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The current
figure is none other than Mr. Spock's
would-be sweetie, the almost-ex-wife of
the android Roger Korby and the main
squeeze of the "Great Bird of the
Galaxy" himself! Yes, that's right,
it's Nurse Chapel. C.C. comes complete
with a host of medical tools at her
disposal. I think they missed a bet by
not including a bowl of Vulcan Plomeek
Soup for Mr. Spock to throw at her,
however. Oh well. This was the second
character played by Ms. Roddenberry
that made it into Playmates Star Trek
line, the first being the far more
annoying Lwaxana Troi. There have been
constant rumors about the planned
release of a "Number One" figure to
accompany Captain Pike on his away
missions which would have brought her
total up to three, but it's pretty
unlikely to happen anytime in the near
future given the status of the
line.
This column's
lesson in how to speak like an action
figure collecting geek concerns the
word "peg." In this context, the peg is
the rod upon which the action figures
hang in the aisle of the store. It is
usually used in reference to action
figures sold at retail, not through a
dealer or other secondary source. For
example; "I got this <insert
favorite figure name> right off the
peg at Walmart!" or "The pegs were
picked clean within minutes of being
stocked." "Peg" is also the source for
the phrase "peg-warmer," which you'll
hear used quite a bit. A "peg-warmer"
is an action figure that nobody wants
to buy, but that retailers refuse to
pull from the aisles even after months
or years of hanging there. Admiral
McCoy (aka "Old Decrepit McCoy") is a
perfect example of this. The Duluth
Shop-Ko had about ten of these "warming
the pegs" until about a year ago.
That's nearly five years of hanging in
the aisle waiting to sell. Eventually
they went for a buck a piece. A loose
one will soon be offered at this site
as a prize. Don't miss out! My Nurse
Chapel in Standard Duty Uniform figure
was purchased right off the peg at the
K-Mart in Oelwein, IA.
The figure's
similarity to the character isn't
fantastic, but it is a decent looking
figure. In other words, it doesn't look
a lot like the actress, but it's got a
nice, well detailed face. The paint
detail is also well done, but it looks
like the "Transporter Series" version
of this figure has slightly better
detailing on the head. Unopened, this
figure will now fetch an average of
$7.00 on the secondary market. Opened
and intact, the figure will average
$3.00. Nurse Chapel features standard
articulation at the neck, shoulders,
biceps, elbows, waist, hips, and knees.
As is often the case, the articulation
at the hips is a joke, due to the
inflexibility of the figure's "skirt."
The articulation at the knees does tend
to make a figure's legs a little
"unshapely" (especially on some of the
female figures, <wink wink, nudge
nudge>) and is often cited as an
excuse to reduce articulation in favor
of a more aesthetic sculpt. Without the
knee joints, however, the Chapel figure
(and many like it) would have no
effective articulation from the waist
down. No thanks. I'd collect statues if
I wanted statues.
Nurse Chapel
is, amazingly enough, not recycled from
parts of the 1993 Uhura figure. The
figure was an entirely new sculpt when
it was produced, although the body
(with some sculpting changes to the
back of the torso and a different front
torso piece) was also used for the
Janice Rand figure from the same batch
of figures. Since then, the body has
been reused (with the Rand torso) to
produce the Dax from "Trials and
Tribble-ations" figure and the
"Transporter Series" Rand and Chapel
figures. The two transporter series
figures are among the last produced by
Playmates this century and possibly
forever. They're available now; get 'em
while you can.
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