TrekCore: Moving on to the second year of production — one new addition in the 1989 catalog was a die-cast Ferengi Battleship to go along with the first year’s die-cast Enterprise.

Jim Fong: The Ferengi die-cast ship was first made from plastic so we could see the size and scale of the toy, and it was mounted on the Enterprise backing card so we could get a sense of how it would look in the retail packaging.

Top: The catalog image of the proposed die-cast Ferengi Battleship. Bottom: A prototype on an Enterprise backing card; the final card artwork. (Photos: Bob DiGiacomo; RebelScum forums user “phreaky_d“)

Once that was approved, the ship was prototyped as a raw, unpainted casting, and the final model was painted the same burnt orange coloring as the Ferengi ship seen on the show. There were maybe around five of these made, all of which are probably in collectors’ hands today.

TrekCore: We know those Wesley and Romulan prototype figures were sent from the Hong Kong manufacturer on were sent from China on substitute Riker and Picard, but at least a few were eventually mounted on ‘real’ card backs for the Toy Fair expos. How many of these were produced?

Jim Fong: Our Hong Kong office mounted the first prototypes on whatever cards they had available – in this case, the older Riker and Picard production cards. Once they had character-specific cards completed, they packaged additional prototypes on them and send samples to us for approval.

Top: The initial figures, shipped to the US on existing backing cards. Bottom left: The final packaging designs, with proper text and photography. Bottom right: The original design sketch for the Wesley Crusher figure. (Photos: Bob DiGiacomo, “phreaky_d”, Enrico from StarTrek-Collection.nl)

As far as production numbers go, I can’t remember – I doubt if there were more than a dozen of each made, but whatever samples survived are now in the hands of collectors.

TrekCore: Speaking of Romulans, can you tell us anything about the additional Romulan products listed on the R&D budget paperwork? 

Bob DiGiacomo: Well, you can see that several of the things listed on that budget chart don’t even have costs listed – basically, it was a wish list of products, most of which would eventually be dropped. Sometimes there may have been sketches for the different ideas or – like the radio and walkie-talkies – they may have taken off-the-shelf products and just slapped the appropriate labels onto them. They would come up with all these different ideas for things and then decide they weren’t going to happen.

The whole scenario can become very complicated. The old-fashioned sales reps were very involved with the buyers – a lot of wining and dining, stuff like that – because in the early days, all of our reps worked on commission. One guy would have Toys ‘R Us, another would have Wal-Mart; somebody else would have a chain of regional stores you might have never heard of. The sales reps were very important, because not only would they keep the buyers happy, but they’d often basically come out and tell them what products to buy! They’d tell the buyers which lines would be the “good” buys, and so forth.

Left: Budget proposals for a third wave of Romulan-based accessory toys. Right: Marc Alaimo poses for a reference photo to be used by Galoob sculptors. (Budged scan: Bob DiGiacomo; Alaimo photo via Star Trek: TNG 365)

The other important thing is that they would work to make sure the buyers knew which lines would have TV advertisements, and when the commercials would air. That was very, very important – if buyers saw that the line wouldn’t be on television, they would assume that it wasn’t prominent enough and they wouldn’t be interested in spending money on it – unless the line really took off.

At Toy Fair, we’d have all of our commercial reels playing, and we’d make sure to take copies to show directly to the buyers, and make sure they knew when the ads would be playing.

TrekCore: What can you tell us about your Toy Fair experiences?

Bob DiGiacomo: Toy Fair is run out of New York City – there are two toy buildings in Manhattan; Galoob started out in a very small showroom in the building on Broadway, and later we moved over to the main Toy Fair building.

The early show was in October – we called it pre-Toy Fair, because the main show was in February – and it took place in part of the showroom with the revolving cylindrical displays shown in some of the photos. There were twenty-four of those, stacked two high, with a large stationary display area in the middle.

A scene from the 1989 ToyFair show, featuring nearly every prototype and product. (Photos: Bob DiGiacomo)

I would usually set up the smaller regional shows on my own, although sometimes I would hire another modelmaker to help. We usually didn’t go to the expense of sending many people to the smaller shows due to the cost of the flights and hotels.

Toy Fair, though, was something different; it was a really big extravaganza. We’d have the product managers for each toy line with us at the show to train the demonstrators on all the different toys that were on display, and we would hire local modelmakers out of New York City to help out during the show as well.

In the early days, we would have an outside designer come up with the look of the showroom, which would then be approved by our marketing team – later on, our in-house packaging and design group would create the showroom concepts – but after they finished the major displays, I would come in and set up all the prototypes for the show, along whoever may have been needed from San Francisco.

Once the show started and groups would start coming through, we had these demonstrators who would learn every piece in the toy line for the buyers’ benefit. A buyer would come in, and the demonstrator would show off the line and go through the whole sales pitch.

A ToyFair endcap setup, showcasing a proposed in-store display for Galoob’s Trek line.
This photo contains the only known images of the inflatable and electronic Enterprise,
Enterprise bridge playset, and radio walkie-talkie packaging designs.
(Photo: Bob DiGiacomo)

Toy Fair would run from the crack of dawn to late into the night – and then once the day was over, we’d have to deal with repairing things that either broke down or were broken by the show attendees.

It used to be this big thing, having all these international buyers come into New York for the show, but in the later years, the show started to become a bit redundant because most of our sales were done before Toy Fair, so it was more of a party. They’d come into New York, go to restaurants, take in a play; it was more like an excuse to come into the city.

TrekCore: There was one other piece of long-rumored merchandise we wanted to ask about — a wearable VISOR accessory, like the one worn by LeVar Burton on the show. The only evidence that we’ve ever been able to find that it even existed is a photo taken at a toy auction in the late 1990s a toy auction, posted online about 15 years ago… was this a Galoob product? 

Jim Fong: Yes, that one was ours. It wasn’t as exciting to me as the playset – I think that it was just another one of those ‘filler’ products to fill out the line. When I saw the actual VISOR prop at Paramount, it was very cool, but there wasn’t really much that I could do with it to turn it into a toy with any real play value.

Left: The screen-used VISOR prop, as seen at Paramount Studios. Right: Galoob’s rather realistic prototype VISOR accessory toy. (Photos: Bob DiGiacomo, Jim Fong)

Yes, it was something to wear – so it added to the level of make-believe that would be fun – but from a design point of view, there wasn’t much for us to do. We weren’t going to add additional features that would contradict the authenticity off the product; should it have gone into production, I’m sure kids would have loved it.

I wasn’t aware that ended up at auction, but whoever has it now is lucky – they’ve got a very, very rare piece in their collection.

Bob DiGiacomo: Actually, the Trek toys at that auction all came from me! I gave Mike Herz – who ran the Whiz Bang! toy shop down in Florida – a bunch of my old stuff for that sale.

Top: A photo from the first of four 1998 toy auctions featuring Galoob prototypes. Bottom: Four print programs featuring each auction’s contents, along with sale prices. (Photo: William S. McCullars; Scans: Bob DiGiacomo)

TrekCore: Compared to the Playmates Toys license – a juggernaut which dominated the Trek landscape for most of the 1990s – the Galoob line of Next Generation toys barely lasted two years. Why do you think Galoob’s production ended so quickly? 

Jim Fong: That’s a really tough question to answer. We were all obviously disappointed when everything stopped, but I can give you my ideas about why the line was dropped.

When we first landed the Trek license, the show was brand new and hadn’t even aired – which means that we had to guess which characters would be the most popular, and which would generate the most interest from consumers.

In other words, we had to figure out how many of each figure (Data, Geordi, Worf, etc.) to include in each shipment, using only our instincts and Paramount-provided show information. This is risky, because if we decide that Riker, for example, will be more popular than Geordi – and we’re wrong – that will impact sales. If we guess incorrectly, and it turns out that we made too many Riker figures and not enough Geordi toys – causing sales to slow down – then buyers begin to hesitate when it comes to carrying the line for a second year, causing the whole line to be in danger of cancellation.

When Galoob was producing Next Generation toys, the show was brand new, so there was a lot of guesswork that went into deciding what products we should do. We tried a little bit of this, a little bit of that, never really committing to any of the offerings; in the end, we may have been a bit too timid.

A 1989 Intergalactic Trading Company ad offering a “free Bearded Riker” with purchase. These figures were hand-customized by the ITC staff with a black marker as a way to unload a supply of extra Riker figure inventory due to lack of sales.

We were such a small company, and it would have been a massive risk to bet everything on the Trek line – if we lost the bet, we would have suffered greatly. That’s why the line wasn’t so extensive at launch, and why we didn’t have a real show of force that would have told the world we were confident and committed to the Star Trek brand.

Bob DiGiacomo: The other issue may have been the royalty costs. For licensed items, royalties can be very high; I think that the Star Trek license was somewhere around 10% – and they’d write the licenses so many different ways, and after a set period of time things would have to be renegotiated. I know that the Star Wars license was brutal – Galoob used to pay like a 17% royalty on that!

Sometimes we would end up losing money when it came to dealing with Toys ‘R Us or Wal-Mart – Toys ‘R Us was big, but Wal-Mart really became the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the marketplace. They first beat up Toys ‘R Us in sales, then they went after everybody else. Wal-Mart would tell us to do something and everybody would jump through hoops to get it done.

Because Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R Us were the big national players, they could sell the toys at a loss to get people to come into the store for the deal – these “loss leaders” would then hopefully get those customers to buy other products while they were at the store to make up the cost difference. The smaller competitors couldn’t match those discounts, so they often wouldn’t renew their orders for the second run of the toy line.

Marketing would have to figure out the costs, and they could easily end up deciding that the numbers just wouldn’t work.

Jim Fong: I suppose that it’s possible that what we designed just wasn’t good, but I hate to think that; we did the best we could with the limited resources we had. We gave it our all, but it didn’t pan out the way we hoped – but I’m hoping that the people who actually bought the toys enjoyed them and had fun playing with them.

Personally, I think that Playmates did a terrific job with the Trek toys. By the time they took over the Next Generation line, the show had matured and had become a much more established series, which is a huge benefit for any toy company. It allowed their designers to have a better understanding of which characters the audiences like, Nielson ratings, fan-favorite episodes, the most-feared enemies… there’s just a much larger canvas to work with.

Just a sampling of the massive Trek catalog of figures released by Playmates Toys.

TrekCore: We really can’t thank the two of you enough for all the information you provided while we worked to put this series together – there’s been so much speculation and conflicting information out there about the Galoob toys, and we’re glad to have had the chance to set the record straight on how things really went down back in 1988. 

Jim Fong: It’s shocking to think that twenty-five years have gone by already, but it’s nice to know that people are still interested in our Star Trek toys after all these years. Trek gave me a chance to visit Paramount and ILM, and meet behind-the-scenes people – some of which I’m still friends with today.

I know that there’s a lot of nebulous information floating about on the Internet; I think it’s important to get as many details as accurate as possible before everybody forgets everything. I’ve already forgotten so much, but we’re lucky to have so many images preserved for posterity.

This will likely be the definitive series on the Galoob’s Star Trek toys – all of us had a blast working on the Next Generation line, and I’m hoping that fans continue to enjoy the work we did long after we’re gone, as the toys continue to be sold and traded on the collector market.It’s much like Captain Kirk’s final monologue in The Undiscovered Country: “…this ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew; to them and to their posterity will we commit our future.”

I hope that as time goes by, new generations of collectors will look at our old product line and find an appreciation for the work and care that we put into it. A little part of me will always be in those toys, and I’m honored, humbled, and privileged to have had a chance to work on the Trek line with some of the most talented designers, modelmakers, and marketers ever. The Galoobians may be split apart today, but we’ll always be a family.

< Part I: Launching the Next Generation of Trek Toys · Part II: Abandoned Artifacts

TrekCore: The Galoob license was cancelled during the production of the 1989 line of toys, and several planned products never made it to stores. Some were only advertised to retailers, while others actually made it to publicly released cross-sell listings on the action figure backing cards – if things were so shaky when the first-year toys were released, why was a second year of releases planned?

Jim Fong: Toy companies take a big risk every time they release a new product, with no idea if the response will be good or not. We put out the first season of toys, and because it takes about a year to go from concept to production, we have to start on the second season right away – even though the first year’s sales haven’t solidified yet, because if they become red-hot sellers, we’ll have something in the production pipeline to show to retailers.

We basically stopped in the middle of the second year’s production. Consequently, the cancelled toys only survived in bits and pieces, and they never really made it out of the prototype stage.

TrekCore: Well, let’s talk about some of those cancellations. The Next Generation poster produced for the Cheerios contest (and the enclosed insert that came with the mail-away Enterprise) listed a number of different toys that never made it to stores.

Jim Fong: The walkie-talkie set and the FM radios were just “filler” products – in other words, they were standard walkie-talkies and radios, just with the Star Trek logo on the label. They’re simple products, and they give kids a chance to communicate just like an Away Team, but in the end, they were never released.

Two FM radios prepared for catalogs; a pair of walkie-talkie units with commbadges. (Photos: Bob DiGiacomo)

TrekCore: What about this ‘electronic’ Enterprise? Playmates eventually put out light-up ship toys with built-in sound chips, but it was a surprise to find out that Galoob had one in the works.

Jim Fong: This is a toy that really nobody knows about – and as far as I know, no other photos exist online. The electronic Enterprise had a grip which you could hold, and it made some flyby sounds while you “flew” the ship around. A prototype model was built, but it didn’t go any further.

One of the last remaining images of the hand-held electronic Enterprise toy.

TrekCore: The ‘flying’ Enterprise has always been an intriguing item. The design is really interesting – a Frisbee-style disc with an attached paper aft section, which trailed behind the disc in flight.

Jim Fong: This one was so odd, and because it was never released, I’m sure that many people don’t know about it. There may still be a few of these out in the wild, but not very many. We obviously cut the steel for it, designed the packaging, and were ready to hit the ‘Go’ button for production, but I don’t really know what happened with this. It’s possible that the time we got to it the whole Trek line was on the decline and they decided not to pursue it any further – that being said, I think the concept is an interesting one and certainly still has potential.

The flying Frisbee-style Enterprise toy. (Photo: Paul Combs)

TrekCore: We asked one of the senior Star Trek art department staff about this, and were told that it was “one of the coolest prototypes we ever saw… it really did fly pretty well.”

Bob DiGiacomo: You know the expression, “Throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks?” Well, the catalogs are just full of different products the general public never hears about; things that were just never produced. You’re always behind the curve in the toy business. You can build prototypes, produce commercials, and cut steel for manufacturing, but if the buyers aren’t interested, all of that work just goes into the trash.

Left: The foam mock-up used in the first sales catalog. Right: The planned retail packaging for the flying Enterprise. (Mock-up: Bob DiGiacomo; Packaging: Jim Fong)

If you look at that initial catalog image for the flying Enterprise, I actually made that mock-up – it’s made out of foam, and if you look closely there’s actually a crack in the model – but the final version wasn’t like that. It was a regular Frisbee disc with a very thin piece of plastic on a pivot that would trail behind it in flight.

TrekCore: We have to ask you about this mysterious ‘inflatable’ Enterprise. It was listed on the Cheerios poster, and then again on the die-cast Enterprise backing card – but even in the 1988 Galoob dealers’ catalog, it was only described in text.

Bob DiGiacomo: I’m not really sure who made that prototype, but it’s possible that it was shopped out to someone over in Hong Kong.

Jim Fong: When you first asked me about this, I had to go double-check that we even made it.  It’s not even a toy as we know it, just a big piece of blow-up vinyl – it was just awful, I must have wiped it out of my mind!

I think that it would probably have worked best as like a “swimming pool” Enterprise – you know, something to toss around in the water – but it wasn’t my favorite item. The artwork on the prototype was just done with a marker, but if it had gone into production, we would have done “real” graphics for it to make it look a lot nicer.

The “awful” inflatable Enterprise prototype, never produced for stores. Bob DiGiacomo can be seen in the background (in striped shirt) in the right photo. (Photos: Bob DiGiacomo)

Often times, we tried all sorts of oddball things that don’t end up making it – it made sense conceptually, but once you make a mock-up, it can become pretty clear that it may not be such a good idea after all.

Bob DiGiacomo: You never know what the marketing people were thinking. A lot of times, they were just so frantic to win over a buyer; if they only had sketches, buyers would think that they weren’t serious and wouldn’t be able to deliver the products down the line. They would want to see real commitment – not just an Enterprise toy, but action figures, playsets, and concepts for future products – so the marketing team basically had to spill blood to show buyers they were serious.

TrekCore: What about these paper dioramas (or as they were advertised, the “action environments”)? While they’re artistically impressive, they don’t look too sturdy – is that why they were cancelled?

Jim Fong: Those cardboard dioramas were supposed to be a way to get the products out quickly and inexpensively. Nobody on staff was a paper fabrication and assembly specialist, so we had to outsource it to someone who specialized in that kind of design and construction. In the end, I think that we knew it wasn’t going to be durable enough to handle the stresses of a kid stomping on it.

The first version of the action environment playsets. (Photos: Jim Fong)

Our first foam-core-and-cardboard mock-up was pretty basic – bridge on top, a planet surface on the bottom – all held together with hot glue. Later, we tried to separate them so they could be sold as independent units to be combined into a larger and more expansive environment.

The redesigned action environment playsets, from original sketch to production. (Photos: Jim Fong and Bob DiGiacomo)

The other thing we did was make each diorama a different color scheme, with deep browns on the bridge to evoke the warmth of human interaction, cooler blues of technology on the engine and transporter environments, and hot reds of an alien planet surface.

Top: The action environments, as advertised in sales catalogs. (Photo: Paul Combs)
Bottom: The only remaining image of the playset retail packaging. (Photo: Bob DiGiacomo)

I remember that one of our in-house designers became very frustrated with them, due to the fact that they had all these tabs – he had a mess of a time lining everything up to fit properly. Personally, I didn’t like it because I wanted a toy made of nice molded plastic to match the lines on the Paramount sets.

TrekCore: Speaking of nice molded plastic, let’s get to what is probably the biggest loss of the ’88 line – that large Enterprise bridge playset. Could you walk us through how that was created?

Jim Fong: Well, actually, that image in the catalog isn’t how it was first designed. My original goal was to have the bridge toy modeled after the actual set; I wanted to replicate the bridge as closely as possible without the usual toyetic distortions. “Toyetic” is an industry term that refers to the normal toy look of a playset, with out-of-scale proportions – here I was aiming for the bridge playset to be a miniature replication of the Paramount set.

The first configuration of the bridge playset, based on the Paramount set. (Photos: Jim Fong)

The initial bridge model received only a lukewarm response. My boss felt that it just wasn’t toyetic enough, so we had to go back and try again, redesigning the bridge to have more toylike proportions and features – so we ended up with this ‘all-in-one’ design putting as many features on the bridge as possible.

The unpainted prototype of the first molded-plastic ship playset. Note the size of the die-cast Enterprise toy for a size comparison. (Photos: Jim Fong)

TrekCore: The first all-plastic prototype may be more toyetic, but all that added detail is wonderful, like the cargo bay area, and having sickbay right there on the bridge!

Jim Fong: I think it’s still strange to have sickbay included on the bridge, but we had to cram all of that stuff in there because we weren’t going to have any more plastic to work with – luckily, we didn’t have to fit an alien planet surface in there as well, because that would have just been too much. I mean, can you imagine having a planet area on the bridge? You’d never have to beam anybody down to fight the aliens!

The advantage of having a pure design is that the proportions are more true to the movie set and it looks better. However, since I’m going for aesthetic authenticity, I was unable to put the transporter feature in there. I can’t remember all the details, but I think my boss wanted a transporter built into the neck of the ship, so we redesigned it again.

Top: The catalog image and final release of the separable die-cast Enterprise-D. Bottom: Packaging revision notes from Paramount’s licensing department. (Photos: Jim Fong and Bob DiGiacomo)

The final iteration of the playset has the added play features, but suffers aesthetically with that cylinder in the neck of the ship. Even today, seeing pictures of that big transporter hump makes me cringe at the styling – but I suppose it’s a trade-off, because it certainly made for better play value as kids could transport on and off of the Enterprise.

TrekCore: Did both versions of the plastic playset separate?

Jim Fong: I think so; Paramount had mentioned to use that the saucer was going to separate from the rest of the ship in the series. It also just made more sense to have the pieces molded separately – it was more manageable for production, and we would have had problems with both manufacturing and expenses if we had tried to mold it as one large piece.

The separable second version of the bridge playset.

Since we were going to have to split them up in the molds anyway, it was logical to have the saucer separate as a built-in feature – it was consistent with what we knew of how the ship would function on the show. That hole in the top of the battle section was intended as an easy way to retrieve figures that may have “beamed” off of the ship – you transport them away, and then you just pull them out of the top opening.

TrekCore: So, what happened to it? It seems like it would be the perfect accessory to go with the ten action figures that made it to stores.

Jim Fong: The concept suffered from the same fate as the flying Enterprise – toys and toy lines are usually cancelled due to a lack of interest from retailers, or high production costs. Usually, if the first wave of toys doesn’t meet sales expectations, it’s a bad omen for second year toy line.

The final design of the bridge playset, as advertised. (Photo: Paul Combs)

It’s a real shame, because by the time the second year comes around, toy companies can usually know which characters and toys are more popular than others, allowing us to target production to meet customer interests. For the Next Generation line, it just didn’t work out that way – and I was very sad to see the line dropped.

< Part I: Launching the Next Generation of Trek Toys · Part III: End of the Line > 

As Star Trek: The Next Generation was ramping up production, San Francisco-based Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc., was awarded the merchandising license for the revived series, which allowed Galoob to become the sole source of TNG-based action figure and accessory toys at the start of the series.

Though the Galoob line was unfortunately a commercial failure, cut down after the first year of production – only fourteen of the nearly thirty planned products ever made it to store shelves.

Our initial research online led to several partial accounts of these toys, most of which have conflicting (or flat-out speculative) information included in the reports, but we wanted the real story behind the Galoob line: to learn about how each item was decided upon, and the truth behind all the cancelled products which to this day have only appeared in grainy photographs or low-resolution images on the Internet… and some of which have never appeared online at all, even in a passing mention.

This series has been in the works for the past four months, and has consisted of dozens of emails, photographs, message board postings, and phone calls to bring a full and accurate account of Galoob’s products to Trek fans, just in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of its release. Helping us in this task are two former Galoob employees: illustrator Jim Fong, and modelmaker Bob DiGiacomo (occasionally seen online as “TOYSTUF”), both of which played instrumental roles in getting the Galoob Next Generation line to store shelves.

The majority of images included in this multi-part series were provided by Jim and Bob, who both have many fascinating photos and documents in their archives. We must also credit Paul Combs of MegoCollector.com and Enrico from StarTrek-Collection.nl, both of whom provided several vital images for use in this project. Thanks a lot, guys!

TrekCore: What was your role at Galoob, and how did you get involved with the Next Generation line of toys?

Jim Fong: Around 1985, I was hired by Galoob as a senior designer to design boys’ toys. I had a background in more traditional industrial design; before Galoob, I worked for various large corporations and consulting firms in Silicon Valley.

Bob DiGiacomo: I had worked at Ideal Toys many years ago. When one of the principals from Ideal – Saul Jodel, who did a lot of Ideal’s marketing work – moved out to work at Galoob in California, he brought in several former Ideal people like me when the company started to show some promise. At the time, Galoob was looking to go more promotional, and I was hired to start up the model shop in San Francisco. Before I got there, they probably only had a hammer, a screwdriver, and a couple of cans of spray paint.

Jim Fong: When we got the Galoob license, I was thrilled – the 1966 Star Trek show was such a big part of my life. I was too young to fully comprehend all the nuances of the series when it originally aired, but when the show went into syndication, I was older and certainly understood all of the show’s political and social messages.

Jim Fong explores the corridors of the Enterprise-D during “Farpoint.”
(Photo: Jim Fong)

I had a boss who knew that I was a Trek fan, so he sent me down to Paramount to meet with the show’s art department, to visit the Next Generation sets, and to take reference photos for use in our product design – all before the show began to air on television.

Visiting the studio was a very exciting experience! I had a chance to walk around all of the sets, guided by a Paramount representative and accompanied by an electrician who activated all of the lighting so we could see the bridge and transporter room  so I could take a close look at all of the on-set graphics and consoles.

They were filming “Encounter at Farpoint” while I was on the lot – I even got to see Michael Bell taking a break, eating a candy bar in his full Groppler Zorn wig and costume. Even as an alien, there were still some earthly delights!

Visiting the Transporter Room and Battle Bridge sets. (Photos: Jim Fong)

I remember making the Paramount rep nervous when we visited the transporter room. I was like a kid in a candy store, and I just needed to step up and try to beam back to San Francisco… but if I caused any damage, he would have been responsible! I convinced him to let me get on the transporter and take a photo, and I discovered that it wasn’t quite as sturdy as I expected – the floor was made of a large plexiglass sheet, and there was a lot of flexibility to it. The platform squeaked in discomfort as I walked across it, but it was great to be able to stand there and be part of history.

The rest of the sets were pretty amazing to see as well. I got to sit in the captain’s chair and feel what it was like to be in command of a starship, and really felt that everything was built with extreme quality – high-quality construction, excellent materials… not just cardboard and scotch tape.

The forward section of the Bridge set, and a view of a cluttered Ready Room. (Photos: Jim Fong)

In addition to the Paramount lot, I also traveled to Industrial Light & Magic, where the six-foot Enterprise-D model was being prepared for use in the show’s pilot episode. That visit was just as exciting, since I love to build models myself, and they had many of the filming models from my favorite movies on display.

The Enterprise model was beautifully crafted, and it looked great – the team at ILM had it mounted for motion-control work, and it looked like they were working on some flyby test footage. I also got to meet Greg Jein, one of Trek’s number-one fans, who was working on the models at the time.

The six-foot Enterprise-D model mounted for motion-control filming at ILM. (Photos: Jim Fong)

It was an honor and a privilege for me to be there on the set, and to work on a project like Trek which I’ve loved since I was a kid. Galoob was not a big company, and we didn’t have the clout or scale of some of the larger competitors like Mattel and Hasbro – but we were all thrilled when we got the Trek license, and we made sure to do the best we could with the very limited resources available to us.

TrekCore: From a design perspective, what would you look for when you examined the Trek stages and props in person? How did you translate them from full-size sets and models into the final Galoob products?

Jim Fong: I worked hard to bring a sense of authenticity to the toys, to match the set or prop to the toy in exact detail and size. I would have taken the actual thing and shrunk it down to toy-sized dimensions if I could, but as an industrial designer, I am torn between keeping it authentic to the original while still maintaining a toy-style design to the product.

A look at the aft section of the Bridge set. Note the rarely-seen “Propulsion Ops” and “Emergency Manual Control” consoles, removed after Season One. (Photos: Jim Fong)

On the sets, I would look for whatever could offer the best play features and visual impact – so that meant that the most action would be on the bridge and the transporter room, a planet surface would be good for confrontations with hostile aliens, etc. I also made sure to have the bridge, hallway, and engineering consoles lit up so that we could get the label art correct.

TrekCore: Could you talk a bit about the design process, and how things worked with Galoob’s manufacturer in China?

Jim Fong:  For the character-based figures, I took a few reference photos while visiting the sets, but Paramount ended up supplying us better pictures of the actors in their uniforms for our use. These shots were sent to our sculptors so that they could be as accurate as possible when they would do their work.

Reference photos of Denise Crosby. (via Star Trek: TNG 365)

Close-up photos were very useful, because it allowed the artists to focus on the faces to match the end product to the live actor – but obviously, the sculpt likeness is only as good as the sculptor, so a bad artist can still get the look very wrong even when they have the best photos to work from. Today’s toys are much more accurate to the actor they’re modeled from, due to digital scanning processes which reduce the need for traditional sculpting work.

The action figures: the six Starfleet characters were released in May 1988;
the aliens followed in August. (Catalog image: Paul Combs)

Once the characters were sculpted and casting molds were made, production samples would be hand-painted and FedEx’d to us for review. Those samples would also be provided to Paramount for their approval, and additional sets would be sent to our sales team.

TrekCore: How much did the domestic model shop get involved at this point?

Bob DiGiacomo: We would do some R&D stuff in-house, and we’d bounce around ideas that had been submitted by different inventors, but most of the model work was done in Hong Kong – the sales samples and so forth. There were things going in and out to our Galco subsidiary in Hong Kong like every day, so if there was something that we could do to avoid a shipment – change a color, or adjust some mechanism – we’d do it locally.

What we mostly did was support the sales team. I would do all the television commercials and toy shows, and we’d have special showings for bigger clients.

TrekCore: For the major retailers?

Bob DiGiacomo: Yes, the retailers. We would travel to their offices and show them the different toy lines we were offering. Galoob was still pretty small back then, and we hadn’t really proved ourselves to the industry yet – so we had a lot of running around to do!

TrekCore: What about the other toys – the Galileo shuttlecraft, the Ferengi fighter, the Phaser, and the die-cast Enterprise?

Jim Fong: Well, for the non-figure toys, we had to create a rendering of how we envisioned the final products, with play features. Usually, it was just a general marker sketch or line drawing. If these were approved by both Galoob management and Paramount, we’d move on to do more complete illustrations called “control drawings”.

Dealer catalog listings for the shuttlecraft Galileo and Ferengi Fighter play models, along with images of the final retail releases. (Catalog images: Paul Combs)

You have to keep in mind that this was being done before computers were part of the process, so everything was completed by hand. The control drawings were technical drawings with different views of the toys and their play features, the number of parts involved, component sizes, etc. Some people would put in fully-measured dimensions of each part of the toy; others would just label the drawings with a general height, width, and depth and let the crew in Hong Kong deal with the rest.

When everything was ready, we’d send a “turnover package” to the Hong Kong office, which included the control drawings, reference photos, cost projections, production numbers, and color specifications and paint guidelines – along with a complete written description of how the toy was expected to function and any additional business verbiage needed to complete the package.

The Type I Phaser, the only electronic toy that made it to store shelves. (Catalog image: Paul Combs)

Once the package made it to Hong Kong, they then worked with local vendors who were tasked with making us a “Looks Like / Works Like” model. This would be made to look just like our control drawings, with working features as the toy was designed. Once the LLWL models were completed, they were then overnighted back to us for review before we passed it on to Paramount for their approval.

At that point, we worked to refine the production costs, and once that was completed, we’d have a better understanding of the product’s sales potential. We’d also use the model for sales presentations to retailers – our sales team would show off the model, the features, the packaging, and lay out the retailer costs.

Those LLWL models were also used by our packaging designers, which is why the first generation of toys have photographs of prototype designs printed in catalogs and on the rear packaging “cross sell” area, highlighting all the available Trek toys we had to offer. Only later – as we go into production (and if the toy is carried over to the following year) – will we re-shoot the product photo with the retail toy and update the packaging.

Top: The catalog image and final release of the separable die-cast Enterprise-D. Bottom: Packaging revision notes from Paramount’s licensing department. (Catalog image: Paul Combs; Paramount scan: Bob DiGiacomo)

After all that preparation is complete – and if we have a retailer interested in selling the line – we would then cut steel at the factories and start the injection-mold process for final production. Once the molds are prepared, a quick-and-dirty injection-mold sample is sent to us for approval.

For those samples, the factories would generally use whatever plastic they have in their machines, which means that we’d often get oddly-colored toys: purple and green action figures, pink spaceships, that kind of thing. They weren’t intended to be sold with the strange coloring – though I understand that these prototype samples are highly sought after by toy collectors – but they allowed the Hong Kong engineers to test all the molded pieces, to work out any bugs in the manufacturing process before they go to final production.

Multicolored test mold parts for the aborted Wesley Crusher and Romulan figures.
(Photo: Jim Fong)

Bob DiGiacomo: I was able to get to the Hong Kong area a few times, once for an international toy show. Sometimes I would go into one of the factories to see how things were being handled, which was kind of interesting, but it could make you a little crazy – most of the people working there had only very basic skills. I’d have to correct how they were doing something, and then turn around five minutes later and it was being done the wrong way again!

TrekCore: Let’s take a look at some of the figures that in that first-year lineup. One of the common collector questions deals with the four Data designs that were released, all with different paint jobs on the character’s face. Was this a manufacturing problem, or were there other reasons for the different color schemes?

Jim Fong: The issue was definitely not on the manufacturing side; it was that we were trying to nail down what his face should actually look like!

The many faces of Lieutenant Commander Data.

Of the different looks, I can’t remember which version went into production first – but I do remember being unhappy with the Data face paint, and requested that they change it to be more accurate with the character.

We tried several times to get the Hong Kong production team to correct the coloring, but when production is literally half a world away,  it just turned into a bigger mess with each attempt. I’m still not happy with the way the figure turned out, and I’d do it all over if I had the chance.

TrekCore: The Q figure is an odd one. It’s missing the bright red judges’ robes worn by the character, but includes his red gloves, gold chains, and tall hat included. Was there any particular reason the robes weren’t part of the figure design?

Jim Fong: There may have been some minor poseability issues – I can’t remember for sure – but I know that if we had decided to mold in the red robe, we’d not only need more plastic, but it would also require an additional paint spray operation. Adding more resin and more paint would have impacted the landed price of the toy, so that’s probably why it wasn’t included.

‘Judge Q’ and his plastic counterpart, without the bright red robes.

TrekCore: Galoob advertised Wesley Crusher and Romulan officer figures for the second year releases – which we’ll get into a bit later – rather than completing the main cast.  Were there ever any plans to produce Beverly Crusher or Deanna Troi figures to fill out the Starfleet lineup?

Bob DiGiacomo: Historically, boys weren’t interested in buying female action figures. I mean, there were all the sexy girls from comic books boys would buy – Mattel had a big hit with She-Ra, and Galoob had a line called Golden Girls, but those lines were directed at girls – but because the girls didn’t really sell for us, we would never put them in as part of the first year releases.

Jim Fong: I can’t recall if we ever talked about doing Crusher or Troi – in fact, I can’t really remember why we did Tasha Yar and none of the other female characters. It may have been because Yar was head of security, and presumably that meant she would feature in more action sequences on the show.

Bob DiGiacomo: Tasha Yar was a kick-ass girl, so she was truly an ‘action’ figure – she was prominent in the show, she was tough…

Jim Fong: We had to take a guess which of the characters would be involved in more of the action scenes than others and our guess was that Wesley would be one of those characters.  Had the line survived for more than its short run, I’m completely confident that we would have made figures of Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi to go with the previously-released toys.

Fan-made Troi and Crusher figures, created using the Yar figure as a base.

Bob DiGiacomo: Yes, if things continued, it would have been an obvious move to include the other women, along with different aliens and so forth. You would always look for different ways to extend the line – eventually, you’d put Character X into a different outfit, Picard in an alien costume, that sort of thing.

Jim Fong: Unfortunately, though, year two is when casualties usually hit a toy line. For the first year, we produced toys based on the limited information from the Paramount. If you look at the first year’s Next Generation toys, we didn’t just offer the Enterprise crew, but we also wanted to have aliens and villains to fill out the product line. We wanted to vary the figure offerings to that there would be more play value to the toys – humans vs. aliens; good guys vs. bad guys.

We needed this information nearly a year before the toys were released in the summer of 1988, but because Paramount only had a limited number of episodes to draw from when we got started, there was very little “bad guy” information available.

Left: A preliminary mold of the Ferengi figure’s head. Right: A price list, in US dollars, for prototype production covering the first six figures as well as several ship toys and other playsets, several of which were never released. (Ferengi photo: Jim Fong; Galoob scan: Bob DiGiacomo)

Like I said earlier, they were only up to production on “Encounter at Farpoint” when I visited the studio, which is why the Season One aliens (Q, the Ferengi, the Anticans, and the Selay) were all from the early part of the first season of the show.

By the time we began the Season Two line, we knew that the Romulans were going to become more active villains in the series, which is why they were designed for the second year of releases. We had to move a lot more cautiously with the second round of toys, though, because the Season One sales were soft.

Part II: Abandoned Artifacts · Part III: End of the Line >