There has been a lot of strange Star Trek merchandise released over the last forty-nine years, and likely many of you have one or two of those weird items in your own collections.
Over the past few days, we’ve been discussing the unusual Star Trek: First Contact chocolate bars on our Facebook page, issued by LEAF in 1996, and there were several requests to see what they look like today.
The crews of the Starship Enterprise enjoyed chocolate in space, and now, with the recent release of Paramount Pictures’ “Star Trek: First Contact,” Earthlings have a new “collectible” limited-edition chocolate bar from Leaf Inc.
Under license from Viacom Consumer Products, Paramount’s licensing division, “Star Trek: First Contact” Chocolate Bars feature six collectible wrappers using graphics on seven different molded Star Trek chocolate images, including a top view of the new Starship Enterprise, NCC-1701-E.
“The ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ molded chocolate bars will offer the `Star Trek’ fan a unique and innovative collectible,” said Greg Barratt, senior vice president of marketing for Leaf.
“Our intention from the beginning was to give the Star Trek fan the highest level of quality in our chocolate, packaging graphics and collectibility. We feel the Star Trek fans and our friends at Paramount deserve nothing less,” he said.
The candy bar is Leaf’s first venture into “collectible” confections, and sales have far exceeded Leaf’s — and Viacom’s — expectations, according to Nancy Williams, public-relations counsel for the candy company.
“We thought it would be a medium-sized promotion,” she said. “But it’s a strange phenomenon, the whole trekkie thing. They (the trekkers) love it.
“After eating the candy, they can use the wrapper like a trading card. We’ll sell as many as we can make. Now we’re waiting to see if it’ll still be as popular when the movie leaves theaters,” she added.
The LEAF bars were sold in six different wrappers — strangely, there was no Data edition — each with one of seven molded chocolate designs imprinted on each bar. Our own collection, as it survives today, contains four of these designs.
The other designs from this collection included the Enterprise-E, the Vulcan lander seen at the end of the film, and one other image we’ve not been able to identify. Here’s the only image of the Vulcan landing craft we’ve been able to find:
If you have any of these other three designs, please let us know! Otherwise, tell us what you think about this First Contact oddity in the comments below!