The Collective: The Return Of The Mego Playset + Pic of DST Captain’s Chair

Starting in 2007, Diamond Select Toys and EMCE Toys, Inc. have been producing retro versions of the MEGO Star Trek action figures and they just announced that the USS Enterprise Action Playset, one of the most beloved and remembered Star Trek toys of all time, will join the line. More details below, plus other DST news, including a picture of the new life-sized captain’s chair.

 

WHO WANTS TO PLAY BRIDGE?
From its amazingly cool transporter to its vinyl exterior, the MEGO Star Trek Enterprise Playset was a staple of many fans collections when it was first released in 1975. What is great about this is that the playset is not only fun, it is perfect as a diorama for the retro action figures. Features of the original 1970s playset included:

  • closed in on itself and became a case with handle, perfect for storing action figures
  • the incredibly cool ‘transporter’ — a spinning top and buttons which you used to make the figures appear and reappear
  • a Captain’s Chair, two seats, and a console
  • a viewscreen with three removable, double sided cardboard cards with six images from various adventures
  • engineering room
  • stickers you apply to the playset consoles and transporter
  • funky 1970s Animated Series sensibilities and design inspirations
  • a Jefferies tube "closet" for either repairs or storing Kirk’s 1970s roller skates and lava lamps


New DST Retro MEGO playset

Diamond Select just announced the they are bringing the playset back. Trekmovie.com spoke with Joe Sena and Paul "Dr. Mego" Clarke from EMCE Toys (who make DST’s MEGO line) about the details of the new playset. The playset will be available early next year, retailing for about $60. All of the cool features of the original Bridge are set to return with the retro version, and EMCE Toys discussed that they are DST are committed to making the playset authentic while also adding better durability. EMCE Toys tells Trekmovie.com that depending of fan response, there is the possibility of future retro MEGO Star Trek playsets. Also, Sena and Clarke "have always fantasized about a TNG line of Megos, a DS9 line of Megos, a Voyager line of Megos" although that is not yet something planned.

Visit the excellent MEGO Museum for more information on the history of this nostalgic item.


Original commercial for the playset (thanks Daren)

Other Retro News and Preorders Available
Those who ordered their retro Scotty and the Keeper action figures should be receiving their figures soon as they are starting to ship from various online retailers. Other retro figures available this autumn and winter, which complete the bridge crew are Uhura and Mugatu (October), and Chekov and Cheron (October), and Sulu and the updated version of the Gorn (December). Trekmovie.com will have a review of Scotty and the Keeper, and the next group of minimates from DST, next week.

Upcoming retro MEGO figures at Entertainment Earth
 
Scotty + Keeper Uhura + Mugatu
$37.99
(shipping very soon)
$37.99
(shipping October)
Chekov + Cheron Sulu + Gorn
$37.99
(shipping December)
NO PREORDER YET
(shipping December)

 

DS9 figures / TWOK Phaser Preorder + more on life-sized captain’s chair
In non-Mego DST news the new limited edition Worf and Gowron two pack from available for preorder (from Entertainment Earth and other retailers). Worf is featured in his fourth season DS9 costume. This is the first time DST has offered a Gowron figure (Playmates Toys had two versions in the 1990s). Other two packs from DST have focused on friends (Kirk and Spock TMP, Troi and Riker, Data and Geordi) or enemies (Kirk and Khan). This is the first two pack to feature friends who became enemies, and the first DS9 two pack from DST. The action figures are available this January for $26.99.

The other new item available for pre-order is the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Phaser. The Wrath of Khan line from DST has been extensive during the last few years, with dozens of TWOK action figures and a movie version of the Enterprise. Available for preorder now is the TWOK phaser role playing toy for $27.99. The phaser is based on blueprints from the original design and features a removable Type I phaser, sound effects, voice effects, and lights. DST’s role playing toys have been a favorite for fans because of their price and fun features. This is the first movie era role playing toy from DST.

New DST pre-orders at Entertainment Earth
 
DS9 Worf and Gowron 2-pack STII Phaser
$26.99
(ships January 2009)
$27.99
(ships January 2009)

Picture of the chair
Recently TrekMovie first reported that CBS announced Diamond Select is making a life-sized TOS captains chair as a functioning piece of furniture, complete with lights and sounds. We now have a picture of that chair. Expect more details on the chair soon. 

UPDATE: see our new article with more details on the DST captain’s chair.


You know you want it

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I’m not sure if it was from Diamond Select or not, but they had a fully functional life sized Captain’s chair at Comic-Con. It was awesome.

Gotta have the chair.

“the incredibly cool ‘transporter’ — a spinning top and buttons which you used to make the figures appear and reappear”
–Ha. Snark alert.

I know this probably says “for ages 3+.”
I’m “+.”
Can I still get it??

I had it, with Kirk, Spock and Bones. 30 years ago. ;))

4th?

I need that chair.

I’m so getting this for Sophia. It is WWWAAAAAAAAYYYY better than Barbies!

wow a captains chair….damn

I wanted one of these so badly when I was a kid, but my mom misunderstood and instead got me a weird Sears-only ‘space attack’ playset, which was a command chair sat in front of a viewscreen that had arotating cylinder in it that showed advancing spaceships. Gee, thanks, Mom!

Here’s what I want from this list:

– Trek II Phaser
– Captains Chair (if I win the lottery)

Fantastic !!!!

How much is the chair, though? One site states a little over $1000 another around $2000.

i would say it’ll be in the £1,000 mark – not sure how much that is in dollars, i’m gonna start saving now though.

That bridge looks more like a seventies disco

captains chair !!!! YOU WILL BE MINE , OH YES YOU WILL BE MINE

If I lived alone, I’d be redecorating my living room around that chair right now.

…What? No optional high back? No optional Pilot gooseneck DVD viewer? No built-in PC that uses 3.5″ floppys for data storage??

[thinks]

…Ok, that last one’ll be a casemod sometime in the next year. I’ll buy that.

Love the phaser, if only I had any money…. :-(

Way psyched about the phaser :-)

Heck yea for the phaser!!!!!!!!!!

Factoid:
The WOK working phasers started out as dummy phasers on TMP. They were modified into working versions, hence the retrofitted trigger stud.
I hope they do a TMP phaser later, as I’m a …..purist…

That phaser doesn’t cost very much. Looks good!

This is great news! I remember seeing the Mego figures at Child World when I was young. Never was able to get one though. Thanks EMCE for bringing these back!

I had that ’70’s Bridge playset, it’s good to hear they are going to make it more durable, mine was flimsy and was splitting at the seems after six months of destroying Klingons and such!

the chair the chair i want the chair oh please help me get………………… the chair

Does want it now

On the repro Bridge: I have a bridge and 6 figs I bought from ebay for about $80 a year ago, and i have to say that, honestly, $60 is a BIT too much. $45? Good price? $50? Pushing it. I say that because you can get a pretty nice ORIGINAL bridge for about $40 on ebay (they made a LOT of those things). Then again, I am able to buy repro G.I.Joes that are almost exactly like the original 12″ figs I used to have when I was 8 for $10, so I MAY be spoiled a bit…

Other than the minor quibble on the price, I appreciate the effort and applaud DST for doing this. Now, the WOK phaser? PERFECT pricing IMO (cause this has never been produced as a “toy” before). Between this and the repro Tricorder, again, I’m getting spoiled.

And the Captain’s Chair, for $1000? Overpriced too, but TOTALLY worth it. Trying to figure out a way I can convince the wife I need this for the corner of my office. Dah-rool, dah-rool.

A $1000 bucks for the chair….

gods above if I can find a grand I’ll do it, but wow… that really seems high.
I’m assuming this will be very limited?

Now do the “Mission to Gamma IV” playset… not only one of the rarest trek items, but also one of the rarest Mego items!
And heavily based on “The Apple”.

check out THIS guy’s MEGO sized bridge….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoWB17wgfJE

:)Paul

The captain’s chair: What took them so long?

It’s interesting that the “Keeper” figure actually appears to be a model of the Commander Balok puppet figure from Corbomite Maneuver.

Watching Star Trek will never be the same again sitting in that Captains chair in the living room.

Now all you need are a string of LED’s running beneath your 52″ flatscreen TV’s and it will be like your looking through the viewscreen on the bridge!

Spock’s getting ready for disco night.

How come the captain’s chair never had a cup-holder. You think you’d want that for cruisin’ the galaxy …

For 1,000 quatloos, I’d insist that they custom one for me! :)

Did you know that the Captains chair is made from an existing chair? The black cushions, side and wooden arms are part of the real chair, the rest was added on. The chair, unaltered can be seen as part of Dan Brigg’s cool 60’s apartment in the first season of Mission: Impossible. Makes sense, since they were both filming at Desilu using similar resources.

Captains chair=$1000
Shipping=$500
Look on my face=Priceless

Sadly I think I’ll have to pass. I can’t spend that much on a chair. Now the $30 phaser, I’m buyin’!

And I thought Roddenberry.com was going to come out with the Captain’s Chair. They had one for a prize at the Las Vegas Creation Con. Lights, a sound effect, pushable buttons. One thing wrong with that chair was that the data tape was permanently glued to the armrest; if I were to get one, I’d want tapes that were removable from the slot.

Ugh…that bridge playset…

Aside from the action figures (which I have nostalgic love for), the Mego toys were truly wretched.

#34

Is it possible that the data tape was glued in for the display model so no one at the con walked off with it?

I’d love to see a new Bridge Set that had more accurate graphics and helm console, for a better display of the figures.

I’d love to see STTMP versions of the figures. It really wouldn’t be hard to have movie costumes made up for the existing figures. Really, only Uhura and Scotty look different from the series. Uhura needs an afro style haircut, and Scotty needs a moustache. Neither should be hard to do.

I bet customizers are already working on those…

Ok. Like Daffy Duck Always Says. THAT CHAIR IS MINE! MINE! MINE!. Ok. I want that chair. That would be so cool to have in my office at work. I mean how cool would it be to have it at home or at work. The action set of the bridge will also be kool for any one of any age who is a Trek fan.The action figures will also be kool as well.

Also With the phaser. I dare anyone to back talk me while im in my Capts chair Holding a Phaser on full.

I had an original Trek playset when I was in gradeschool in the 70s. Honestly, it was not that fun to play with. The transporter effect was the only cool thing about it. The viewscreen graphics were like something out of the bizarre Gold Key comic books and bore no connection with the show. And the bridge “furniture” was almost as terrible. Even as a seven year old, I could tell that playset was really a crappy job. I still love the Megos, and have been gladly purchasing the repros to go along with my originals (yes, I still have them and they’re in pretty good condition considering they’re over 30 years old. But there’s no way I’m going to purchase a Bridge Set. Bad call Diamond Select. Those sets are crap, and better off redesigning them like you will with the new Gorn figure. Total Kudos for bringing back the Megos, updating and adding to their ranks. But leave that craptastic Bridge Set in the dustbin of memories where it belongs. It’s so bad it just plain bad…

Yes. It really has come full circle. The intoxicating smell of that vinyl in warm weather … I was probably inhaling something deadly, but just like ditto masters back then, because I was getting some kind of kiddie buzz, I didn’t care. Plus it was Star Trek. Horribly inaccurate Star Trek, but a kiddie imagination can overcome unlimited mistakes.

That Enterprise painting on the outside was horrible. Gold Key’s depictions were more accurate.

I found the spinning transporter concept rather corny, but it was a semi-enclosed round chamber that was adjacent to the bridge, so it seemed a better fit to me as the turbolift. I peeled off the yellow transporter stickers. With a figure in the chamber, I’d pretend they were arriving on the bridge by controlling the knob by hand and of course making the door swish sound with my lower lip. The cardboard pictures for the viewscreen hung from two little hooks. They were hideous, so I used to make my own viewscreen starfields and other displays with pencil and white cardboard that hung from the hooks.

I also used that technique in creating my own “sickbay” redress of the bridge. For a bed I used half of a wooden box that my dad’s English Leather cologne came in. I cut up an old oxford red shirt for the bedlinen.
And I made a hooded bed monitor out of cardboard, with a toothpick for a probe, and it hung where the viewscreen would be. I used to have fun playing the classic sickbay scenario of Kirk aggressively interrogating someone or something ailing in bed, beamed up after some tragic event, and trying to extract some eyewitness info before McCoy steps in and cuts him off for pushing too far.

1975 flashback over … thanks for your indulgence.

With some shoeboxes, an old office chair someone’s put out on the sidewalk for trash pickup, and two or three large bottles of gin, you can have a captain’s chair that’s just as good.

I’m wondering where I can put that chair…..

OH, SWEET NAIVE INNOCENCE…

…I actually REMEMBER that Mego commercial from 1975 (I would have only been 3!!!), and it boggled my mind that you could actually transport Mr. Spock from the playset straight to your backyard! It looked and sounded like the coolest toy ever! It was a sad day when I realized it never really “worked” and it was all fancy editing. *sigh*

“Now, the WOK phaser? PERFECT pricing IMO (cause this has never been produced as a “toy” before). ”

There have actually been two “toy” versions of that phaser before – South Bend released a pair of phasers that could disable each other with infrared light in conjunction with STTMP in 1980, and Playmates made a version with lights and sounds in about 1995. Obviously this DST version will be a lot more accurate than either of the previous attempts (and won’t have STAR TREK emblazoned on the sides).

“Risk is part of the game if you want to sit in that chair.”

And I do!! :-)

Granted, TWOK Phaser is a must-have for the collection but its boring design resembles a remote control unit glued to a vacuum cleaner handle. IMO it’s nowhere near as cool looking as the TOS Phaser. Also, what’s up with the “voice sound effects”? That’s not only cheesy but downright hazardous. An innocent youngster could mistake it for a Communicator, which could lead to unfortunate consequences.

I would rather spend $2000 for one of PALISADES TOYS Capt Kirk & Gene Roddenberry 7″ figure prototypes. Yes, one recently sold on eBay within the last year for $1800. PALISADES TOYS had the Trek license after Playmates but before Diamond Select Toys. They lost it because of problems with manufacturing and price point.

It’s a pity our beloved fellow chatter “AJ” is out this week cuz he surely would have some rather interesting suggestions on what sort o’ play-actin’ we can put these actioning figures to…

Seriously though, tha’ Gorn and tha’ Mugato seem worth getting… If I ever settle down with a bonny lass and get married, tha’ Gorn can be tha’ Bride atop our cake…

guess that makes me tha’ monkey then…

Arrrrr…

I‘ve just begun to clear out my flat to make room for THE CHAIR. This time, I am prepared. :)