Frankly, #106 has me wondering.

§ January 30th, 2011 § Filed under star trek § 9 Comments

From a sci-fi collectibles catalog, circa 1987:


1. I wonder if there’s any overlap between the Starfleet Cook Book and this item?

2. Here’s a common Starfleet code: “The captain is in the ready room, preparing his mission report” = “Kirk’s makin’ time with another alien gal…better hold his calls.”

3. I suspect the Klingon Joke Book goes a little bit like this:

“Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A: TO DIE HONORABLY IN GLORIOUS BATTLE!”

“Knock Knock.” “Who’s there?” “A MIGHTY KLINGON WARRIOR WHO HAS COME TO EVISCERATE YOU WITH HIS BAT’LETH”

…So you can see why it was banned.

9 Responses to “Frankly, #106 has me wondering.”

  • Andres says:

    I’ll betcha the marriage manual sold less than all the other ones.

  • John says:

    Unless it was a Starfleet “Marriage Manual”, i.e., pictures of naked Orion slave girls and descriptions of Starfleet-approved sexual positions.

  • Tim O'Neil says:

    Now I think it behooves you to do your best to try and track down these marvelous items for the edification of your loyal readership.

  • philip says:

    Sigh. Okay … “A MIGHTY KLINGON WARRIOR WHO HAS COME TO EVISCERATE YOU WITH HIS BAT’LETH” who?

  • Roel Torres says:

    Mike, those Klingon jokes were awesome. They genuinely made me laugh. Good stuff:-)

  • Chris K says:

    My god, judging from this post and your twitter comments I think I had this catalog. Believe me, I was scratching my head at a lot of this stuff in 1987 too.

    There was a whole list of buttons quoting random lines of “funny” dialogue from Star Trek IV (which I _guess_ was current enough that they would be familiar to people… maybe). I remember one for “Too much LDS,” which I always imagined somebody wearing and being mistaken for an anti-Mormon protester.

    I also remember a page or two devoted to “Knight Rider” stuff (really, it seemed like there were sections devoted to _every_ genre TV show ever), with complaints about the fourth-season redesign of KITT.

    This catalog (assuming it’s the same one) was probably my first glimpse at obsessive nerd culture (as opposed to the more casual one I was a part of), and it was kind of off-putting and a bit scary. Then 15 years later, the internet came along and rendered it quaint and charming. The end.

  • Rich Handley says:

    I have several of those!

  • Mikester says:

    Chris K – This was the Star Tech catalog, printed on newsprint. It sounds like you had the very same thing!

    Rich H. – So, how close was I with the Klingon jokes?

  • Jeff R., says:

    Probably not too close: Bat’leths were a Next Generation invention, and even the idea of Klingons as being honorable by their own standards generally didn’t spread beyond a coupple of the novels until then either. I’d guess more anatomically improbable suggestions for creative uses for tribbles…