The Most Toys -Star Trek and Merchandising-

"We live in America, and I fought for everyone’s right to make a buck. "

-Shaughn O’Connor

Merchandising has always been a part of Star Trek. It goes right back to the time of the Original Series. It was considered by many to be a children’s series, and therefore, most of the merchandise was made for kids: toys like water pistols, Frisbees, Halloween costumes with the Enterprise and crew. There were a few models, trading cards, and the now-famous 3-D chess game, but that was about it. Because there wasn’t so much on offer, many fans collected anything they could find with “Star Trek” on it.

It was only in the 70s that merchandising arrived in a big way. When the first convention took place in New York, most of the Trek merchandise was home-made, but the fans were nevertheless thrilled, and to the dealers' amazement, everything had been sold by the end of the first day. From there, it took off, and hasn’t slowed down yet. The popular action figures made their first appearance around this time, accompanied by Enterprise Bridge sets, allowing children to act out adventures on the final frontier. Lots of products for everyday use came onto the market, such as bed covers, cutlery, etc, all with trekkish designs on them.

In the 80s came objects from the series, such as phasers, tricorders, as well as manuals - “non fiction” books describing aspects of the Trek universe as if it were real. Merchandising boomed, and many new products appeared. Merchandise became more of a collectors' item, and less a toy. Companies started to produce sets of the same article, so as to encourage fans to collect them all. This was made a lot easier by the fact that by now, the first three films had been produced, and The Next Generation had premiered, introducing new characters and races to be exploited as merchandising objects.

But the huge choice forced fans to become selective. Instead of buying anything and everything to do with Trek, they began to specialise in certain types of article. This trend continues today.

These days, there is an enormous diversity of merchandise available. There are over 500 novels and reference books, and products range from valuable models and art to things like coffee with the Trek logo or lollipops with holographic Trek pictures!

Action figures have become very popular in the last few years, and as a result, new sets are being created all the time. Often they’re just a copy of an older existing figure with a minor change - a new uniform to tie in with the latest uniform change on the series, or a new stand and equipment. There are now around 300 different figures. Each figure has a serial number stamped on its foot; this allows the makers to call the series a “limited edition”, even though there can be up to 1'000'000 of the figures made. But anything labelled "limited edition" sells rapidly, and more can be charged for it. Whereas action figures used to be toys, nowadays fans who collect them don’t take them out of the package, so that their value will increase - which is what many collectors are hoping. Old merchandise from the 60s and 70s is worth a lot of money now, as there are not many of them around, and collectors hope that one day, the goods - be it figures, models, trading cards - that he /she lovingly preserved will be worth a fortune.

One example is the early comics printed in ’67: at the time, they cost a whole 20 German pence, a copy in good condition will now retail at 460 DM on the German market.

The producers of the goods take advantage of this by simply making more and more items, and trying to get people to think that by collecting all of them, they’re making an investment. This, however, is becoming increasingly unlikely, because of all the people collecting. The more there are of the objects, the less they’ll be worth, even in later years when these items are no longer made. Additionally, there’s no way of knowing what future collectors will see as valuable and worth paying for. “[All the merchandise] is discouraging for collectors, because you can never own all of it. But I know people who are trying!” says Susanna Reilly. Others specialise in certain types of merchandise.

Collectors of trading cards try to complete a series of cards. This isn’t made easy for them, as the cards are packed randomly, which means that you have to buy lots of packs that include doubles of the ones you’ve already got to find that rare card to complete the collection. Action figure collectors try to find a set of figures (e.g. the whole crew of one of the series) that all have identical serial numbers stamped on the doll’s feet, or all have a low number. As with all collectors, some can be rather obsessive with their hobby, shoving other fans to the side to get at new wares quickly. According to William Shatner, a few who have good contacts with shop owners get them to call the fan in when new Trek merchandise comes in, so they can look through the wares before anyone else. Some fans are more interested in merchandise than the social side of fandom, but these are a minority. Most I’ve heard of A slight majority thinks that Star Trek is over-commercialized at the moment, but most buy at least some Trek merchandise. Some do it for pleasure, others, who are in active fan clubs buy replicas of Trek props (e.g. tricorders, phasers) so that if they are ever needed for skits or similar things they have some in hand. Others just aren’t interested: Carol Bockelman says: “My interest lies in the interpersonal and social realm, not the realm of ‘stuff’.” Some fans, especially those in Klingon clubs, also enjoy making their own props. Klingon merchandise isn’t as readily available as Starfleet-based goods, so they are forced to create their own accessories.

I made a table reflecting the opinions of the fans I interviewed. It wasn’t easy, as there are so many different opinions, but I ordered them into rough categories. There didn’t seem to be any tendencies of certain groups (e.g. age, etc) to be more interested in it than others.

	Is overcommercialized, and I don't buy anything (or very rarely)	Is overcommericalized, but I buy things if I like them	That's the way it is, and it's not bad. I buy things if I like them.	Isn't overcommercialized, but I'm just not interested in Merchandise	Isn't overcommercialized...I love it!
Number of people	11	15	7	4	16

Some of the fans who don’t buy anything do it out of principle.

Says “Neila8”: “No, [I don’t buy merchandise], my personal protest against the over priced, over- commercialization of the series. I will buy from Lincoln Enterprises, though, that is Majel Barrett-Roddenberry’s company.”

And James Sharman thinks that “[buying merchandise] flatters all the people who exercise crass-commercialism over something which to me has higher ideals than profit margins!”

Cedi Erb thinks the whole franchise is very hypocritical. “The ideals of the Federation (a world where money no longer plays a role) and the thought of a peaceful co-existence of all lifeforms may be touching and can be interpreted as an optimistic and humane message. But I ask all fanatical fans to think about the duplicity of this message in connection with the very profitable enterprise that Star Trek is.”

Carlos Maldonado thinks: “To Paramount, this is a Franchise. When one says the word Franchise, they mean it’s little more than a cash cow. Nothing righteous, of pure intent or nobility can therefore be derived of their intent. On the other hand, Paramount never really kept this a secret. They never promised the fans more than output.”

In defence of the studio, Alex Rosenzweig remarks that “Paramount, stung by past failures, has tried to be a bit more intelligent in recent years with Trek merchandising.”

P.Mohney thinks: “No, [it is not over-commercialized], Star Trek is a commercial venture at heart, not some sacred venture to keep fans happy.”

Michael Gahan has the same opinion: “I believe in the free market system…supply and demand…if people will buy it, great!”

Bud Cullum believes that the whole affair “Provides options for several different interests. Capitalism at its finest.”

Of course, merchandising is good for the series, as it adds to the profits, and helps ensure that Paramount, which doesn’t care where the money comes from as long as the franchise is profitable, continues producing Trek episodes. Merchandising is profitable - very much so. According to Donna MacNeal, Trek has made Paramount over 4 billion dollars on merchandise alone.
In the opinion of Lutz Dieckmann of the sci-fi magazine “Futures Voice”, fans like the merchandising on one hand, because of the nice objects that are on sale - and there are some very nice things. Yet on the other hand, they dislike it; they are, in essence, delighted and frustrated at once. I have found that this is true. While it is good for the franchise, they object to the show being used to sell things.

Dieckmann also thinks that fandom is dividing itself into two groups: those who are spending the money and those who are earning it. Some of the people who I talked to mentioned this as well. The fans who managed to get into the convention or merchandising business are doing rather well, while the fans who are not interested in this side of fandom dislike being exploited. Robert Phillips adds: “Unscrupulous people are beginning to realize that there is easy money to be made out of unsuspecting Star Trek fans.”