Five Insane Pieces of Star Trek Merchendise.

 
The world of Star Trek merchandise can be a strange one. If you’re like me – a fan of all science fiction, from Andromedia to Quantum Leap, Doctor Who to Red Dwarf, Star Wars to Star Trek – then you might recall Yogurt from Mel Brooks’ uproariously funny Star Wars spoof film Spaceballs when he said: “Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money… is made.”

Yogurt might have been a spoof version of Yoda, and hawking Spaceballs branded flamethrowers to children, but he has a point. When a television series or film gets popular, the merchandising deals are sure to follow.

This trend got out of control in the post-Star Wars days of the early eighties, and although some branded items have excellent real-world uses some merchandise for our beloved franchises – including Star Trek – should have been left in the cargo bay. Or better yet, blown out the nearest airlock…

Here are five examples of strange, hilarious, and totally collectible goodies from the last 40 plus years of Star Trek merchandise…

A Rough Guide to Retro Video Game Collecting

One of the biggest questions you hear across retro gaming communities is where to find retro video games and where to find them cheap. This is not as hard as it sounds but you have to be lucky enough to live an area where decent stuff can be found and also put a little time into it.

I have been playing video games since the days of Coleco-Vision and Atari 2600 and have owned (and sold/lost) many consoles and games over the years, including many I wish I still had.

Recently real life has come and bitten me on the backside so having a gaming 'budget' is out of the question. Even with a large amount of financial strain though I think I have come out pretty well with semi-limited effort and very limited funds.

So I decided to write it out as a rough guide to retro video game collecting for those who may not have a lot of extra income to spend on the hobby.

Doctor Who: Grounded Silurians

The most powerful creations in fiction often mirror us in some way or another, even more so our monsters in our fiction and fairy tales that can show us truths not just on a person to person basis, but on the level of a society as well.

The Silurians are a perfect example of this, as we have come into conflict with them for mastery of the Earth, but they are a creature that comes from the depths of our own past, not the space beyond our reach.

They are a perfect foil for arrogant Humans as they are arrogant themselves, both believing that they are the better of the two races due to the level of technology they each possess or the threats of destruction it can carry out, it is a situation that has echoes that come from our own real life battles of  prejudice and pride, making it as easy source for quality drama in the terrorist age.

Doctor Who: Ian Chesterton- Science Experiment

Cliches are funny things, they can be both annoying and undetectable, depending on how they are handled, and in some cases, they can be necessary as well. When Doctor Who was started in the early sixties, it became apparent that a couple cliches were needed for the show’s weekly serial adventure concept to work.

The Doctor was set to be not only the show's namesake and star but also the brains of the operation, the one who would be coming up with the solutions to all the sticky situations the crew of the Tardis would be getting into.

They also had Barbara and Susan, one a history teacher who would be both a fount of knowledge in the historical episodes and along with Susan would find herself in the (cliche) typical trouble female leads found themselves at the time, although Susan did break the mold of the usual teenage girl in certain aspects, being an alien who had been traveling alongside her grandfather the Doctor for a long time.

Video Game Thirft Hunt # 1

Doctor Who & The Video Pirate (Pics/Video)

By Thomas Spychalski

 On November 22nd, 1987, a mysterious thing happened on the shrouded mist covered mass that was called Fang Rock, and it was not the attack on a group of stranded boaters and lighthouse workers by a glowing green Ruton. Rather it was one of most infamous cases of signal hijacking since Captain Midnight had hijacked HBO's signal in 1986.

It began at another station in Chicago WGN channel nine, a “Superstation” that was also available on some cable packages at the time. At about 9:10 P.M., a man wearing a Max Headroom mask (A mask of a science fiction TV show character that had recently been seen in the US on ABC television, and a popular Coca-Cola ad spokesperson.), interrupted sportscaster Dan Roahn, for about forty five seconds during the recap of that days Chicago Bears football game. The engineers at WGN television quickly changed the STL (Studio to Transmitter Link.), thwarting the hijackers attempt to further break into the signal. The Image had no sound at that time, and Roahn quickly apologized for the intrusion, although a bit distracted by the event, and went on with the rest of the newscast.