We've seen this book cover before, Galaxy 666 by Pel Torro from 1968, but I'm having another look.
I just can't figure out which toy or model USS Enterprise the cover artist has used. It must have been an early one as the series started in 1966. It can't be the Dinky version as that first came out in 1977.
The sci-fi site SF Reviews Net laments that " Tower slapped a generic cover on the thing featuring a bad plastic knockoff toy starship Enterprise. I suspect they didn't run that one past Legal. I further suspect they didn't have a Legal to run it past."
Where there Enterprise toys and models, never mind knockoffs, in 1968? How has the artist created the orange 'lights' on the spacecraft used on the cover? they look like jelly tots!
So readers, which toy is it? Any ideas?
AMT issued a U.S.S. Enterprise model kit while the show was still in production, and in fact the AMT Enterprise was used on the show in the episodes "The Doomsday Machine" and "The Ultimate Computer" as noted here:
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(Also, the consultant who set up the deal between AMT and Star Trek wrote the book The Making of Star Trek which came out when the show was still on the air.)
Based on the timing and the absence of any other Enterprise toys in that period, the above picture pretty much has to be an AMT model.
Didn't Aurora do an Enterprise that wasn't the same as the AMT one? Could it be that, did it have the gridlines on the saucer?
ReplyDeleteCheers guys. Armed with your suggestions I had a look at Star Trek Wiki, which said that in 1966"AMT opted not to release and license their [US] Star Trek kits in foreign markets. Instead, a deal was brokered that allowed Aurora to lease the molds from AMT and produce and market the models under their own name for foreign markets". Apparently the Aurora kits didn't have lights like the US AMT originals. Sounds like it is an AMT Richard.
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