Star Trek: The Next Generation 90s Toyline

 Hey guys! Josh here, welcome back to the Review Basement. I know I said I was going to review the 2020 live action remake of Mulan, but after watching it last night on Disney+ I realized that I don't have enough to say about it for a full review. I will talk about it when I review the 1998 animated Mulan but there isn't enough of the 90s movie in it to talk about outside of a mention in the review of the original 1998 animated movie. Instead we are going to talk about toys. Specifically the Star Trek: The Next Generation toyline released by Playmates Toys in the 90s. So let's get right into it.

My 90s TNG Toy Collection

When Star Trek: The Next Generation first aired in 1987, Galoob, the makers of Micro Machines line of vehicles, ships and playsets, launched a failed line of toys based on the series, riddled with inaccuracies. I have five things from this line, so I'll probably talk about them at another time. However, it wouldn't be until 1992 that Playmates Toys, the company behind the hugely popular toyline based on the 1987 animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, would pick up the Star Trek license from Paramount Pictures and begin their own line of toys based on The Next Generation which would run well beyond the show's ending in 1994. As you can see from the picture above, that's the remains of my collection with the majority of the figures being the ones I had when I was a kid.

An ad for the toyline that I remember from the back of a magazine

If you've been following my blog for a good amount of time, whether it's my old Wordpress blog or the current Blogger version, you know that I am a huge Star Trek fan. I grew up watching TNG on TV as well as on VHS as I had most of the first season of the show on that format as well as select volumes from the rest of the first five seasons. I also played with the toys. My grandparents would find them at stores like K-Mart, Toys 'r' Us, and pretty much anywhere else toys were sold here in Ottawa at the time. And so I would get them for my birthday and Christmas for two or three years, and then occasionally I would get one when I was in the hospital. So I actually had most of the first wave of the toyline, which included Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi, Worf, Deanna, a Klingon (Gowron), a Romulan, a Borg and a Ferengi. The only two I was missing was the Borg and Ferengi figures. I had everyone else. I also had the Shuttlecraft that had the light-up engine nacelles and made sounds when you pressed two buttons along the top and the electronic USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D that made noise and had light-up warp nacelles when you pressed four buttons on the back between the two smaller shuttlebays.

To this day I still have most of the first wave of figures, aside from the Klingon, Romulan, Borg and Ferengi figures. I also still have the Enterprise and the Shuttlecraft, though the shuttle is put away, and I also obtained the Type-2 phaser role playing accessory from Brad as he found two of them like eleven or ten years ago, kept one for himself, and gave the other to me.

Wave 2 Ad from another Star Trek magazine

 I also had quite a few of the second wave that came out in 1993. Though the only first/second season variant figure that I had when I was a kid was Data. The other figures that I had in the line were Doctor Crusher, Cadet Wesley Crusher, Guinan, Q, Captain Dathon (from the season 5 episode, "Darmok"), Locutus of Borg (assimilated Picard from "The Best of Both Worlds"), Klingon Warrior Worf (Worf in his Klingon officer's uniform from "Redemption"), Mordock the Benzite (from the season 1 episode, "Coming of Age"), K'Ehleyr (Worf's girlfriend from the second season episode "The Emissary"), and then I had the Transporter playset. And then I had the Tasha Yar figure that came out in 1995 as part of the 4th wave, and that was the last TNG figure that I got when I was a kid. More recently I got the Ensign Ro figure that came out in 1994 as part of the 3rd wave, as well as the Picard, Riker, and Worf first season/second season variant figures from the second wave. 

Example of the packaging

 The packaging was pretty cool. The early figures didn't come with anything but their accessories. I think the Worf figure is my favourite because not only did it come with his communicator stand, a phaser and tricorder, but also with all of his Klingon weapons too like the Bat'leth, which I loved when I was a kid, and the D'k tahg knife that Worf didn't actually have on the show, but was used by other Klingons on TNG as well as by the Klingons in the original series movies from the 80s, particularly Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Wave 2 Packaging (Worf)

The second wave figures came with a character bio card. While the first season Worf variant figure is a more recent acquisition, it's still a favourite of mine, because he came with the same accessories as the original Worf figure, the Klingon weapons were painted silver instead of red, and so they looked closer to their TV counterparts than the Klingon weapon accessories from the earlier Worf figure. The third and fourth wave figures also came with bio cards and I still have my Tasha Yar one somewhere too.

I used to play with these toys all the freaking time. Like it was insane how often I played with them. And this was around the time that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was starting to air. I didn't have any Power Rangers toys for the first year that they were coming out, and I didn't have any Batman toys yet either, so this is how I spent my time when I wasn't watching Disney movies, Star Trek, or Teddy Ruxpin tapes. Apart from cutting or ripping the phaser beams off the phaser accessories, all of my figures remain intact to this day. 

The bane of my collecting existence...the Bridge Playset

The one TNG Playmates toy I did not have, but really REALLY wanted was the Bridge playset. It is the holy grail of my TNG collection. The one thing that I have not been able to get to this day. I've seen it at Toys On Fire and I've seen it at Ottawa Comiccon, but I've never been able to buy it. My mom even told me that she and my dad tried to get it for me when I was a kid and they even had a line on one, but it sold before they got to it, and it sold out everywhere else pretty quickly. Which is probably why they jumped on the Transporter set ASAP when that came out. Trust me though, if I ever find this set for a reasonable price, I am going to jump on it immediately, because I would love to have this in my collection.

There's plenty of room for the entire crew

The idea of this playset was to have somewhere to put your figures when you weren't playing with them or if you wanted to play out a scene that took place on the Bridge. Older collectors also use it as a diorama for their figures. So like they would set up an iconic Bridge scene, like Q accosting the crew in the first season episode "Hide and Q" or the Borg boarding the ship in order to capture Picard at the end of "The Best of Both Worlds Part I" and leave it displayed that way.

This came in handy when I had enough figures to put in it

While I didn't have the Bridge playset, I did have the Collector's Case that housed the figures and their accessories. Not only did I use it to hold my figures in, but I also used it as my own Bridge playset when I was playing with just the figures of the bridge crew by taking out the trays and placing the figures inside it, either sitting down or standing up depending on their position on the Bridge. And that's what I used because I didn't have the actual Bridge playset. 

Playmates expanded the toyline to The Original Series, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager but I didn't have any TOS or Voyager figures. In fact I didn't even know the Voyager figures even existed because I never saw them in stores and never saw the ads for them in any magazines or comic books. I do remember seeing the ad for the TOS figure in one of my Star Trek: The Next Generation magazines. It just goes to show how popular DS9 and Voyager were in comparison to TOS and TNG. I mean I even saw an ad for Playmates's Star Trek: First Contact toyline in the second issue of Marvel's Star Trek: Voyager comic book series. And that was two years after TNG had ended it's broadcast run on TV, though the show was still on in reruns pretty much five days a week. While the DS9 and Voyager toylines weren't marketed very well at all in comparison.

Alright guys, that's gonna be it for me for today. This is the kind of thing I wanna be talking about on this blog. The toys, books, movies, TV shows, comic books and video games that I grew up with from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. I'll be back on Friday when I'll be taking a look at Savage Garden's 1997 debut album, Savage Garden, the first CD I ever got. Until then have a great week and I will talk to you later. Take care.