Star Trek: A Celebration in Large-Format Book Form

This book has been sitting on my shelf for more than five years. After buying Star Trek: A Celebration, I gave the colourful and informative document a quick scan before filing it. Typical. With Star Trek celebrating its 60th, there's good reason to crack it open again.

The chapters are varied and interesting. Many of us love the cast, and the characters they played, but I thought I would not cover their respective chapters, as most fans know all about them. For this post I decided to capture a few of those fascinating behind-the-scenes sections. A small sampling....

Art Department — Making Strange New Worlds

Designing for the Future — Unexpected Exposure

Makeup Department — First In, Last Out

VFX Department — Making the Impossible Real

Music Department — Opera in Outer Space

The music! That magnificent music.

USS Enterprise at Film Effects of Hollywood in 1966

The eleven-footer at Film Effects of Hollywood.

The days of large-scale miniatures: the above picture is a sample bluescreen shot from a television series called Star Trek. Linwood Dunn's company, with Dunn himself behind the camera, photographed lots of "beauty-pass" material of the USS Enterprise, including this original footage for the first season episode "Space Seed". (The Howard Anderson Company had the model for the two pilot shows and the first few episodes, before it was shipped to Dunn.)

(I worked in 'opticals' as a compositor. While I didn't do billing, I know how much work like the above cost a production company: a lot. The stage work was just the beginning.)

Star Trek's Magnificent USS Enterprise Returns

In 2022, Star Trek's restored eleven-foot Starship Enterprise studio filming model went back on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, after the museum underwent some major renovations.

NCC-1701 is a work of beauty, and is still, in my opinion, the greatest of all fictional space vessels. (Its designer was the brilliant Walter Matt Jefferies.) As an old friend of mine said: "It just glows."

Star Trek: A Special Television Episode T-shirt

"The City on the Edge of Forever" is one of television's finest hours. It's an episode of Star Trek (1966 - 1969), one of television's finest-ever series.

Now to the T-shirt.

A few years ago, my brother contacted me saying he was going to order a few Trek T-shirts, and asked me if I wanted one... take my pick. I checked the catalogue and was impressed. An artist in the States had produced designs for all 79 Trek episodes, with each being his own unique interpretation of that particular story.

Postscript: No doubt the shirt looks even better when hugging my somewhat Hemanic chest, but I elected to take the picture with the shirt lying flat.

Toronto Star Photographer on the Star Trek Set

On Tuesday, September 6, 1966, Star Trek had its 'world premiere' on Canada's CTV network, and on the following Thursday the series debuted on its home network, NBC.

But, before the series hit the airwaves....

Reg Innell was a photographer who worked for the Toronto Star. His assignment in June of 1966 was to visit Desilu Studios stages 9 and 10 (now Paramount 31 and 32) and cover two Canadian actors who were starring in a new science fiction dramatic television series. William Shatner and James Doohan were busy jobbing actors before that time and space, but it was Star Trek that shot them to some fame.

After Innell's death in 2018 his negatives were donated to the paper, and were rediscovered by Toronto Star video producer Kelsey Wilson.

As was the case with anybody who visited the Star Trek stages before the show had even aired, they had no idea what would become of the show in the years to come.

The episode in production when Mr Innell visited Desilu's Stage 10: "The Man Trap"

They're Canadian, eh?

Los Angeles Times on Star Trek — September 1966

In September of 2015, the Los Angeles Times reprinted a story that it had first published on the 21st of September, 1966....

"Star Trek is Costly Sci Fi Epic"

In the semi-darkness of a massive sound stage on the Desilu-Gower lot, strange creatures dart about through web covered catacombs.

In a far off section, where it gleams eerily, grotesque screams penetrate the air. Above it, a rather sarcastic and unmistakable human voice shouts, “Hold it! Let’s take it again…”

I find articles like that fascinating. Yes, what did they think back then of a given show, especially one that would go into the history books, and endless reruns?

For the piece, then LA Times staff writer Don Page visited the Desilu sound stages. Star Trek had started regular series production that May, and only two episodes had aired ("The Man Trap" and "Charlie X") by the article's date of publication, so history hadn't yet decided if the whole enterprise to that point in time was big money well spent, or if yet another television series in the era of "deficit financing" would dig a big loss for its producing studio.

Star Trek in Animation Filmation Form

Further to a post of mine from yesterday, another Star Trek series premiered on September the 8th: a Saturday morning Star Trek, commonly referred to as "The Animated Series". Produced by Filmation Associates, the ink & paint Trek went where a live action show could not boldly go: the imagery was creative and bold.

On the morning of September 8, 1973, I sat in front of the colour Zenith television to watch a series that I had only learned about the evening before when NBC aired an hour-long 'sneak preview' for their Saturday morning kids' shows. The premiere episode, "Beyond the Farthest Star", was exciting stuff to a preteen fan of the live-action Trek.

I don't have any physical-media copies of this program, although it is available on Paramount Plus. Tonight might see me chilling with a glass of wine in front of the flatscreen, watching a certain series premiere. (Wine is not something I would have enjoyed on a Saturday morning in 1973. Although, my bowl of Shreddies did taste kinda funny, now that I think about. I remember the strange imagery taking hold, becoming more and more strange and far out with each spoonful of cereal.)

What separated animated Star Trek from its competing kid-fare, was the scripting. Writers of note include: DC Fontana, Larry Niven, David Gerrold, (original-series director) Marc Daniels, and Samuel A. Peeples, who wrote "Beyond the Farthest Star".

Star Trek Premiered on NBC 60 Years Ago Today

September the 8th, 1966, is a date known to many Trekkers.

I'm just old enough to have remembered Star Trek first airing but I must have missed it. Maybe my parents saw the trailer on CTV for the opening episode, "The Man Trap", and its great and scary monster, and made the decision to make sure I missed it. (It was Canada's CTV network that actually opened the series — on Tuesday, September 6th, 1966.)

The charade had to last but a few weeks: In October we left for West Germany, and I did not see the series on ZDF, ARD, or the two French channels. (However, I did watch the telefantasy series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders, and The Prisoner on French and/or German television.) ZDF began running Trek in 1972, which I found out about three years ago.

I first saw Star Trek in June of 1970. My British cousins were watching it on BBC2 ― in colour ― and I joined them in silence while visiting.

Back here in Canada, CTV's flagship station, CFTO, began its long run of "stripping" Trek. In September of 1970 a regular Monday to Friday at 5 p.m. screening schedule started the magic for many of us. "What is this exciting, striking, beautiful, and colourful show?", I must have pondered at the beginning as I got lost in its vortex. This was a communal experience for many viewers, for in the syndication market it was a true "water cooler" (and "water fountain"!) television series.

My own private joke regarding my own fandom: It was nine years ago that I bought the complete series on Blu-ray. Before that I had just odds and ends on VHS and DVD. As for the Blu-ray format, I've watched just one episode.

But I am a fan.

How many dramatic television programs are, or will be, remembered sixty years after they hit the video airwaves? This week I'll be taking a look back at the one and only Star Trek.

Five O O O O O O

Late yesterday afternoon this website's hit counter hit 5,000,000. It was a flurry of recent traffic from the USA, of course, and Brazil that put me there. And, at this very hour, it's "Brazil" that's continuing to spearhead the visits.

Perhaps I should write pieces on Brasil, and, visit that country....

Picturing: TTC Spadina Station, Thinking, Planning

A rare early Sunday morning trip, waiting for that first northbound train....

For the Love of Star Trek on TVO

This TVO Supporter received an essential reminder that a new TVO (TV Ontario) documentary premieres today at 8:00pm (EST) on that network. 

For the Love of Star Trek, indeed!

The program can be streamed from TVO.org if you're not from this quadrant.

I should probably make a point to tune in. That would make sense as yesterday I posted a piece on Star Trek's world premiere.

Brilliant series!

Picturing: How I'm Feeling These Days

Just kidding!

There are those days, however....

I wonder if that fence was electrified. If it was, there's a joke in there somewhere.

Star Trek Premiered on CTV 60 Years Ago Today

Star Trek had its world premiere, not on September 8, 1966, on its home network of NBC, but two days earlier on Canada's CTV network. Canadians, and Americans living in 'border States', would witness the first steps of, what would prove to be, a television legend — one of the greatest of all hour-long dramatic series, and one not needing the umbrella of "greatest science fiction television programs" to promote its ultimate historical ranking.

"The Man Trap" was the first episode aired in the show's original run (1966 - 1969), though not the first one produced. It was a fine introduction.

Tune to this channel on Tuesday the 8th.

Tuesday, September 6, 1966: What civilians first saw of STAR TREK....

Quote: Gloria Steinem on Potential Paper Power

"It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than watch it accumulate."

(Gloria Steinem, 1934 - 2026)

Athot for the Day: A Perfect Symbiosis

What does it matter?

It matters not.

Picturing: The Toronto Sky Would Soon Open

Today we had a tornado warning here in southern Ontario. While I was relaxing reading, I realized the sky had suddenly turned dark. I grabbed my trusty Canon and fired away. By the way, that is not a bird in the sky, but a plastic bag. There was an updraft pulling aloft pieces of plastic. Then the rain hammered down; the wind carried it almost horizontally. It was that kind of fifteen minutes!

Picturing: State Street Financial Centre (Toronto)

This afternoon I met a colleague for lunch in downtown Toronto. While waiting I decided to take a snap of a building that towered before me. In many ways, this city is so 'chill'. The atmosphere, even with the usual city vehicle traffic, was pretty relaxing today.

But.

But, that humidity! It's off the scale!

Picturing: RCAF Canadair Sabre at CWHM

That's one beautiful former Royal Canadian Air Force machine at the inviting and impressive Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario. During his earliest days serving with the RCAF, my dad worked as an armourer on these great fighting machines.

Liberal Party of Canada Mailing of Note

The Liberals are BUILDING ON THIS MOMENTUM ....

After yesterday's three byelections, three convincing wins, there is incontrovertible proof that indeed we are building on that momentum.

Awesome!

Athot for the Day: It's Just the Way They Are

Today's Conservatives are the ultimate ultracrepidarians.