Doll-A-Day 2023 #183: Star Trek Barbie and Ken

   I know you are wondering how I'm showing you Star Trek Barbie and Ken, when quite clearly Ken's pair are beyond their best days after the fire. (In fact, they've been thrown away.)

Well this is a different pair! 

After I showed Ken's melted Star Trek set in a post on what we lost and didn't lose in the fire, a very kind reader offered to trade me her set for something she wanted. So we made the deal, and I presented these two to Ken for Father's Day. Thanks Korglady!  

  The box proclaims this set as a '30th anniversary collector edition'. 

That's the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, which premiered in 1966.

The back of the box does a good job of recreating the fake looking sets of the TV  series.

  I remember when this set came out, it was very expensive. The sticker on the box attests to that.

 Everybody thought the set would be a highly sought after collectible. That would have made sense. Barbie was still riding high at that time, and Star Trek collectors would have also wanted the set. Having two separate groups of collectors coming after something usually means it's so sought after that it becomes scarce, and therefore more valuable. I somehow splashed out that Christmas and bought one for Ken, who has always been a Star Trek, (original series), fan. But then the bottom dropped out of the Barbie Star Trek market. Right after Christmas stores marked them WAAAAYYY down. I took Ken's back and returned it. I bought it again for about $10 or $15 the same day. Stores couldn't give them away. The sets languished in stores for ages, marked down as low as $10, but no one was buying. You can still get unopened mint sets for about $10. I have no idea what went wrong with this set. It looked good, Barbie was all the rage, it had cool tiny classic accessories. It wasn't like Beanie Babies, where what usually makes things collectible just wasn't there to begin with. (Things like scarcity, small accessories that could get lost and become scarce, and delicacy. Those Beans were everywhere, had NO accessories, and nothing on them that could break or come off.) In theory, this set should have skyrocketed. Oh well.

  Although the little cardboard Captain Kirk and Spock would lead you to believe that the Ken can't possibly be Captain Kirk, that is the first thing I would have thought. (Also, the way Ken got out of the shirt so easily should tell you he must be Kirk!)

But no! Ken is a random 'commander', according to the box.

I guess he does lack the stripes to be the Captain.

  When this Ken head sculpt first started being used, everybody talked about how it looked like Tom Cruise.

  Both Barbie and Ken have the Star Fleet insignia on their uniforms.

The box says that Barbie's 'red uniform denotes her status as a member of the ship's engineering section'. 

I thought the red uniform denoted that you were going to get killed off. The character Barbie is portraying isn't specified, just a random engineering person, but with that hair style, she has to be based on Yeoman Rand.

Or Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie.

 She has the same red outfit as Yeoman Rand, and she's carrying the tricorder that Yeoman Rand often used. It's not exactly the same hairdo, but that would be pretty hard to do, and also make the doll really expensive.

  I always thought the front of Yeoman Rand's hair looked like a woven placemat. 

You have to wonder if that's where the show's hairdresser got the inspiration. It's not that far fetched an idea. After all, Star Trek The Next Generation's 'Geordi LaForge' wore a visor made from a hair accessory called a Banana Clip. It really was! Geordi was a blind character, and the visor was supposed to allow him to see. (Futuristic technology. You know.) The irony was, the banana clip blocked nearly all of actor Lavar Burton's sight, making him nearly 'blind'.

  As for that tricorder, I bet they made that out of a shoebox tape recorder!

 

Both Barbie and Ken have communicators, even if the elastic holding Barbie's has disintegrated.

It has a peg on the back so it can be held.

And the inside is actually detailed.(It's probably just a sticker. I couldn't see it well enough though.)

Ken still has his. 

I guess if they get stranded, they'll have to rely on him.

And Ken has a phaser too, but it's rocketing around loose in the box too. That elastic can't last forever.

  I'm glad I was able to replace this set. I prefer Star Trek the Next Generation, but I do like the tiny gadgets. And I'm glad Ken has his Star Trek back. Thanks again Korglady!

  Those are today's dolls. See you again tomorrow.