Having successfully kicked off a series of action figures and other toys based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Playmates Toys goes into the 1993 Christmas season with a product that sends longtime Trek fans salivating: a box set of the complete Enterprise bridge crew from classic Star Trek, packaged in a cardboard replica of the bridge complete with captain’s chair, in the same scale as the growing lineup of TNG characters. With toys based on the relatively new Deep Space Nine spinoff on the horizon in 1994, it’s suddenly the best time ever to be a Star Trek toy collector.
Having enjoyed two years of tremendous success with its line of Star Trek: The Next Generation toys, Playmates released a marvelously-packaged set of seven figures in a window box with an interior modeled loosely after the Enterprise bridge. Unsurprisingly, the Classic Trek boxed set was an instant sell-out during the 1993 Christmas season, despite its $50+ price tag. Of course, Star Trek was still a hot property around this time – Deep Space Nine was brand new, and Next Generation’s highly-anticipated final season had just started, and the prospect of Generations was on the horizon too. It’s doubtful that this kind of item would be quite so successful in the burned-out-on-Trek late 90s.
In 1996, as Playmates scaled back all of its Star Trek toy lines into a generically-named “Star Trek” packaging scheme, widely-requested toys of Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand, as well as a very nice Enterprise vehicle complete with display stand, were put on the market as well.
Other Classic Trek action figures depicted the Enterprise crew during the movie era, while another wave of Classic Trek toys went all the way back to the very first episode.
ToyBox review by Earl Green
