"I said 'give me the brandy'!" IMF Agent Paris and a Dickel decanter
You rate the TOS props
- Thread starter ZapBrannigan
- Start date
I never really cared whether it was ergonomic or practical, but my favorite is the type-2 phaser, followed closely by the communicator. Next would be the medical scanner.
According to an eyewitness account by Joan Winston in Star Trek Lives!, workmen started tearing down the Enterprise sets literally as soon as the last scene wrapped on "Turnabout Intruder."
Elsewhere, I can't recall where, it's been said that the bridge pieces (or some of them) were donated to the UCLA Theater department.
I wish we had a more specific history. Mission: Impossible's sound stage was right across the alley from Stage 9, but I can't quite see when Kirk's actual Madison chair would get over there. Maybe the M:I set decorator used an extra Madison that the Star Trek guys had on hand and never needed.
Fascinating about the AMT phaser. I went to my (first edition) TMOST; the pic seems to be from an angle, showing the underside of main body and grip, which printed as dark as the sides of body and grip. C'mon, AMT, you had one job.
I vote for the phaser 1 which plugs into the phaser 2 grip: makes sense (different needs for different missions) and looks cool. The communicator has buttons that're too small. We always wait for Kirk to tap the center of his when it won't work. A very '60s idea in a world of poorly-built consumer goods. In fact I have a tabletop black and chrome radio from that era and I have to tap on the volume know to make it work.
I vote for the phaser 1 which plugs into the phaser 2 grip: makes sense (different needs for different missions) and looks cool. The communicator has buttons that're too small. We always wait for Kirk to tap the center of his when it won't work. A very '60s idea in a world of poorly-built consumer goods. In fact I have a tabletop black and chrome radio from that era and I have to tap on the volume know to make it work.
In "Tomorrow is Yesterday" when Sulu has to make an urgent call, he gives his communicator a quick downward shake, as if trying to jar it into working.
Design, yes. Though you are cherry picking the best there. I love the midcentury vibe. But, at least relative to today in our post-Deming emphasis on quality era, the stuff made then was much more likely to be defective or short-lived.
Mind you, I'm complaining about a 50-year-old radio that does still work.
Today's cell phone with soldered-in battery isn't going to make it to 50. I say that with confidence.
IrishNero
Commodore
Yup. I always liked the communicator too. The sound that it made when it flipped open was so cool when I was a kid. I've got a couple of the replicas that make the same sound. But no one answers me when I try to reach the Enterprise. ho hum.......
My Android started going way south after a few months.
And every CD player I've ever owned quit working in that same amount of time.
Kor
