Out of the Toybox (40): The One and Only, Genuine, Original Star Trek Band

 

Star Trek: The Original Series (as it came to be called) was of course OUR Star Trek, though we caught it on the rebound, as it were, during the reruns in 1974, the first time it was shown in syndication in our area, I think. I believe its concentrated availability (five times a week) accounted for its explosion this time around. Soon we were buying Star Trek MEGOs, Star Trek books, and even toy phasers that lit up and whistled – scientifically! Star Trek occupied many of our imaginary adventures, and in the ‘real life’ versions Mike always appropriated the coveted persona of Mr. Spock, which was ironic because technically the Vulcan was the second banana to Captain Kirk, though superior as a character. I understand William Shatner had troubles with that, too.

I was very happy when Playmates began producing Original Series figures as well as their Next Generation line, starting in 1993 with a Bridge Set featuring the Big Seven of the Original Crew. That spread out to individual characters, sets of characters from episodes, and figures from the movies featuring the original cast. The line from The Next Generation (which takes place 95 years after the Original Series) already had ‘old’ characters from TOS that had visited the show: an ancient McCoy, who had been on the pilot; Scotty, who was featured as rescued from a transporter beam in one episode; and Spock, who as a Vulcan was naturally long-lived, in the two-parter Reunification. I’ll come to them later.