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Star Trek Playmates Toys Youtube Video


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#1 Jpatrik

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Posted 18 March 2023 - 11:30 PM

Hello everyone, 

For the past few months I've been involved with a youtube channel to produce a series of videos on the Star Trek Playmates line.  The object of these videos was to get as many rare (or rarely seen) images out in the open so collectors could check them out.

 

Some of the members here (and in various facebook groups) have been incredible helpful in answering questions and graciously providing resources for me to use.  

 

Here is part one:

 

 

 

As youtube these days is all about "engagement"  - comments and likes are especially helpful and help convince my bosses to make more of these.

 

Thanks as always

James



#2 Morgan

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Posted 20 March 2023 - 12:06 PM

Super well done, loved it, especially all the photos of the figure prototypes and rare photos from print media of the time. 

 

I have a feeling the 1701 controversy is going to get some good coverage in part II.



#3 Jpatrik

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Posted 18 October 2023 - 08:05 PM

For anyone who still frequents these parts, here's part 2 (part 3 is being edited now) of our documentary.  All the loose figures (with the white background) are mine!

 

As always, comments and likes really help the algorithm! :-)

 



#4 Morgan

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Posted 20 October 2023 - 04:20 PM

Very well researched and produced. This took a lot of scans of old brochures, I see. 

 

Love the mention of the "evil" Picard on DS9. I remember looking at these in Targets and going "Where the hell is this episode where this happens?" Still one of my faves on 7th season Canadian cards.

 

The DS9 Tom Riker, I think, was done that way b/c it was tooled up before the episode aired, but I'm not sure.

 

Nice mention of Huntsville too. That's where the Tri-fold Borgs were almost being given away. But instead, people were loading up on Scotty and Sulu, thinking they would be big money. Of course, those two were overproduced and almost all stayed on their cards, cause people were putting these away as a "sure thing." The Tri-fold Borg, on the other hands, were just about ignored at Huntsville by collectors. Talked to a guy a few months ago who was there and saw just boxes of them being sold cheaply. Most weren't mint, they had some damage, and as a result there's almost no such thing as a mint Tri-fold Borg now. 

 

The 1701 controversy is pretty well covered -- they were definitely being intercepted at stores by employees. There's even a New York Times article that mentions scalpers putting store employees on payroll and finding the 1701 figures that way.

 

And yeah, what's up with Chekov being left out of the movies figures lineup? Not that anyone wanted to see more of those TMP pajamas, but still. It felt like that release was planned with a Part II where we'd get more maroon uniform figures from the later films, but it didn't happen. 



#5 Jpatrik

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Posted 22 October 2023 - 07:40 PM

Thanks for the kind words!  Yes, this was the result of many hoarded playmates ads scanned (as well as many other fans have generously shared with me).  Plus I have loose samples of every figure, so any time you see a figure against a white background - that's mine! (1701 figures included).

 

Yeah "evil" Picard has been annoying me every since it was issued - had the same reaction.  We were years behind on DS9 here I grew up so I genuinely thought it was an upcoming episode where a "mirror" Picard would show up and do and say evil stuff!

 

Crazy to hear about the Trifolds at the Huntsville convention.  Funny how the collective "memory" of the internet doesnt seem to reach that far back in time to include the 90s and much of the history of the Playmates line.  Thanks for watching :-)



#6 Morgan

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Posted 24 October 2023 - 10:12 AM

This obviously took a lot of work and a lot of contacts. Glad you had a chance to track down some photos of the unpainted prototypes and their sculptors.

 

If there is one big black hole in terms of information, one filled with a lot of guesstimates and urban legends, it's the total production runs of the various figures. 

 

I've heard lots and lots of different numbers about the 1992 figures, about the 1993 figures, the various 1994 rares like Thomas Riker, Esoqq, Ceremonial Gowron, Red Data, and a few others. We know the aliens and female characters ended up not being produced as much, but some of the others that weren't explicitly underproduced would be interesting to know. Cause for a lot of figures we just have stuff like "the highest number seen."

 

I wish there was a list somewhere that at least had some confirmed production numbers.  



#7 Morgan

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Posted 24 October 2023 - 02:36 PM

By the way, before I forget -- when it comes to the whole Generations debacle, I saw a brief note in a figure magazine of the time that painted a picture of PM finding out very late in 1994 that the Generations uniforms were, in fact, wrong. Almost to the point of the release of the film. 

 

This suggests that PM got the uniform sketches early on, and then just didn't do jack for the rest of 1994 to check in to see whether those uniforms were used.

 

Always wanted to get the back story about that from the sculptors or from the line execs of the time, Garber and Overley.



#8 bgiles73

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Posted 25 October 2023 - 06:59 PM

That would not surprise me at all that they made no effort to touch base with Paramount to insure accuracy of products. The way they are phoning the line in now and showing absolutely no sign of attempting to communicate with buyers who could ultimately make this toy line a success shows they have not learned a thing from past failures. I notice public opinion of Playmates is spiraling rapidly downward and it is certainly deserved.

#9 Morgan

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Posted 26 October 2023 - 04:40 PM

Yeah, it's certainly weird now, in the age of instant information, to see no biographies on backer cards or any effort to offer something interesting on the packaging. I used to read those for hours!

 

The current effort reminds me of the very lame and generic Warp Factor cards.

 

Such a shame too, they can't be bothered to just type up some info and throw in a couple of photos or something. Or do some product research. And the figures are expensive too -- I can get a bunch of old figures on eBay for the price of one at the store. 



#10 bgiles73

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Posted 27 October 2023 - 12:29 AM

Im going to be kind of going off the topic of this thread but it kinda relates to your point of not having any cool biography or technical information on the Playmates Packaging. I sure miss those blueprints. Paramount certainly isnt blameless in this either. Where are the Star Trek Technical Books, The Encyclopedias, Compendiums, etc? They had a Cutaway painting of the JJ Abrams Enterprise in an issue of Popular Mechanics. Why wasnt this on a poster we could have on our wall? Star Wars had all those DK books with cut-away pictures of Starships and World Maps and books covering characters and Tech from all the movies. I want to buy such things for Star Trek but its not to be found.

#11 Jpatrik

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Posted 07 November 2023 - 05:23 AM

About the figure numbers - youre right, it is in fact a sizeable black hole.  I tried really hard to track down some sources, found old magazine articles and most sources focused on Red Data, Tom Riker or Esoqq as rare or shortpacked figures.  Sources varied (but not by much) in terms of quantities for those figures.  But for the TNG wave 1 & 2 figures?  No idea.  I resorted to asking various facebook communities for the highest numbered figures they had and it topped out at about 300,000 for some figures (which explains why so many mint in packet samples are still on the market decades later)

 

As for later on, I was able to find magazine interviews with Chris Overley where he stated that the warp factor figures would be produced about 10,000 per figure.  Anecdotally, this sort of tracks with what I see on ebay every day.  The later waves do seem to be under-represented (but of course, as your posts often point out this can be driven by "market forces" like new shows, the return of older characters like Picard, etc)






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