Playmates Toys
Playmates Toys, a subsidiary of Playmates Holdings Ltd. of Hong Kong, China, is an American toy manufacturer based in Costa Mesa, California. Founded in 1966, the company produced a large number of licensed Star Trek action figures, vehicles, and play accessories between  and 2022.

Star Trek licensing 

Playmates' Star Trek lines launched in the fall of 1992 with the release of a series of action figures based on . Nearly the entire  crew was represented, plus Gowron, a Ferengi, a Borg, and a Romulan. Role-playing items included a type 2 phaser and communicator, while a shuttlecraft was produced for the figures. A model of the Enterprise-D was also released. The line was quite successful and another wave of TNG figures, accessories, and vehicles were produced in the fall of 1993 along with a special boxed set of all seven of ' major crew members.

The 2018 "Star Trek" episode of the Netflix documentary The Toys That Made Us, credited Playmates for being the first company to actually and successfully find their target market by appealing to both the hardcore fans, yearning for accuracy, but also to kids, contrary to their immediate predecessors Ertl Company and Galoob. Former Playmates Senior VP of Marketing Karl Aaronian understood that they "(...)had to appeal to those hardcore fans, otherwise you don't have anything," elaborating, "With Star Trek, you have a fanatical following who notices every little detail." So Playmates planned for detailed accurate products with play features in service of that goal, greatly aided by the fact that the company's chief action figure sculptor, Steve Varner, was a "Trekkie" himself. It paid off, at a time when, as per Aaronian, "timing was everything" as "the audience had really reached its maximum size and was hungry for product", the Playmates releases became the "biggest and most successful Star Trek line ever."

 debuted in 1994 and was followed by more Playmates TNG characters and a toy line for the feature film, .  figures arrived in 1995, as did more TOS, TNG and DS9 items. By 1996, the separate lines were all consolidated under a single "Star Trek" banner, excepting releases that were based on  and .

In 1995, Playmates' video game division called Playmates Interactive Entertainment released Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Crossroads of Time for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System platforms. 

The founders of Art Asylum designed Playmates' nine-inch Alien Combat Series figures when they were starting out as a design house. Michael Dorn stated that the unreleased Klingon Warrior Worf figure from this line was his favorite representation of the character. 

Nonetheless, the license's popularity had begun to decline by 1998. By 1999, the number of items produced by Playmates had dwindled and its limited releases were reduced to being offered to the public exclusively through individual retailers. Karl Aaronian also went on record with his explanation for the rather surprising decline of their hitherto popular Star Trek toy lines. Even though there were other issues at play for the diminishing appeal of the overall franchise as well at the time (See: Demise of "The Franchise" in the prime universe), Aaronian himself blamed the decline of their Star Trek toy lines primarily to their error in judgement by introducing "Limited Edition" and "Retail Exclusives" releases, the 1996 "1701 Series" in particular, a business practice euphemistically called "market discrimination" and one that is particularly loathed by fans in general, and Star Trek fans in particular. "It also truly pissed the fans off," conceded Aaronian, "Because if you're a completest and you're not able to find one of those, you feel incomplete." Belatedly realizing that Playmates had underestimated the passion of Star Trek collectors, and faced with sharply declining sales as they almost overnight stopped collecting, Playmates bumped up production runs of their "1701 Series" to no avail; they had lost the market. (The Toys That Made Us) On 17 September 1999, Playmates' Star Trek lines were formally cancelled.  

In Europe, the company's 1990s releases were distributed by Bandai.

In January 2008, it was reported that Playmates would be creating a toy line for J.J. Abrams'  film.  This new line of figures, vehicles, and role-playing items was launched in April 2009. 

A second wave was slated for release in late 2009 but was subsequently pushed back to the spring of 2010 before finally being cancelled. Citing disappointing sales, Playmates' Star Trek licensing concluded (for this period) at the end of 2009. The company had also expressed some interest in acquiring toy licensing for the film's sequel,  but this did not materialize.

On , the company and ViacomCBS Consumer Products jointly announced that Playmates had acquired licensing for "action figures, vehicles and ships, role play and other toy categories", and slated the first of these new products for retail release in 2022. Among other Star Trek series and films, this licensing encompasses , , , and .

Interactions with Star Trek productions
In one of the concept illustrations for the Borg sphere dated January 1996, and designed for , John Eaves hid the names of his wife Diane and his two daughters, Olivia and Alicia, among the extremely intricate outer details. He added, "What's funny about this is that Playmates put out a toy Borg sphere which just happens to contain the first initial of everyone's name." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, pp. 205 & 215)

For First Contact, John Eaves used the 1994 Playmates  toy (no. 6172), the only refit- model commercially available at the time, to construct the golden display models of the ships seen in the display case in the observation lounge of the . He filled one of them up with solid resin, made castings from it for additional copies, and had them all gold-plated.  The models seen in their later reappearance in  were constructed from the by-then available AMT model kits of the refit-class.

The "Design-an-Alien" contest was promoted on some Playmates Star Trek toy packaging and offered a fan the chance to appear as an alien extra in an episode of Deep Space Nine. John Paul Lona won the role of a Rasiinian Ambassador named Runepp and appeared in .

 Visual Effects Producer Dan Curry used parts of Playmates' Borg action figures to create the "pile" of Borg corpses seen in . In the "Red Alert: Amazing Visual Effects" documentary on the VOY Season 3 DVD release, Curry complimented the sculptors of the toys for their accuracy since he was able to shoot close-ups of the Borg figures' faces without further modifications.

In , the young Annika Hansen character sometimes played with a model of a Borg cube that belonged to her father. This model was actually a modified 1994 Playmates Borg cube (No. 6158).

Ezri Dax was the only main cast member (from the four spinoff series made during Playmates' licensing of Star Trek) not to receive an action figure from the company. Diamond Select Toys released an Ezri figure in late .

Star Trek releases

1992 releases

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 4.5 inch figures, Assortment No. 6010 
Releases in Germany eschewed the standard blister pack used in the United States and elsewhere in Europe in favor of an enclosed box.

Role-playing, ships, playsets and accessories

1993 releases

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6070

, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6200 
All figures in this range came with a collector's card from SkyBox.

Boxed sets

Role-playing, ships, playsets and accessories

1994 releases

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6070

, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6910 
The Generations releases featured the original costume designs made for the movie. These designs were scrapped shortly and were replaced by a combination of the uniforms from TNG and DS9 before filming on the movie began, but the action figures were already in production at the time. Figures wearing the correct uniforms saw release over the following years. Unlike other Playmates figures, the Generations figures lacked articulated elbows and knees.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6950 (Part I)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 3450

Boxed sets

Role-playing, Ships, Playsets and Accessories

1995 releases

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6950 (Part II)

, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6230

Classic Star Trek Movies, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6450

, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6480

Star Trek, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6430

Role-playing, ships, playsets and accessories

1996 releases

Star Trek, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6430

Starfleet Academy, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 16000

, 6 inch figures, Asst. No. 16100 
For the first time, Playmates introduced the 6 inch toyline.

Star Trek: Voyager, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6480

Mail-away and other Exclusive Figures

Role-playing, Ships, Playsets and Accessories

Star Trek: Innerspace Series

A range of playsets "disguised" as vessels and technology from Star Trek. Two centimeter-high accessory figures were included.

Two special Innerspace Series ships were created to commemorate :

1997 releases

Star Trek (all series), 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 6430

Star Trek Warp Factor Series 1, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65100 
Featuring characters from . Some US releases contained fuzzy tribbles in addition to the hard accessories, and a "Triple Tribble" game card.

Star Trek Warp Factor Series 2, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65100

Star Trek Warp Factor Series 3, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65100

Mail-away and other exclusive figures

Role-playing, ships, playsets and accessories

Star Trek: Strike Force 

A larger, more accurate (the Enterprise-D excepted, because the saucer had to be seriously distorted to make room for the interior playset and accompanying figurines), and less stylized successor to Playmates' Innerspace Series.
Clearly an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Galoob's hugely successful "Action Fleet" toy line that featured similarly-executed ship models and playsets from the Star Wars, Alien, Predator, and Starship Troopers franchises, this line closely aped Galoob's play features and design concepts.
The line was discontinued within a year and fell far short of the sales that Galoob had enjoyed with its "Action Fleet" toy line, particularly with its Star Wars lines.

The range also featured larger playsets:

In addition, packs of "reinforcements" were produced, again in imitation of similar packs released by Galoob in their "Micro Machines"-line as complementary sets for the above-mentioned Action Fleet releases:

1998 releases

Star Trek Combat Action Series 1, 6 inch figures, Asst. No 16250

Star Trek Combat Action Series 2, 6 inch figures, Asst. No 16250

Star Trek Warp Factor Series 4, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65140

Star Trek Warp Factor Series 5, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65150 
Bele was supposedly intended to be a figure included in this release, but was removed from the line before production.

Star Trek Transporter Series, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65400 
Each figure is rendered in a part-translucent state, and come with a battery-operated, push-activated, light and sound base in the style of the appropriate transporter pad. 

All Next Generation figures were painted in an incorrect uniform style, with the colors inverted, but not in the style of the DS9/VOY uniform. Deanna Troi and Reginald Barclay were originally scheduled to be included in the range, but were not produced.

Boxed sets 
The twin packs came with diorama backing, and lacked accessories.

Mail-away and other exclusive figures

Role-playing, ships, playsets, and accessories

1999 releases 
All figures released in 1999 were store exclusives in the US, but given a general (albeit limited) release in Europe and Australia.

Star Trek Transporter Series, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65440

Starfleet Command Edition, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65800

Starfleet Command International Edition, 4.5 inch figures, Asst. No. 65840 
These two figures were originally to be part of assortment #65800, but were dropped by Target. They were still released in Europe and Australia. In total, around 4,000 units were released.

Boxed sets

Mail-away and other exclusive figures

2009 releases

Release order 
Wave 1 was released on . A second was planned to follow in several phases July-October 2009. This was initially pushed back to early , but ultimately was not released.

Galaxy Collection, 3.75 inch figures, Asst. No 61750 
Each figure comes with a bridge or transporter room playset accessory. Also, each 8 of the 10 figures comes with the Starfleet Emblem figure stand can be used as a wearable badge.

Wave 1 
For this wave, releases outside the United States do no include the playset accessories.

Wave 2 (cancelled) 
Despite the cancellation, collectors refused to get the rest of the pieces before Playmates ultimately cancelled the wave.

Also intended to be included with this wave were two Bonus packs, each containing five of the components missing from international Wave 1 release, with one figure also included in each pack.

Warp Collection, 6 inch figures, Asst. No 61600

Wave 1 

Also in this wave were Bonus two packs. The characters are Kirk & McCoy and Spock & Original Spock.

Wave 2 (cancelled)

Command Collection, 12 inch figures

Wave 1

Wave 2 (cancelled)

Role-playing, ships, playsets, and accessories

2022 Releases

Star Trek Universe, 5 inch figures, Asst. #63129/#63130

Star Trek: The Next Generation/Classic Star Trek Movie Series, 5 inch figures, Asst. #63130

Role-playing, ships, playsets, and accessories

Gallery: Playmates Electronic Starships 1992-2009

Background information

Interactions with Star Trek parody and pop culture productions
In the Star Trek parody and pop culture-referencing television sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Playmates Star Trek action figures have made an appearance on at least on two occasions. The series is centered on four science nerds who are rabid fans and collectors of Star Trek, science fiction, and comics memorabilia. The 1994 "Battle-damaged Enterprise-D" model (No. 6171) was part of the bedroom standing set of main character Howard Wolowitz, and could be seen throughout the first six seasons of the series suspended from the ceiling. Episodes wherein specific Star Trek Playmates toys made one time appearances are:
"The Nerdvana Annihilation" (Season 1, episode 14): In this episode, central character Leonard Hofstadter, weary of collecting, decided to distribute his toy collection amongst his friends. Dismayed to see them arguing and competing for choice items, Leonard threatened to rip open the packaging of a rare edition of his Geordi La Forge action figure (in collector circles, items in mint condition in their unopened original packaging are the most valued) to escape from the fracas. He warned, "Okay. I did not want to do this but, I have here the rare mint condition production error Star Trek: The Next Generation Geordi La Forge, without his VISOR, in the original packaging. If you do not get out of my way, I will open it.",  thereby alluding to a rare production error version (valued even more highly by collectors) of the already rare 1992 first release of Playmates toy No. 6015 (see below).
"The Russian Rocket Reaction" (Season 5, episode 5): In this episode, Brent Spiner (as himself) thoughtlessly ripped open a signed first edition Wesley Crusher Playmates action figure (alluded to as the 1993 edition No. 6021) which Wil Wheaton (as himself) had just given to Sheldon Cooper as a peace offering. Spiner tried to make amends by offering his Data action figure to Cooper as a replacement, but was rebuffed when his action figure was deemed to be of lesser value. This was subsequently reinforced when Cooper's friends negotiated Spiner down on the price of his action figure from twenty dollars to two for fifteen and a promise that Spiner attend a birthday party.The Star Trek items used in the series, including these Playmates action figures, were from CBS Consumer Products archive. CBS is not only the broadcaster of The Big Bang Theory, but is also the owner of the Star Trek television franchise.
The documentary reality series FanAddicts! was a television series that explored fans of motion picture franchises, those in the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres in particular, and their obsession with collecting memorabilia of said genre productions. In the 2013 episode "Star Trek" (Season 1, episode 3), American collector Mark, owning a huge Star Trek memorabilia merchandise collection, went into detail about the production errors of several Star Trek Playmates action figures, revealing that people collecting these are known in collector circles as "variant collectors".
 The history and development of the Playmates line was featured in the "Star Trek" episode of The Toys That Made Us in .

See also 
 Star Trek starship miniatures
 Star Trek model kits

External links 
  – official site
 
  – comprehensive Star Trek Playmates Toys article
  – Playmates Toys guide

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Collectible companies