Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Star Trek Week: Whitman Frame Tray Puzzles (Whitman; 1979)


"It's Kid Tested!" blares the logo (a smiley face wearing a W-shaped crown...) for the venerable Whitman "Frame-Tray" Puzzles, a mainstay of jigsaw puzzles from the last forty years.

The frame tray puzzle format, which "develops coordination and motor control" consists of just ten pieces or thereabouts, so it's not much of a puzzle. But the art is terrific pop culture kitsch. I love this stuff...

I have in my office collection, three Frame-Tray puzzles from 1979, and  Star Trek: The Motion Picture. As you'll see from the puzzle faces, the images are not actually from the movie, but rather the TV show. The Trek logo, however, is straight from the Robert Wise-directed movie.

On the first one of these Whitman Frame-Tray puzzles, you'll see there's a Tholian ship on the view-screen. There's also a mistake: That's Spock in the command chair (I can see the pointed ears...) but he's wearing a golden jersey, not his typical blue one. 




The second Trek "Frame tray puzzle" depicted here (and noted as being from Merrigold Press...) is also my favorite of those I own. It reveals Captain James T. Kirk in a series-era space suit (seen in the third season episode "The Tholian Web") taking a space walk. An engine nacelle from the U.S.S. Enterprise is visible in the background.

He's also carrying some sort of glowing box, which I believe is the Medusan ambassador from "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" If so, he should be wearing a visor, just for safety...
The third puzzle from Trek reveals a landing party getting ready to beam down, and the crew is wearing uniforms with back packs, if I'm not mistaken. I also think that's Nurse Chapel on the platform, and there aren't that many collectibles which feature her character, so that's cool.



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