1991 Presents Hamilton Gifts Star Trek Mug - Sulu

My Boyfriend came to me one day and said that he had been at the local thrift shop - and that he had a gift for me. Fist he gave me a disgusting monkey three feet tall, furry, ugly, and dirty. I am still quite sure that it was a joke. But then he gave me a bag with a mug inside:

There are quite a few of these mugs out there, with different members of the crew featured. These mugs were distributed exclusively by "Presents", a division of Hamilton Gifts. Like many things, these ceramic mugs were made in Korea. On the front is a picture of the crew member (Sulu), and the text around the image reads "The voyages of the Starship Enterprise - To boldly go where no man has gone before".

On the back of the mug is the crew member (or ship's) name - coming toward you in 2D WARP SPEED. I am very fond of the artwork done for these mugs. On the bottom of the mug it states that the artwork was created "Star Date 0786.28 by Susie Morton of Planet Earth".

He has found me another mug since then - with Captain Kirk - but I have yet to take pictures because of the state of my camera. Until then, here is a picture of me drinking milk out of my Sulu mug:

(my ears, from that angle, look slightly pointed - I don't mind)

Star Trek Color and Activity Book 1979 - Futuristic Fun!

When compared the color and activity books I had posted from 1978 a few days ago, this one has less of a story line, a simpler cover, and more "interesting" inter-activities. The front of the book has a picture of Kirk and Spock from the motion Picture, and gives us something to look forward to: "Futuristic Fun." Because coloring and connecting dots is very futuristic.

First we have the mandatory shots of the crew - pretty straight forward stuff. Feel free to print these out and color them with whatever you want. Click on the images to enlarge.

 

Now things start to get a little odd and/or obvious. On this page we have a "Klingon Letter to Number," as identified by Spock.

 

Next we have to connect the dots to figure out who is being beamed up. In case you can't tell who it is by their faces, I won't ruin it for you. Print it off, give it a go, and draw some tribbles falling from the sky.

 

Lastly, I scanned this page for it's pure absurdity. Can you figure out what is wrong with this picture? (Damnit Jim - I'm a doctor, not a sailor-grave digger!) Mr. Sulu looks like Luanne from King of the Hill, Uhura looks like she should be out with her droogs, Spock is in his most illogical state yet, and Captain Kirk thinks he is the king of radio transmissions.

Just a reminder - the deadline for the contest I am holding is September 1. For anyone who is interested, you can read the guidelines and take a gander at some examples over HERE.

Star Trek Color and Activity Books - 1978

Once upon a time, there was a girl (me) who dragged her boyfriend along to the other end of the city in the hopes of picking up a couple of coloring books from a random man on a suburban street past all of the homeless people and drunks with knives. I thought it sounded like fun. My boyfriend, not so much.

We did finally get there, however, and I retrieved the books - even getting an extra two for only ten more dollars. By that time (it took five hours because I have no sense of direction), hardly any of the buses were running, so we had to walk for an hour or so to find one. I love walking. He doesn't. I pointed out the illogic of his discontentment, but I don't think that helped him at all.

Anyways, I present to you: Star Trek Color and Activity books from 1978, and a few select pages for your enjoyment.

Warning: Some of the faces look ultra-derpy. Click to enlarge.

This first book was mostly for coloring purposes, and had a story to go along with it as well (I have not scanned those pages as of yet). Feel free to print these of and color to your heart's content.

Moving on the the second book (this book also had a story, which I will get to at a later date), we find some actual activities:

Wow, these sure are difficult activities aren't they? A diorama? And just what does Spock's message say? I won't ruin the fun, even if it is obvious.

It was SO worth the five hour trip, and I am not being sarcastic. I don't actually color inside the book, but I do make copies and color/complete those. Print these out and join the fun!

Play, laugh, grow.

The City on the Edge of Forever

After passing it around to a few friends, I finally got back my "The Best of Star Trek the Original Series" DVD - just in time for summer viewing. Prepare yourselves for an overview with screencaps. (Or better yet, go watch it.)

TL,DR - right? Right.

The City on the Edge of Forever
(Mine and Leonard Nimoy's favorites)

We start with the Enterprise passing through ripples of time. Sulu's console explodes and he is unconscious. Fortunately, we have doctor McCoy, who revives him with a shot of Cordrazine. We then get a wide shot of a face men will swoon over for centuries:

Why is he wearing so much eyeshadow?

"Captain's log, supplemental entry. Two drops of cordrazine can save a man's life. A hundred times that amount has just accidentally been pumped into Doctor McCoy's body. In a strange, wild frenzy, he has fled the ship's Bridge. All connecting decks have been placed on alert. We have no way of knowing if the madness is permanent or temporary, or in what direction it will drive McCoy."

And somehow he is still good looking.

A maddened McCoy makes his way down to the planet below. Kirk, Spock, Scott, Uhura and two security guards beam down to find him. Instead, they find the source of the time disturbances: The Guardian of Forever.

I keep expecting Zar to come through here in a fury...

GUARDIAN: A question. Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.
KIRK: What are you?
GUARDIAN: I am the Guardian of Forever.
KIRK: Are you machine or being?
GUARDIAN: I am both and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending.
SPOCK: I see no reason for answers to be couched in riddles.
GUARDIAN: I answer as simply as your level of understanding makes possible.
SPOCK: A time portal, Captain. A gateway to other times and dimensions, if I'm correct.
GUARDIAN: As correct as possible for you. Your science knowledge is obviously primitive.
SPOCK: Really.
KIRK: Annoyed, Spock? 

Kirk and Spock consider going back in time to stop the accident involving McCoy, but before they can contemplate further, McCoy runs in a panic through the Guardian. They realise that he must have done something in the past to change the present, because the Enterprise no longer exists.

"Captain's log, no stardate. For us, time does not exist. McCoy, back somewhere in the past, has effected a change in the course of time. All Earth history has been changed. There is no starship Enterprise. We have only one chance. We have asked the Guardian to show us Earth's history again. Spock and I will go back into time ourselves and attempt to set right what ever it was that McCoy changed."

Spock attempts to hide his ears as people  (1930) stare.

KIRK: Well, we'll steal from the rich and give back to the poor later. I think I'm going to like this century. Simple, easier to manage. We're not going to have any difficulty explaining
(Then he sees the policeman.)
POLICEMAN: Well?
KIRK: You're a police officer. I recognize the traditional accoutrements.
SPOCK: You were saying you'll have no trouble explaining it.
KIRK: My friend is obviously Chinese. I see you've noticed the ears. They're actually easy to explain.
(A crowd is gathering.)
SPOCK: Perhaps the unfortunate accident I had as a child.
KIRK: The unfortunate accident he had as a child. He caught his head in a mechanical rice picker. But fortunately, there was an American missionary living close by who was actually a skilled plastic surgeon in civilian life...
POLICEMAN: All right, all right. Drop those bundles and put your hands on that wall there! Come on!
KIRK: Oh, how careless of your wife to let you go out that way.
POLICEMAN: What? Where?
SPOCK: Oh, yes, it's quite untidy. Here, let me help you.
(And a quick neck pinch in front of witnesses, then they grab the clothes and run off. With whistles blowing, they duck down the alley beside the 21st Street Mission and down the stairs to the cellar.)

I wore my ears and Vulcan make-up to work on my last day a few months ago, and replied in this fashion when an old man asked what was "up with my ears". He interrupted me and said "wait... but you're not Chinese."

They change into the civilian clothing that they had stolen.

KIRK: You were actually enjoying my predicament back there. At times, you seem quite human.
SPOCK: Captain, I hardly believe that insults are within your prerogative as my commanding officer.
KIRK: Sorry.
They run into Edith Keeler, and she brings them to the 21st Street Mission.

She is so pretty. The dreamy-effect may have something to do with that, though.

I love seeing Spock in casual wear and a tuque.

Edith gets up and starts talking like she is (in that time) a crazy, delusional space-head who has done to much LDS. (Voyage home joke. Did LSD even exist in the 30s?)

MAN: You'll be sorry.
KIRK: Why?
MAN: You expect to eat for free or something? You got to listen to Goody Two-shoes.
EDITH: Now, as I'm sure somebody out there has said, it's time to pay for the soup.
MAN: Not that she's a bad-looking broad, but if she really wanted to help out a fella in need
KIRK: Shut up. Shut up. I want to hear what she has to say.
SPOCK: Yes, of course, Captain.
EDITH: Now, let's start by getting one thing straight. I'm not a do-gooder. If you're a bum, if you can't break off of the booze or whatever it is that makes you a bad risk, then get out. Now I don't pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love when every day is just a struggle to survive, but I do insist that you do survive because the days and the years ahead are worth living for. One day soon man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future, and those are the days worth living for. Our deserts will bloom. (She continues under the dialogue.)
KIRK: Development of atomic power is years away, and space flight years after that.
SPOCK: Speculation. Gifted insight.
KIRK: I find her most uncommon, Mister Spock.

Edith then lets them know where to find a "flop".
KIRK: We have a flop.
SPOCK: We have a what, Captain?
KIRK: A place to sleep.
SPOCK: One might have said so in the first place.

A day or two later, we see that Spock has built an interesting contraption:

I wish I could build something like this in my room.

KIRK: Mister Spock, I've brought you some assorted vegetables, baloney in a hard rolls for myself, and I've spent the other nine tenths of our combined salaries for the last three days on filling this order for you. Mister Spock, this bag doesn't contain platinum, silver or gold, nor is it likely to in the near future.
SPOCK: Captain, you're asking me to work with equipment which hardly very far ahead of stone knives and bearskins.

Edith enters...
EDITH: If you can leave immediately, I can get you five hours work at twenty two cents an hour. What? What on Earth is that?
SPOCK: I am endeavoring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.

Spock takes some tools that can be used for finely detailed work. Edith finds out, and wonders how he could have possible got to them, through the lock. Kirk guarantees that she will find them returned in the morning.

EDITH: On one condition. Walk me home? I still have a few questions I'd like to ask about you two. Oh, and don't give me that questions about little old us? look. You know as well as I do how out of place you two are around here.
SPOCK: Interesting. Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?
EDITH: You? At his side, as if you've always been there and always will. And you? You belong in another place. I don't know where or how. I'll figure it out eventually.
SPOCK: I'll finish with the furnace.
EDITH: Captain. Even when he doesn't say it, he does.

Edith and Kirk go on to have a romantic evening of sorts, as he tells her about writers that come from the sky.

Back in the room, Spock gets an image on his tricorder:

The weird thing is, she looks like a friend of mine.

They know that she has to do with how the future was changed, but they don't know if the change was made by her dying, or her living. She may be supposed to die that year, or meet with the president and become internationally famous in six years.

McCoy appears, mad. He meets a man on the street:
MCCOY: Assassins! Murderers! Murderers! Assassins! You! What planet is this? (he drops the bottle) No! Don't run! I won't kill you! It's they who do the killing! Don't run! I won't kill you!
Later, Kirk and Edith are walking together again, up the stairs. They talk about man going to the moon, and peace. They kiss.


Back on the street:
MAN: Look, fella, you take a sip too much of that old wood alky, and, and almost anything seems like it
MCCOY: Where? Where are we? Earth? The constellations seem right, but. Explain! Explain this trick.
MAN: I, I,
MCCOY: Biped. Small. Good cranial development. No doubt considerable human ancestry. Is that how you're able to fake all of this? Very good. Modern museum perfection. Right down to the cement beams. Very, very good. Oh, I'd give a lot to see the hospital. Probably needles and sutures. All the pain. They used to hand-cut and sew people like garments. Needles and sutures. Oh, the terrible pain!

McCoy passes out, and the man picks up his phaser - and accidentally disintegrates himself. I guess he wasn't very important to earth's history, because no big deal is made about it.

Killing myself because I'm not important to history!

I just realized, that was the same man they met at the mission who was complaining about Edith's speeches.

The next day, Edith finds McCoy and takes care of him, while Kirk and Spock find out the awful truth:

SPOCK: This is how history went after McCoy changed it. Here, in the late 1930s. A growing pacifist movement whose influence delayed the United States' entry into the Second World War. While peace negotiations dragged on, Germany had time to complete its heavy-water experiments.
KIRK: Germany. Fascism. Hitler. They won the Second World War.
SPOCK: Because all this lets them develop the A-bomb first. There's no mistake, Captain. Let me run it again. Edith Keeler. Founder of the peace movement.
KIRK: But she was right. Peace was the way.
SPOCK: She was right, but at the wrong time. With the A-bomb, and with their V2 rockets to carry them, Germany captured the world.
KIRK: No.
SPOCK: And all this because McCoy came back and somehow kept her from dying in a street accident as she was meant to. We must stop him, Jim.
KIRK: How did she die? What day?
SPOCK: We can estimate general happenings from these images, but I can't trace down precise actions at exact moments, Captain. I'm sorry.
KIRK: Spock, I believe I'm in love with Edith Keeler.
SPOCK: Jim, Edith Keeler must die.

McCoy regains hold of reality, and tells Edith that he is the surgeon about the USS Enterprise.

That afternoon, Edith almost falls down the stairs and breaks her neck, but Kirk saves her. Spock points out that he may have just altered the future. Kirk states that it is not yet time - it can't be, McCoy isn't there.
SPOCK: We're not that sure of our facts. Who's to say when the exact time will come? Save her, do as your heart tells you to do, and millions will die who did not die before.
Later that night, Kirk and Edith are off to see a movie across the street. Spock heads off alone...
EDITH: If we hurry, maybe we can catch the Clark Gable movie at the Orpheum.
KIRK: What?
EDITH: You know, Doctor McCoy said the same thing.
KIRK: McCoy! Leonard McCoy?
EDITH: Yes. He's in the Mission. He's
KIRK: Stay right here. Spock! Stay right there!
SPOCK: What is it?
KIRK: McCoy! He's in...

McCoy exits the mission, and Spock and Kirk run up to greet him.

Reunited at last... tacking him and bowling him over.

Edith, wondering what is going on, begins to cross the street towards them. McCoy sees the car coming and tries to run out to save her. Kirk grabs on to him, not looking.

Intense action shot.

What the hell, Jim!

MCCOY: You deliberately stopped me, Jim. I could have saved her. Do you know what you just did?
SPOCK: He knows, Doctor. He knows. 

Back on the planet, we see Kirk, Spock, and McCoy leap back through the Guardian.

UHURA: Captain, the Enterprise is up there. They're asking if we want to beam up.
KIRK: Let's get the hell out of here. 

And at this point I am crying. I will leave you here.

(Part Two) Star Trek - Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds, 1968

For part one, go HERE.

When we left off, Kirk and the crew were responding to a distress call from somewhere in the Horatian star system. The crew had found that on Neolithia (the first planet) was no sign of life, where there should have been a anti-federation human settlement. They decide to beam down so that Spock can collect native fauna, flora, and other mineral specimens.

The landing party looks crazy here. Spock looks like a strange goblin.

On Neolithia, they find who they first consider to be savages. They find that these people have no technology, and their civilization in so undeveloped that they could not have sent the distress signal. They do learn, however, that their planet has been attacked by raiders who have been kidnapping and killing their citizens (at first they believe that the crew are more "space raiders", explaining their "savagery" towards the landing party.

Following the Wizard-Doctor... and Spock, with a bizarre looking head.

Because the people of Neolithia believe that the crew is responsible for the kidnappings and deaths, they are sentenced to a "silent death" - men with bows and arrows surround the crew. Only Spock can see that this is an illusion, and it is shattered.

Sulu's face looks like that of a mutated gorilla.

Before the real warriors come to kill the landing party, they are beamed back aboard the enterprise, leaving the young boy who brought them to his people to make peace with the elders and warriors, to be forgiven for bringing the "raiders" to their village.

With that, they go on to the second planet in the Horatian star system... to be continued!

And Then I Rescued Sulu and Spock from Burger King and Abusive Children.

Aside from rummaging through antique and second hand shops, I also check online for other local sellers (usedeverywhere, kijiji). I have found a lot of great items being sold by like-minded fans in my city, and have doubled my collection.

These next two "toys" were not bought by a like-minded fan, however (at least he wasn't as far as I know). They had a couple of children with them when I went to the door, they were slightly scuffed up, from Burger King, and they were being sold for one dollar. That's 50 cents each. So I was pretty excited, even if their disproportionate heads did creep me out a bit.

He is always watching. He stands there on my shelf, waiting...

Now of course these were promoting the 2009 Star Trek movie, so I am assuming that the Sulu toy is quoting the movie when I press the button on his back. I really don't know, because whatever comes out is impossible to understand, and is said in a strange tinny voice. It kind of sounds like "work durry sir" said really fast. Perhaps "Warp drive, sir"? "Warp three, sir"?

Spock's voice is understandable, and (of course) he simply quotes "live long, and prosper". It even sounds like Nimoy - slightly whistle-y and lisp-y, but that's what you get when something is mass-produced and then thrown around by children at a fast food joint.

He stares into your soul.

This may just be my obsessiveness getting the best of me again, but it really bothers me that his hair is black and his eyes are grey, when if they wanted to be true to the movie, his eyes would be brown and his hair would be grey.

Still, there is nothing creepier than toys and figures with short little bodies and huge heads.
Nothing, that is, unless those same toys and figures with short little bodies and huge heads are sitting on a shelf while being lighted by candles from below:

Oh dear.

Spock and Hikaru are my Playmates.

Dollarama has been selling the Playmates Star Trek 2009 Galaxy Collection figures for a while now, at two dollars each. Most of the characters' faces were just too skewed for me (a combination of bad sculpting and the fact that they are based on different actors than I am used to) so I only ended up getting a couple. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the new Spock or Kirk. I did, however, find Sulu and the Original Spock.


Poor Mister Sulu here has the misfortune of having his shirt made of a strange rubber, but he does come with a phaser, communicator, and a utility belt to put them in:

Hikaru Sulu in action! Running across Kirk and Spock's face.

I don't know what is happening with his arm here - I think he dislocated it somehow.

Spock's top is also made out of a strange rubber, the kind they used to use for Polly Pockets. He didn't come with anything extra, stands a plain black stand, and looks nothing like Leonard Nimoy. That aside, I still appreciate having it:

Spock Prime, played by Leonard Nimoy (one thing they got right, at least)

Looking nothing like Leonard Nimoy here, and more like some random old man.

I don't like to spend a lot of money on Playmates items, because of the lack of quality - but for two dollars each, there was really no reason not to get these guys. I am still looking out for Kirk and the new Spock!