Monday, March 16, 2009

The Star Trek Happy Meal: To Boldly Burp Where No Fan Has Gone Before

Star Trek Happy Meals: To boldly burp where no fan has gone before...Having watched the original series since my early childhood one of my early disappointments in life was the 1979 film Star Trek: The Motion Picture: You have to understand for me this was like Beatles getting back together again, but then producing a bad disco album. So it’s not surprising that I’ve blocked most of my memories associated with that “film” out of mind. But one thing that that the Paramount marketing dept. got right was the merchandising, and in this case I had forgotten that fast food giant McDonald’s had created a series of Star Trek themed Happy Meals to coincide with the film. Shown above and below are commercials that promoted fast food for Star Fleet officers in training.

Star Trek Happy Meals: To boldly burp where no fan has gone before... Each Star Trek Happy Meals box art included comic strips and trading cards that you could cut out. The comic strip artwork was by illustrator Ron Villani who had quite a bit of fun with his subject matter:

Star Trek McDonalds Happy Meal comic strips: 1979 Box features: Kirk, Klingons, Klingon cruisers are destroyed by an energy burst from a giant cloud.

Star Trek McDonalds Happy Meal comic strips: 1979 Box features: Kirk, Klingons, Klingon cruisers are destroyed by an energy burst from a giant cloud.

Star Trek McDonalds Happy Meal comic strips: 1979 Box features: Spock, Federation The crew of Station Epsilon 9 witness the destruction of Klingon ships by a cloud headed for Earth

Star Trek McDonalds Happy Meal comic strips: 1979 Box features: Spock, Federation The crew of Station Epsilon 9 witness the destruction of Klingon ships by a cloud headed for Earth

But best of all each Happy Meal included a special toy communicator which included a comic strip that you could scroll through:

Star Trek Video Communicator: Star Trek Happy Meal Toy

Original here

1 comment:

John Thompson said...

Hi,
I'm writing a book about Star Trek, and wish to include a photo of yours. Might you (or anyone else) possibly email me a hi-rez image (300dpi) of the third listed Happy Meal box?? It would be GREATLY appreciated!
THANKS for your time, Steve absteve@hotmail.com