Tag Archives: star trek

The Sad History of Star Trek Trading Cards

24 Jan

January 24, 2011

Star Trek. We’ve got to support this little TV show or it’ll never catch on.

Captain Kirk. Mr. Spock. Dr. McCoy. The red-shirted guy who is always the first one to die. Today they are all cultural icons. You don’t have to be a nerd to know the Enterprise’s number. (You do, though, have to be one to speak Klingon.) These things are modern icons.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Before there were a dozen movies, before there were four spin-off shows, before Star Trek was a franchise, it was a struggling television show that NBC didn’t like. It is television lore how Star Trek was cancelled in the sixties and fan support brought it back. In those early years the poor show got low ratings and no respect. What do I mean? Take a look at these early Star Trek card sets and see for yourself.

All  images are from www.wixiban.com, a great site to learn about the worlds of Star Trek merchandise than and now. They were the inspiration behind this post.

In 1967 the first card set came out. They are pretty basic, with black and white pictures and plain text captions. Despite that, it happens to be my favorite set because, even though some of the pictures seem too dark, they lend the series a sci-fi quality not seen in other card sets. On the other hand, they do have some drawbacks. Some extreme drawbacks.

From wixiban:
“Most of the backs have text that is pure fabrication and is unrelated to any episode, let alone the one the image is from. They appear to be written by someone who never saw an episode”

Into a New World

CARD BACK- Captain Kirk, Spock, and crew members step off an elevator into a new world. Orbiting unknown planet Thorasian II, Kirk learns that any downward movement beams him onto the planet. He can return his crew if the ship moves upward. In one bone-jarring move, the Enterprise frees itself.
 
Ah, I can see the solicitations now: “Captain Kirk gets trapped in an elevator. Can Scotty get him out? Find out tonight at 10! Only on NBC!”

 

 The next set of cards moved ahead into the wonderful world of color. For some reason, the set only covers one episode, “What are Little Girls Made of?” That’s the vaguely HP Lovecraft inspired season one episode where Kirk finds Dr. Roger Korby and the robot Ruk, created by “The Old Ones.” Korby makes a robot duplicate of Kirk and tries to take over the Enterprise, but Ruk turns on him and helps destroy Korby, who turns out to also be a robot. (BTW- I am not worried about spoilers for a show which even your dog knows.)

It isn’t a bad episode to base a whole set around. It has interesting sets, a bunch of guest stars, and a whole lot of mistakes in the card set.

From wixiban:
“Kirk’s first name is given as ‘Roger’ on the first card; Spock is described as part ‘Martian’ on card #2; and the android is named ‘Rock’ instead of Ruk consistently throughout the set.”

Captain Roger T. Kirk

CARD BACK- Roger Kirk, Captain of Star Cruiser, United Space Enterprises. Out on a 5-year mission in space to complete research, explore and enforce space law. Each journey brings new challenges and danger for Kirk and his experienced crew.
 

No, I didn’t make a typo there. It really says “Captain of Star Cruiser, United Space Enterprises” so I guess the ship is named “Star Cruiser” and Kirk works for “United Space Enterprises.” I hope that one day Kirk gets out of middle management and gets promoted from Captain to Vice-President in Charge of Marketing.

The next Star Trek set came out in 1975 and is actually a sticker set from Canada. Oddly, four of the images are not from Star Trek at all but strange drawings of things never shown or hinted at on the program.

What episode did I miss?

I can find nothing that screams Star Trek any less than that robot.

The 1976 Topps Star Trek set consisted of 88 cards and covered all the episodes. All the episodes, but not all the characters.

From wixiban:
“Sulu fans were out of luck with this set as he is neither pictured nor even mentioned on any card or sticker, not even the cast listing on card 13!”

"Men" of the Enterprise

Interestingly, Nichelle Nichols is one of the “men” of the Enterprise. Do they know something we don’t know? I know that Kirk and Uhura had the first interracial kiss on television, did they have the first homosexual kiss too?

 There were no more sets based on the TV series made until the 1990’s and by then they unfortunately got it right.

So there it is, the sad history of Star Trek trading cards. I miss the old days when Star Trek was so little regarded that you could get away with sticking a random drawing of a fishman in a deck and calling it Star Trek. Today Star Trek fans are so obsessive we get technical manuals of imaginary starships. Imagine if this came out today? Thousands of guys in rubber ears declaring “worst card set ever” all over the net.

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Run, Willrow Hood, Run!

1 Dec

December 1, 2010

As Groucho Marx once said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

Brilliant guy that Groucho. Also very unhappy and disappointed much of the time, but then again who isn’t? Or maybe it’s just me.

Anyway, the point of that, at least as far as it concerns me, is that people take things too far. Sure, I like Star Trek. I’ve bought many of the action figures, can name most of the original episodes, and I’ve even been to a convention or two. However, I’ve never worn pointed ears, learned to speak Klingon, or memorized all the rules of Fizzbin, the game Kirk made up in episode 46, “A Piece of the Action.” It is bad enough I know all of that.

I also like Superman but can I name all the effects of the various colors of kryptonite? No I cannot. (Well, some of them…)

I have various interests, but I don’t take them too far. Do I have Dark Shadows on DVD? Yes. Do I wear a cape and fangs and claim to be a vampire like those Twilight goofs? No I don’t.

This brings me to a group that I used to think were second to Trekkies in obsessiveness but I am now rethinking, Star Wars fans.

When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s I had every Star Wars figure. Even into the 90’s if a figure came out that I thought was cool I’d get it, and even just a few weeks ago I bought a sandtrooper figure to stick on my bookcase. Geeky? Maybe a little, but I don’t wear Clone Wars underoos and I never even saw the cartoon.

But the figures were cool, at least the original three films, but George Lucas is never finished, whether it is buying plaid shirts or expanding the Star Wars universe. And really, who can blame him, when Star Wars fans are so obsessive that they will buy anything no matter how obtuse or vaguely connected to anything even sort of Star Wars? For example, take this guy;

Sure you know him, Willrow Hood. Looks like a cool figure, right? With an Elvis-like pompadour, paunchy bulge, and pale orange jumpsuit, who wouldn’t run out and buy him? C’mon, think! He was in The Empire Strikes Back, the best Star Wars film. He was even in the pivotal escape from Bespin sequence when Leia and Lando were trying to save Han from Boba Fett, Jango Fett’s son, who was taking the carbonite- encased smuggler back to Tatooine to collect the bounty Jabba the Hutt had put on Han for dumping his load of spice – WHOA, OK, now, the point of this is to prove that I’m NOT a geek, heh heh, moving on.

Anyway, still don’t remember him? Here is the paunchy guy himself from his big scene in the film.

Didn’t see him? Don’t tell me- you blinked and missed him at the 49 second mark.

Here is his big, and only, scene again, slowed down and repeated.

Run Willrow run!

 

And if you still need more, here he is, ready for his closeup.

I have just given this man more attention than the film ever did.

What’s he carrying? Looks like a coffee maker to me. So I guess this guy is the barista of Bespin’s only Starbucks franchise. Your guess is as good as mine, but this is what the action figure really is according to his profile:

Willlrow Hood was a Human male miner who lived and worked on Cloud City, a floating station located above the gas giant Bespin. He worked for A’roFilter, a mining company sympathetic to the Alliance to Restore the Republic, as the head of the department responsible for dealing with the Rebel Alliance, supplying discounted Tibanna gas. Eventually, though, the Galactic Empire invaded and conquered the planet; in order to protect the Rebellion contacts Hood was responsible for, the miner took A’roFilter’s main computer’s memory core, as it contained the encrypted information on Rebel contacts. After finding the nearest disposal unit, Hood dumped the entire core, rather than risk it falling into the wrong hands; thus, Willrow Hood was able to save the Alliance‘s interests. Hood remained on Cloud City throughout the Imperial occupation, suffering imprisonment and torture but revealing nothing.

Eventually, he joined together with Tian Chyler, a former Imperial Security Bureau agent disenfranchised with the Empire who had defected, transmitting information on Cloud City‘s Imperial-run defense systems. Utilizing this information, the Alliance was able to liberate the planet from the Empire’s control. After the Rebels’ victory, Hood decided to take it easy.

Really? REALLY? Who is buying A- this story and B- this figure? Not me. this is not the sort of character to have a name, let alone a silly back story like that. If he gets a figure, a name, and a story, then so do all the guys dead on the beach in Saving Private Ryan. That’s what I’m waiting for, all 19,678 of them to get back stories.

Why won’t I join any club that would have me as a member? Willrow Hood. Who was clamoring for this figure? Who is buying it? Who needs it? This is why people hear you are a Star Wars fan automatically think you are a geek. OK, I get the point that you can’t have 18 Darth Vader’s and you need some other people around, but this guy was onscreen for two seconds carrying a coffee maker. And to make things worse, if you check around on the web, some tools have been begging for this figure for years!

My God, when will these guys discover women?

On the other hand, the actor who plays him probably never expected to be getting action figure money all these years later, so good for him, whoever he is, because no one seems to know who he was. Oh the irony.

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