Third Season Set Visit

From a mid-70's fan magazine, title unknown since my copy is missing the first few pages. However, I didn't want this to prevent me from presenting an article in what remained, concerning a set visit during the filming of the third season episode "Day Of The Dove." If any fans reading this recognize the fanzine, please comment and tell me the title.

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From the back cover, great art depicting a couple of the lovely guest characters, Nona and Vina.

BONUS: Below, a rare photo of Shatner with one of his daughters, from a movie magazine published during the series production. 

1975 Model Rocketry Catalog

Although I never owned the actual model rockets, my 16 year-old self was excited to find this digest-sized Estes catalog in 1975 that featured their new Star Trek model rockets on the cover! We get a great cover painting, and a two-page spread inside about the models... nice. I am also including scans of any pages that mention or depict the Trek models. I was impressed with how accurate the Enteprise model was, without very much in the way of alterations to make it into an actual flying rocket. I know that if I had bought one, I would never have flown it, preferring to keep it in good shape to display (if I had lived in a home with a father that permitted such things). Enjoy!

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Although, the Klingon ship looks like it was built around a barrel.

Anyone familiar with early Trek merchandising remembers how the starship was often erroneously depicted with rocket exhaust coming out of the shuttle bay (which irritated me). In the case of this model rocket, it was actually correct!

UPDATE: I said earlier that I had a newspaper clipping somewhere of a local model rocket club launching the Enterprise. Well, I've found it, and it's below. It was clipped from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel on May 25, 1975. I didn't save the entire article, only the photo and the line in the article about the launching of the Enterprise rocket.

Update: I have heard from a reader who was one of the people in the above photo! Blogger Robert Koenn said... "A friend just gave me the link to your blog. It is funny because I am in that picture. I am the guy standing on the far right side of the picture with my right arm up to my ear. This was a launch back around 1975 down in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I lover ST but never owned a flying Estes ST kit. I do have numerous ST plastic models on my shelf and in boxes to build."

1975 Convention Flyer

From the scrapbook comes another of the mini-con flyers that I enjoyed receiving in the mail when I lived in Ft. Lauderdale, FL during the mid-70's. That was as close as I ever got to the cons; of course I didn't get to go, even though I was the perfect age to enjoy them, 16 to 17. (Regular readers know why. For those new to the blog, here's a clue.) I saved every one of these and put them in the old scrapbook pages for perservation. The con organizer was none other than James Van Hise, editor and publisher of the awesome fanzine Enterprise Incidents.

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Star Trek's direct ancestor and one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies! Read another of my blog entries on this influential film here.

To find more of these convention brochures now or in the future after more are posted, use the "con brochures" tag on the sidebar.

Bonus: Below, some publicity pics of Fred Phillips and Nimoy during one of the makeup sessions preparing him for a day's filming.

1975 New York Trek Con article

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Gaze at this image for a moment and that music will start to play in your head.

Although I didn't attend them, reading about the early Trek conventions was exciting! Here was proof that others loved the show as much as I did, and that I wasn't the only one! (It's funny to think back on my earliest days as a kid when I first discovered the show, and thought I was the only fan.) Here is a first-hand account of the 1975 New York Star Trek convention, written by James Van Hise, who went on to publish and edit his own fanzine, "Enterprise Incidents." Many fans know him as the writer of a large number of unofficial Trek softcover books that had national distribution. The con report comes from issue #4 of "Trek: The Magazine For Star Trek Fans," printed in March of 1976. Incidentally, this was the first issue of the late, great fanzine that I ever saw or bought. Up til now, all the magazines and such I had bought only featured Trek now and then, but this was the first magazine of any kind, professional or fan-produced, that I had found that was devoted entirely to the show. For me, this was Nirvana. I have such good memories of the excitement and happiness that reading it brought to me at the tender age of 17. The fact that it had color covers and it was printed on card stock made it all the more special.

Bonus: a UFP patch that was on a hat I ordered back in the early 80's. The hat wore out but I took off the patch and saved it.

Bonus#2: Below, the cover of Blish's ninth ST adaption, featuring a painting of the Enterprise by an artist that would go on to do many more covers of various Trek novels. The depictions of the ship by this artist were more accurate than the ones on the earlier covers, and it was featured more prominantly. Boy, those were the days, whenever I found a new edition of these books. I pretty much bought them in order of publication, and eagerly awaited the next edition.

Now, I know that the Blish books are not rare, or hard to find images of the covers online; and that most fans are so familiar with them that there might not be much point in posting them here. But, these are my copies, and they meant so much to me at the time I bought them, and mean a lot to me now for the memories they hold; thus the reason for including them as bonus items. I enjoy sharing those memories and enjoy reading when commenters share their own.

Bonus: Below is one of several ad fliers Paramount distributed to sell the show abroad in the 70's. This is a from an article about foreign Trek material in the Trek Special #2 published in 1978.

"Look, Larry, it might be true that is space there is no up or down, but that excuse won't fly here. Just admit you made a mistake when you did the layout."

1975 Leonard Nimoy interview

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Above is the awesome Gray Morrow painted cover to "Monsters of the Movies" Annual #1, published in August of 1975. (The nostalgic story of what I went through to get it can be found in an earlier post on another of my blogs, here.) This was an incredible find for me at the time, and seeing it today brings back a lot of memories of those days. Enjoy!

1975 article: The Star Trek Phenomenon

The article posted this time comes from Movie Monsters magazine, issue 4, published in August of 1975. Issue #1 had run a very scathing (and inaccurate) appraisal of the show, infuriating many fans (including me) and they decided to make up for it with an in-depth article written by someone not as hostile toward it. But it did run most of the same photos that every other magazine at the time was using. I mean, really.. how many times have we seen that photo of Captain Kirk in the grip of the drill thrall Shana?  Add to this the fact that most of the photo captions were wrong...

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Why the lower left photo is in this article is a mystery.

Nimoy's Now A Sci-fi Expert

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I'm unsure of the origin newspaper and date of the article above, but it came out sometime around 1975, I believe. I didn't always make a note of such things back then, sadly.

Bonus: The picture below was one of the very first I ever clipped out a magazine about Star Trek, and the first one ever saved of Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. It's from about 1971. The lines evident in it are from the photo album I had it in, which was of the sticky-back type that made it nearly impossible to remove a photo from once it was in it a few years.

"Fascinating... This 'Gritty Kitty' is not only absorbent, but delicious!"

Bonus: The colorful (but over-saturated) photo below was one of the earlier color pictures I got, probably only about the second or so. It was from the inside back cover of Famous Monsters, and I was so excited to find it that I almost walked on air for the trip back home from the convenience store where I found it in Ft. Lauderdale, in 1975. It's really hard to explain or express the excitement something like this would bring to my teenage self, but it truly was the highlight of my week! Looking at it now brings back good recollections of the thrill that I felt on finding it, and I treasure those times when such a simple thing could make me so incredibly happy.

Privately, Spock was amused at the crew's efforts to get him to admit to emotion.

Below, a shot from one of the very unusual pictures used on the 1967 Leaf bubblegum cards. Apparently, most of them were candid photos taken on the set by the card company, because they are unlike any others seen anywhere else. And the captions are not only unrelated to the images in most cases, but often are completely inexplicable and seemingly weed-inspired. I'll be posting more of these hilarious images in the future!

"Why, yes, Jim... it is new eye shadow. Do you like it?"

Below, Fred Phillips applies Leonard's makeup before shooting.
Mr. Spock actually enjoyed the gossip provided by the barber when he went for his haircuts.

Special Announcement: I'm starting (another) New Blog: "Fantastic Flashbacks!"

My scrapbooks were not only packed with Star Trek stuff; no, I also collected items on many science fiction movies, TV shows, comics, books and more. So, I'm starting a new blog to share them with you, at http://www.fantasticflashbacks.blogspot.com/. Hope you enjoy these trips back in time to when the future was fun!

Psychic Predicts Trek Role For Shatner

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"Now tell me if I'll keep losing my hair!"

Clipped from The Enquirer tabloid sometime in the early 70's. It was a failing of mine at the time that I didn't always make a notation as to the date that I clipped something.

Bonus: Below, a Trek tribute page from the "Castle of Frankenstein" monster magazine, about 1975. The yellow lines evident on it are from being stuck in my first photo album, which was not a good idea. The line at the bottom about a new series in 1966 is only a typo, they meant to say 1976.

Below, a press kit photo (from "The Savage Curtain") to promote the show for syndication in the 80's. Spock does not look happy in it!

"You've done it now, Bones. Spock's refusing to move until you apologize for that last remark!"

Below: during a particularly playful photo session, which yielded a number of very unusual poses involving Kirk and Rand, we see one that has the smitten Yeoman hanging onto an insufferably smug Captain. Evidently he did get that beach to walk on after all.

Kirk knew that once Janice starting talking, his reputation aboard ship would increase dramatically.