Frankly, #106 has me wondering.
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.
I’ll betcha the marriage manual sold less than all the other ones.
Unless it was a Starfleet “Marriage Manual”, i.e., pictures of naked Orion slave girls and descriptions of Starfleet-approved sexual positions.
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.
Sigh. Okay … “A MIGHTY KLINGON WARRIOR WHO HAS COME TO EVISCERATE YOU WITH HIS BAT’LETH” who?
Mike, those Klingon jokes were awesome. They genuinely made me laugh. Good stuff:-)
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.
I have several of those!
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?
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…