Tag Archives: USS Enterprise

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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Your Quatloos Can Help Save the Economy

23 Nov

November 23, 2010

I have long said that the economy, while bad, is not as bad as people think. Sure people are hurting, but let’s put this in a historical perspective. During the Great Depression people stood in line for apples. Today people stand in line for Apple iPads.  

The Modern Depression

As long as people still have disposable income to gobble up whatever electronic gee-gaw Steve Jobs and his black turtleneck put out, and flat screen TV’s are all the rage this Christmas, I think we’re OK.

The brings me to the newest waste of your disposable income, a manual for repairing your starship. From England, where they sound smarter because of the accent, but look dumber because of the teeth:

Yeah, that’s the ticket. The perfect item for the Trekkie on your list, a book not even noted author William “Tekwar” Shatner would bother with, but one the guy with the stained Picard t-shirt must have.

Let’s be clear. If you spend your money on this, you give up your right to complain about your bills, high taxes, or to get a loan from the bank. Clearly, you have no clue how to manage your money. If this book sells in big numbers, I’ll have faith in the strength of the economy, but no faith in the book buying public whatsoever.

(Of course, it is riddled with inaccuracies. The manual claims that on the Mark IV Jeffries Tube, the ion access is on the right and can be unbolted with standard Antares pincers. That is wrong. They are on the left and require Vulcan-metric pincers. I hope somebody got fired for that screw up.)

However, the real issue here is the blurring of the lines of fantasy and reality and economics. I am not against Star Trek, nor am I against Trekkies (and please no “we are called Trekkers” emails, please) or the buying of whatever you please. But this is too much. It is ridiculous. Who needs “a step-by-step approach to stripping the ship down to its essentials and reassembling it”?  You CAN’T strip it down and reassemble it! It DOESN’T EXIST! Put away your tool kits, tools. It is MADE UP.

Making things worse, this is published by a company that publishes manuals for things that actually exist and you can actually fix, like cars. Someone is going to turn up at NASA and demand to buy his own starship, mark my words. And he’ll be wearing a Worf t-shirt and demanding the manual translated into Klingon, mark those words too.

According to one of the authors, who is going to be laughing hysterically all the way to the bank, “It’s something I think people have wanted for a long time, a proper history that puts the Enterprises into context with one another and gives you the story of how they evolved, with each ship building on the last.”

Who? Who has wanted this for a long time? Bring me that person so I can scold him.

I want this book to come with a sticker on the cover, a disclaimer:

“I believe in fairies too, and by purchasing this book I give up the rights to grumble or complain about paying my bills ever again. I am doing my part to jump start the economy by wasting money on this book and even if I have to eat cheap sandwiches from 7-11 all week because I cannot afford food I will still be happy with this stupid book. And Kirk can totally take Picard in a fight.”

The Trekkie Bible?

But who am I to talk? Here are actual comments from the book’s Amazon page, which by the way, claims you will “find out exactly what powered these ships, how they were armed and what it took to operate them.” GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!

(BTW, I have a grammar issue- should it be “what it took to operate them,” past tense, since the Enterprise is from the 1960’s? “What it takes to operate them,” present tense, as the movies are still being aired and produced? “What it will take to operate them,” future tense, since these ships are supposedly in the future? My God, I just can’t care.)

From a 1 star review:

What a great idea. A Haynes Manual for Star Trek. If you have ever seen a Haynes manual, you know what to expect from this book—wrong!
 
This book is simply embarrassing. Coming from Haynes, one would expect technical details. Instead, it is just a piece of garbage intended to milk those die hard trek fans who will buy anything trek.
 
No, I wouldn’t expect details! IT ISN’T REAL! THERE ARE NO TECHNICAL DETAILS, unless you want to know how much glue they used to hold the little television model together.
 
From a 2 star review:
I’m not impressed- this is a “Hack book, made to make money off the fans” rather than an actual book of what would be expected in real life.
 

“Real life?” Seriously? The “real life” of a fictional spaceship from the future? Really?

From a 4 star review:
This book isn’t like Haynes manuals for real-life vehicles, with tear-downs and rebuilds, written for D.I.Y. mechanics. This is more of a novelty item, (probably intended as such).

You think?????

Anyway, go out and support the economy by buying this book. You may not be able to afford steak for dinner, but you will know how to repair the squeak in the Enterprise’s warp drive. But remember, bring Earth currency. Federation credits, Triskelion quatloos, and gold-pressed latinum bars are not legal tender on this planet, no matter what the editor of your fanzine may say.

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