenner's 18" Alien. And the third was Kenner's Bionic Bigfoot from The Six Million Dollar Man.

12 comments:

  1. I still have my set of these! They're in pretty sad shape, but I can't bring myself to toss them. Beautiful toys...

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  2. I had the Command Console and I can tell you for a fact that it was great for annoying the living hell out of teenage CB radio enthusiasts and truckers on I-95 in my portion of southern Connecticut at the time.

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  3. I hate to disagree, but Bigfoot was lame compared with the other 6M$M toys. The only feature was the chest plate and it felt cheap and hollow. Maskatron was much more interesting!

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    1. I agree Maskatron was great. Special arms and plenty of faces to click on his head. Great toy.

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  4. Wow, sounds like you had an awesome time with your friend, and that guy was sooo lucky to have parents that helped him with his Trek fun! I can't even imagine that. My stepdad just tried to belittle it out of me and I had to hide my stuff at my Grandma's. Even having friends with the same interest was something that got me in trouble and I had to hide.

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  5. Love your article of the Star Trek Communicators. I'm just starting up a blog on electronic toys and entertainment, past present and future. Was wondering if you would let me use that photo for my blog if you're the copyright owner? Maybe we could network? You've got a new fan!

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  6. Toybox: I don't own either image. Feel free to steal 'em!

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  7. Hmmmm, appropriations now commencing. Thank You Captain!

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  8. I have been hitting ebay and now I have both the mego communicators and the base station. It's just nice to see them again after so long.

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  9. It really begs the question: why didn't anyone market a communicator cell phone? It just seems so obvious.

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  10. i have one communicator that works.
    the other got ran over by a car.

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  11. I had this exact toy as a kid and tried to keep it as long as I could. (I realized it was of some importance once Next Generation came around.) But once I left for college and permanently left home, my mom went through all of my stuff and this was among the missing. Sigh.

    By the way, great website!

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