Star Trek

[Buster's Uncle]

Nichelle Nichols Met Martin Luther King

I bet she tells that story like it's her middle name.

"Hello.  I'm Nichelle

Martin Luther King was a Trekkie: Star Trek and Equality.

Nichols."

Nichelle Nichols meets Star Trek fan Dr. Martin Luther King

Star Trek's 45th Anniversary - Lt. Uhura talks about Meeting Martin Luther King

[JarlWolf]

You know, even after all these years, she's still quite a pretty woman.

[Buster's Uncle]

I gather her wits are draining away, but yeah - pretty cute, still.

[Buster's Uncle]

Interesting thread.  A fellow's work took him onto the Paramount lot, so he tracked down the Star Trek soundstages and took some pictures.  Copy/pasting the whole thread would be a bit much, but check out that link.

I will put up these two, of one of the ST stages, Stage 32, where Citizen Kane was shot, and Community shoots now.  Note the remaining backlot in the background:


Now, thrill to the same building from the opposite angle:


-The ghosts of Edith Keeler and Floyd the barber are smiling.

[Buster's Uncle]

From the always informative Star Trek Fact Check blog:

Review: These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One

These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One is the first book about the making of Star Trek to extensively use the show's production files currently housed at the University of California, Los Angeles. Written over the course of six years and researched over the course of three decades, it is without a doubt the most detailed account of the making of Star Trek's first season that has ever been published. Including snippets of hundreds of production documents and interviews, These Are The Voyages offers Star Trek fans a wealth of new behind-the-scenes information. Unfortunately, despite the author's years of diligent research, These Are The Voyages is a disappointing book, which is badly edited, clumsily written, and at times ethically dubious.




It is immediately evident that the book has not been proofread. There are hundreds of typos ("sweat kiss," "run the gambit," "Kahn," "Roddemberry," etc.) and a comparable number of small factual errors. For example, Robert H. Justman is repeatedly described as the associate producer of various programs prior to his involvement on Star Trek. This is simply false; in fact, Justman's ascension from assistant director to associate producer on 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' (Byron Haskin had the job on the first pilot) was an important step in his career. Although IMDb says Justman was an (uncredited) associate producer on The Adventures of Superman, a fact which These Are The Voyages repeats, he wasn't. In another passage, Cushman describes Roddenberry's Hollywood career as meteoric, going from a nobody to arriving at "the biggest studio in Hollywood" in just nine years. Although Roddenberry's career profile certainly grew dramatically, when he arrived at MGM in late 1962, the studio was far from its glory days of the 1940s, when it could bill itself as having "more stars than there are in heaven." In fact, the studio was actually in the midst of a decline and hardly "the biggest motion picture studio in Hollywood." In yet another example, Cushman identifies the non-professional fan films Star Trek: New Voyages and Star Trek: Of Gods and Men as a television series and a videogame, respectively, probably the result of relying on (and misreading) Grace Lee Whitney's IMDb page. These examples only scratch the surface when it comes to small factual errors that would have been caught by a proofreader.




A more significant problem than the book's lack of proofreading, however, is that is has been poorly edited. Although three editors are credited, I suspect they had little influence on the structure and content of the book. First of all, the book is simply bloated with excess material. Nearly every chapter begins with one and half pages of filler (a plot summary, quotations of dialogue, and the author's assessment) which amount to over fifty pages of material that any serious editor would have asked the author to cut. The plot summaries and quotations repeat material that will be familiar to everyone reading this book. Cushman's assessments, on the other hand, are too short to offer any substance, and often overly praiseworthy. In one, he writes, "Gone with the Wind... Casablanca... Love Story... Somewhere in Time... and 'The City on the Edge of Forever.'" Hyperboles like these betray Cushman's lack of knowledge about film and television history beyond his favorite subjects, and seem particularly egregious in light of the author's insistence that the book is so long it must be sold in three separate volumes.




The book's lack of editorial input leads to another major problem: all too frequently, Cushman seems to print conjecture as if it were fact. This is most glaring in the chapter on 'The Alternative Factor,' although it is apparent in other places as well. In that chapter, Cushman writes:

With only a few days left before the start of production, Gene Coon began receiving off the record phone calls suggesting that either Janet MacLachlan be replaced with a white actress or that the script be changed to remove the last of the scenes that depicted sexual or romantic interest between Lazarus #1 and Charlene Masters. (p.414)

This is a damning accusation to be levied against both NBC and Desilu. It is not the first time someone has speculated that the casting of a black actress led the role of Charlene Masters to be drastically reduced, but it is the first time that this has been asserted as fact. Unfortunately, Cushman doesn't bother to present any evidence to back up this claim. It is not supported by an author interview, a production document, or a secondary source. (It's also a bit odd that, in all his years of tilting at windmills about the network's alleged racism, Gene Roddenberry never once brought up the event.) Without evidence, it must be speculation, even if it is not so framed. This isn't the only time Cushman prints his own speculation as if it were fact in the chapter, either. Earlier, he quotes from a Roddenberry memo:

In both 'Space Seed' and this story, we have a crew woman madly in love with a brawny guest star and flipping our whole gang into a real mess because she is in love...do they have to do [this] in two of our scripts? (p.413)

"Roddenberry wasn't suggesting 'The Alternative Factor,' first to film, be altered," writes Cushman. "His criticism had more to do with 'Space Seed' using the same plot device." Again, this is fine speculation, even plausible, but there is nothing in Roddenberry's memo which actually points to the executive producer's preference in rewriting one episode versus another.




The most troubling aspect of These Are The Voyages, however, has nothing to do with its editing, or even the text at all. Rather, it has to do with the photographs used to illustrate the book, many of which were furnished to the author by a Star Trek fan I will only identify as 'The Collector.' Although the book is filled with a variety of images attributed to many sources (in one particularly lazy case, a still from The Andy Griffith Show is simply attributed to the TrekBBS) most give credit to The Collector, who is also prominently featured on the Jacobs Brown Press webpage and credited (along with Marc Cushman and co-author Susan Osborn) for the book's "interior design." Unfortunately, many of the images in the book attributed to The Collector actually originated from Star Trek History and birdofthegalaxy (both sources, of course, have contributed information and images to this blog). To my knowledge, neither the author or the publisher ever asked either of these sources for permission to use their images (which they painstakingly restored) in a for-profit work. When presented with this information (on both Facebook and Amazon) the publisher could only make excuses, none of which stand up to much scrutiny. Adding insult to injury, the images in the book are small, low resolution, black and white, and rarely factor in the text. Their main function, it seems, is to make reading the book easier on the eyes.


 To be fair, These Are The Voyages offers a great deal of material that will be exciting for fans of the original series, especially those who will never have the opportunity to explore the archival collections at UCLA (although those collections are open to the public as long as you make an appointment). Nonetheless, in the final analysis, These Are The Voyages is too problematic to earn my endorsement. Not only is it profiting off the labor of other fans without their permission, but it is amateurish and error-ridden. A much needed second edition has already been rumored. Hopefully, it will address the first edition's many problems. My advice would be to wait for it.




Author's Note: Cushman's ratings thesis has made some waves online. Essentially, he argues that the series was a hit, but NBC concealed this fact so that they could blame Star Trek's cancellation on low ratings. I don't think his argument is entirely sound, but it is certainly worth discussing on this blog in much greater detail at some point in the future. Additionally, for those who plan on using this book to support their own research, bear in mind that although the book is generally organized chronologically, it has no index. Lastly, in the interest of full disclosure, I emailed the publisher about interviewing Cushman and requested a review copy of the book using their website. The publisher never replied to my request for an interview, and I never received a review copy of the book. The publisher did, however, revise some advertising copy when I informed them in an email that the UCLA files were publicly accessible and that Marc Cushman's access could hardly be called "exclusive."

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2013/09/review-these-are-voyages-tos-season-one.html


I suspect that a serious ST historian like the author, being extremely detail-oriented, is going to find a little sloppiness much more difficult to overlook than you or I would...

[Buster's Uncle]

The Wonder Years Parody of Star Trek: TOS: Spock's Brain

[Valka]

Even if it were 100% factual in all things, I refuse to spend money on a book that hasn't been proofread.

[Buster's Uncle]

I refuse to spend $40 on any book.  Wait a year, and it's out in paperback, or at least can be picked up used for $12.

[Valka]

From what I understand about this one (there's a thread about it on TrekBBS), it's print-on-demand. You're not likely to find a new copy anywhere.

[Buster's Uncle]

Huh.  Well, that's a penny-ante way to operate, and nobody ever got rich off POD besides some low-rent publishers, maybe. 

Disappointing.  I want to read it, but not that bad.

[Valka]

You never know... a copy could turn up on eBay. It wouldn't be new, of course, but it would hopefully be a lot cheaper.

[Buster's Uncle]

Star Trek - Klingon Happy Meal (1979)

[Buster's Uncle]

[Buster's Uncle]

Interview with Marc Cushman, Author of “These Are The Voyages”



In August, the first book of Marc Cushman's These Are The Voyages series was released, taking a look behind the scenes at the first season of the original Star Trek series. TrekCore's Dan Gunther, who reviewed the book for us, caught up with the author this month to discuss the creation of this first book, and to see where the series will continue in future volumes.

TrekCore: Your reference book, These Are The Voyages: TOS Season One was an incredible read. How did you come to write this particular account of the show's inception?



Marc Cushman: I was happily assigned the job of meeting with Gene Roddenberry and interviewing him for a television special I was hired to write on the Star Trek phenomenon. This was in 1982 for a Los Angeles-based company that made programs of that type for local TV. Gene was wonderfully gracious and giving, with both his time and materials -- he provided me with all the scripts from TOS, along with numerous other documents.

I was amazed by the amount of documents he had kept from Star Trek -- memos between him and his staff (and NBC), letters, production schedules, notes from the productions, budgets, contracts, and even fan letters from 1966 through 1969. I had read "The Making of Star Trek," which utilized some of these documents, but had no idea there was such a wealth of materials. I must have looked like a kid in a candy store to him, because Gene invited me -- even dared me -- to try to find a way to include substantial elements from all this material into a book.

I accepted the dare but told him it would be years before I could start on such a project. He gave me a letter of endorsement and told me he would find the time to cooperate in all ways possible when I could make time to take it on.

I stayed busy in television and film for a few decades and couldn't even start the work required to undertake such a massive job, but I did interview people as I came across them, starting with D.C. Fontana (on three different occasions) and Bob Justman (half a dozen different times), as well as others involved with the production -- writers, directors, crew personnel, and actors from the series as well as guest performers who appeared on the various episodes.

I met with Gene many times and, on one of those occasions, pitched the story for TNG episode "Sarek" to him. I was preparing to write the book when he became ill. That postponed it. Bob Justman picked up the torch in 2007 and provided me with many documents not found in the UCLA Roddenberry/Justman collections, where I also spent several months doing research.

It took six years to write this book -- which turned into seventeen-hundred pages, which the publisher then decided to release in three volumes, each covering one season of the show. I don't think a book spine has been made that can handle that many pages... and who'd want to pick that thing up!?



TrekCore: From reading These Are The Voyages, it’s clear that a lot of care went into the research for this book. How important was it to you that this be the definitive account of the production of Star Trek?

Marc Cushman: It was absolutely crucial to me that it be the definitive book on Star Trek. There would be no reason to write it, otherwise, since there are many other books out on the series. I almost didn't write it because of the Solow/Justman book ("Inside Star Trek: The Real Story"). But then I decided that book left me unfulfilled, since it was written from only the management's point of view. And it didn't deal with the individual episodes. I see each episode of the classic series as a major event in the story of Star Trek, but no one has focused on them -- at least, not to the degree that I would like.

I had too many questions unanswered, such as what the hell happened to "The Alternative Factor"? What went wrong? And what were they thinking when they made "The Way to Eden"? Or why was Melvin Belli cast in "And the Children Shall Lead"? And who really wrote "The City on the Edge of Forever"? Were the ratings really as bad as NBC claimed? That alone seemed impossible to me because I was there, as a teenager, and did not know anyone -- not at school, not on the block where my family lived -- that wasn't watching Star Trek. There is a great deal of speculation out there, but I wanted to find out the truth.

This is the book Gene Roddenberry and Bob Justman wanted to see. They saved all those documents so that they could become public record. And I had promised them that, if I did a book on Star Trek, it would utilize those records as never before. And that's why I pushed ahead, and put other aspects of my life on hold for several years, and why it took 1,700 pages and six years.

TrekCore: What was the most surprising or unexpected fact you learned about the making of Star Trek’s first season while researching this book?

Marc Cushman: If you want only one example, I'd have to say how much of the information out there on the internet, and in past books, is wrong. Pure folklore that has been accepted over the decades as being fact. And it is not fact. At the top of that list is the ratings. I licensed all the ratings from A.C. Nielsen, for every episode of the series. Star Trek was not the failure that we had been led to believe.

It was NBC's top rated Thursday night series and, on many occasions, won its time slot against formidable competition, including Bewitched, ABC's most popular show. And when they banished it to Friday nights, as Book Two will reveal, it was the network's top rated Friday night show. Yet NBC wanted to cancel it! Even when they tried to hide it from the fans at 10 p.m., during Season Three, it's numbers were not as bad as reported. So, once I made this discovery, then, of course, I needed to find out the real reason for the way the network treated Star Trek, and the documents regarding that, which build as we go from Book One to Two and then Three, are quite fascinating.



If I may tell you a second thing that was surprising to me, in a story filled to the brim with surprises, it would be about who wrote what on the series. The name of the writer given in the screen credits is deceiving. Readers will be surprised to discover, through the documents I provide in the books, that Gene Roddenberry wrote most of what we see and hear in the first thirteen episodes.

He should have been given screen credit as top writer. And then Gene Coon, and on many occasions, Dorothy Fontana, during the last part of Season One and throughout Season Two, wrote very nearly more, if not more, of the dialogue in every episode, with the exception of "The Trouble with Tribbles," where David Gerrold really nailed it and did 90% of the writing.

The other writers just couldn't get the voices of the primary characters down, or the feel of the show. It took Roddenberry, Coon, John D.F. Black and Dorothy Fontana to clean all those scripts up and make them into Star Trek.

TrekCore: How open or accommodating were your sources while researching this book, beyond the memos and references in the archives? Were people quite willing to discuss their experiences, or did you encounter any reticence or reservations from various people involved in the making of Star Trek?

Marc Cushman: They were willing but time has a way of distorting the memory. This is why I always prefer to search out old interviews, especially ones from the time that the show was being made. I collected hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles with interviews in them, to be sure that all the voices of the people involved were included (since many are now gone), and that those voices would be as fresh as possible, meaning, the words were spoken as close to the time of production as possible. Beyond this, when I interviewed participants, I asked them questions that other interviewers had not.

They told me this; they were often surprised by my approach. I explained to them that these books were meant to serve as a time machine, and each of these people I was interviewing were one of our guest tour guides. I'd try to take them back to 1966, or '67, or the later years for Book Two and Three, and get them to remember what it felt like, what was playing on the radio, what the offices looked like, or the stage, or the clothing.

I would really get heightened recollections by doing this, like when Malachi Throne said to me, and I paraphrase here, "Yes, I did feel a bit uncomfortable at first, because there were no pockets in the Starfleet uniforms. I didn't know what to do with my hands. We couldn't smoke, or play with props as we would in a contemporary story. So it was a very alien environment, and I had to learn from Shatner and Nimoy and the others how to be comfortable in those rooms and in those clothes. They were all so good at it."


TrekCore: Were there any challenges in writing this book that were particularly difficult to overcome?

Marc Cushman: Many. And again, that comes down to failing memories, or memories that have been compromised by things that a person is told about himself and his work over four or more decades. I would be told one thing by a person I interviewed, and feel grateful to this person and want to write something they will be happy to read, but then I'd be told something else by another person involved on that particular script, or that day of filming, and the show files would bring out yet another perspective.

I wasn't going to censor anyone, but, what I did, was create a conversation between the different participants on the page, bringing all the different points of view together. It's like the reader gets to sit in the middle of a conversation that has a great deal of conflict in it. And conflict makes for the best story telling. There is always conflict. It doesn't have to be invented; it's all around us, and especially present in ventures such as Star Trek, with all the time pressures, and creative differences involved.

Gene Roddenberry was very supportive and helpful to me on this project, and yet, even though I feel I honor him greatly, and reveal his genius through many of his memos, I also reveal his darker side through many of his own words, in both the interviews he granted me and his memos and letters. And statements made by others. But I truly believe he would approve of my handling of it all.  I know others do because they have called to tell me so.


TrekCore: Conversely, what aspects of researching and writing this series were the most fun?

Marc Cushman: My god, all of it. I love researching. I love searching for missing treasure. And with each new nugget I would find, I felt like yelling out, "Gold! I stuck gold!" Especially when I'd see how all these pieces would fit together and solve so many mysteries about all the various episodes -- why this one is so good and this one isn't. But you want a specific answer. Okay. The ratings. Talk about striking gold -- dispelling forty-five years of folklore that was begun with intentionally misleading information.

Discovering the true production order of the episodes, which on more than a couple occasions is different than what we think we know by the deceptive production numbering and the DVD sequencing of episodes.  Finding out that an episode that says written by Jerry Sohl, should have said story by Jerry Sohl, written by Gene Roddenberry and, perhaps, Jerry Sohl.  And so many other occurrences such as that. And feeling like I have now witnessed the writing and the making of Star Trek and I am able to share that experience with other fans. I really do write for me -- write what I would want to read. I would have given almost anything to read these books, and I suppose I did.


TrekCore: It is interesting that this book was not published through Simon & Schuster, who have the rights to Star Trek publications. Was there an attempt to publish this through them, and if so, is there a reason they opted not to publish it?

Marc Cushman: There was an attempt. Simon & Schuster asked to see three chapters and my agent sent in the first three. Now, I've received a lot of letters in the last couple weeks from people who love the first three chapters, saying they have found out more about Gene Roddenberry's life and career before Star Trek, and about Lucille Ball being the sponsor of Star Trek, and the mind set of NBC, all things that are examined in those early chapters.



But Pocket Books was not dazzled and said, basically, that with two books out on Roddenberry, and a couple out on Lucy, and that no one cares about what NBC was thinking, that they didn't see enough there to justify them publishing. If they had read any of the chapters that deal with the episodes -- and there is a separate chapter for each episode -- I think they would have thought differently.

And they would have seen how the information in those first few chapters pays off as you continue reading. But once a publisher says "no," it's always going to be "no." Bottom line, my agent sent in the wrong chapters as a sample of what these books are really about.

CBS has not picked up on this yet -- has not endorsed it -- because they wrote and told us they didn't have time to read a six-hundred-page book, to be followed by two more books of about five hundred pages each. So we had to go out without their stamp of approval, which certainly limits us in how we can promote this book, in the cover images we could legally use, even in the title.

But Jacobs Brown Press was very supportive of me, and I was determined this work would come out for the fans, and for those I knew from the show, and all those I'd interviewed. Malachi Throne and William Windom were two, both wonderful to me, and they didn't live to see these books come out. Bob Justman didn't live to see them out, even though he was there while I was writing them. I wasn't going to let that happen again.


TrekCore: Have you heard from any of the original TOS actors?

Marc Cushman: Yes. Walter Koe[person of African ethnicity]even carried the book out on stage at the Vegas convention and talked about it for a couple minutes, urging fans to buy it. Harlan Ellison called to say he liked it. I'd been nervous about that. I allow everyone to have their say about him and his script for "The City on the Edge of Forever." And some of those words are harsh. But I allow Harlan to have his say, as well, and I bring forward the documentation which proves who wrote what and when various drafts were delivered, and so on. Harlan's recollections are sometimes proved right, sometimes wrong, and yet he called to say that he wouldn't call the book awesome, because he reserves that word for the Grand Canyon and Eleanor Roosevelt, but that it comes close. That was a wonderful moment.

Someone came over and bought a book at the publisher's booth during the Las Vegas Star Trek convention and said William Shatner had showed him the book so he decided to get one for himself. I haven't heard from Shatner... but, I suppose in a way, with that, I have. Leonard Nimoy, sounding very much like Mr. Spock, called and told me the research was "astounding." Walter Koe[person of African ethnicity]agreed to write the foreword for Book Two after reading Book One. He paid me a wonderful compliment in saying that, after reading the book, he trusts me.

John D.F. Black and his wife Mary, who was there, working as his executive assistant on TOS, tell me that this book takes them back to that time and place and they impressed that there is clearly no agenda on my part other than to report the story. So, I'm very happy now. I've been living in a cave for six years researching and writing and not even coming out of the past long enough to watch the news. I had to keep my head and my heart in the 1960s and at Desilu studios. So it is very rewarding to find that people are responding so well to this.


TrekCore: Are there any sneak peeks or surprising tidbits that you would be willing to reveal about seasons two and three?

Marc Cushman: I'll tell you that, for me, as a writer, and as a person who loves to read biographies, Book Two is better than Book One and Book Three is the best of all.  The story of Star Trek -- the struggle those talented people went through to make that series -- gets richer with each season, and more dramatic. The hurdles get higher; the challenges unbearably difficult. Among other things, in Book Two, you will learn why Gene Coon really left Star Trek, and you will be surprised to find out how much he contributed to the episodes where he is not credited as producer.

As for Book Three... You won't find a fan anywhere that will tell you that the third season was as good as the first two, even though there were many excellent episodes during that last year. But it is certainly the most interesting to find out about and, I think, read about. In Book Three, you will be surprised to find out how much Gene Roddenberry had to do with Season Three, contrary to everything we have heard before. And how much he antagonized the network. He had good reason, of course, but fighting with the network is not a good way to keep your series on the air. The truth is in the memos.


TrekCore: Moving forward from TOS, do you have any plans to do another reference such as this for another aspect of Trek history? If you have no such plans, would you ever be interested in doing so?

Marc Cushman: It has been suggested that I take on Next Generation. But I do have a couple other biographies that I have already started that have nothing to do with Star Trek and I would like to see them through. But Next Generation is certainly tempting. I know so many from that show and spent a small amount of time there myself, with the story I contributed, the script I wrote based on that story, which was too much like TOS for Gene's taste at that time, and numerous other pitch sessions and springboards to episodes that I provided.

I think the treatment I gave to TOS would work very well for TNG, because Gene Roddenberry lived in memos, god bless him, and those memos mean there is a great deal of documentation that reveals the thinking going on, episode by episode.

TrekCore: Thank you again for this opportunity! It was a real pleasure to be able to ask about the creation of These Are The Voyages. You have provided a pretty valuable resource to scores of Trekkies and Trekkers, and I for one am very grateful.

Marc Cushman: Thank you for your interest, Dan. It's been my pleasure.

http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/10/interview-with-marc-cushman-author-of-these-are-the-voyages/

[Buster's Uncle]

"Ptolemy Wept" Animated STAR TREK episode, Part 1

Uploaded on Apr 15, 2011 


The U.S.S. Enterprise crew takes on a Federation historian to investigates an ancient space station which has suddenly appeared in orbit of a planet that the crew has visited before. After they enter the space station, they soon realize that there is much more to the ancient complex than they expected.


This film entitled "Ptolemy Wept" was written, directed, animated and produced by Curt Danhauser and is the second new animated STAR TREK episode featuring Captain Kirk and his crew to be produced in more than three decades. The last new official animated STAR TREK episode was produced by Filmation and aired on NBC-TV Saturday morning, October 12, 1974. Now, after more than 35 years, new episodes are being produced. These new episodes are intended to be a direct continuation of the 22-episode animated STAR TREK series produced by Filmation Associates from 1973-1974.

Subsequent parts of this full-length animated episode will be released on youTube in the months to come.