Collectible of the Week: Star Trek Command Communications Console (Mego; 1976)

I remember one birthday day in the mid-1970s, when I was seven or eight, my aunt Patty and Uncle Bob really came through with a great gift: Mego’s Star Trek Command Communications Console. 

I already owned the Star Trek walkie-talkies that the Command Communications Console interacted with, but this sizable blue hunk of plastic was a great toy because it was, essentially, the home base to call back to, or rather, the Enterprise.

This small console featured four controls or buttons, labeled “transmit,” “code key,” “Red Alert” and “Stand-by Alert.”  The Console could also “transmit voice and sound” and even featured a unique Star Trek “twin warp sound.”  There was also a mini-screen that featured flashing (and moving…) red and green lights, which always reminded me of the Lights of Zetar.

The Command Communications Console also came with a “Morse Code Indicator” so intrepid bridge personnel could send real messages to buddies out on landing party expeditions.  I still remember the orange Morse Code legend on the left side of the console, and frantically trying to remember how to accurately send messages during some games. 

Because of this experience as a kid, it gave me a good laugh in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) when Kirk, Spock and McCoy began translating a message in Morse Code from Scotty while locked in the Enterprise brig.  I figured they must have learned it from constant study of the Mego Command Communications Console.

I probably kept my beloved Command Communications Console for a good twenty years.  When I finally threw the thing away, the screen was cracked, one of the four buttons was missing, and the antenna was snapped off.  I was sorry to see the old control panel go and wish I had one in good shape that I could show Joel today.

Always on the look-out for a way to market the same toy a second time, Mego also produced a Batman Command Communications Console in the 1970s.  It was the Star Trek console, essentially, only colored gray this time, and with a giant Batman logo on top.

Below you’ll find a TV advertisement for the Star Trek Command Communications Console.