Mad spoof: "Star Blecch III: The Search For Plot."

Through the power of my awesome intellect and formidible brain power (which enabled me to open my collection cabinet, bring out this magazine, scan the pages, format them for the page, and upload them), I am presenting for your enjoyment this time the Mad spoof of "The Search For Spock," published in December of the Orwellian 1984. Behold, the epic known as "Star Blecch III: The Search For Plot."

Alfred says to click on the images to enlarge and not worry so much.

Below, from the same issue, Don Martin looks at the movie...

Bonus item #1: Below is the cover of the great fanzine "Enterprise Incidents" #5, put out in December of 1977. The art is depicting ships from the Franz Joseph Technical Manual, which many fans really took to heart. I'm certain that the space station seen in Star Trek '09 was inspired by the Starfleet headquarters depicted in the manual.

The next bonus item is from the back cover of the November 1974 issue of "The Monster Times." These ads and subsequent reports on the early conventions were as close as I ever came to them, but I enjoyed knowing that others shared in my love for the show to such an extent.

If you have memories of attending that convention, or anything associated with it, share them with us! Heck, even if you didn't go and have no memories of it, enjoy reading about it and comment anyway... I'm not particular as long as I hear from you! "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear..."

And yes, I did own both of those "stupendous" and "colossal" life-sized posters advertised. I still have the Spock one; don't ask what happened to the Kirk one. Just... don't ask.

Mad's "Star Blecch IV: The Voyage Bombs"

You never know what era of original-characters Trek I'm going to post from; the show, the movies, the animated series; I just skip around to keep it interesting. But sometimes one post will inspire another, as did the last article on "The Voyage Home." I've decided to follow up with the Mad spoof on it, from issue #271, published June of 1987. Artist Mort Drucker does his usual superb job on the caricatures, not content to simply repeat his earlier versions but accurately reflecting the ages of the stars in the current movie (if not always flatteringly.) However, he wrongly depicts the whales as sperm whales and not humpbacks.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

The joke involving Sulu in the bottom panel is even more humorous in retrospect.

Bonus: Here is the next edition of "Trek Talk," from issue #37 of "The Monster Times," which came out December of 1974.

Bonus #2: below is another of Ralph Fowler's terrific drawings, this time depicting a tense moment from "Amok Time." This was scanned from the historic first issue of the fanzine "Enterprise Incidents." Ralph; buddy... if you're out there checking this out, email or comment, I (and the readers) would love to hear from you!

Don't tell me you don't hear that piece of music in your head as you look at this.

Mad Spoof of "The Wrath Of Khan"

While perusing one of my collection cabinets last night, I came across this 1982 MAD magazine spoof of "The Wrath of Khan." Mort Drucker does his usual spot-on charicatures, and it's obvious that they had at least seen the movie, as the costumes and sets are pretty accurate. All in all, a well done parody! Enjoy... "Star Blecch II:The Wreck Of Korn!"

(Click on images to enlarge.)

And below, one of Don Martin's hilarious cartoons, spotlighting the sexy new addition to the crew! There is something different about her...

Bonus: Below, another of the randomly-captioned Leaf bubblegum cards from 1967.

Bonus: a couple of panties shots from "The Gamesters of Triskelion," in which our lovely communications officer finds herself unceremoniously dumped onto the ground after a sudden transport. Her bad luck is our good luck, however. You could almost call this set of photos "A Day At The Beach."

Speaking of Nyota sunbathing, here's a tantalising comic panel...

Want to see the whole sequence of pages from this scene? Let me know!

Update: a personal note... sometimes as I backtrack links that lead to this site, I see they come from discussion boards where they are talking about something I've posted. The comments go on for pages, sometimes. But here on the actual blog, sometimes there are no comments left at all! So, if you like a post, leave a comment! It helps me to judge how my readers are enjoying the blog. If I see no comments, I assume my visitors aren't liking it, and that doesn't give me much incentive to post more very quickly. So, if you like the post, leave a comment and let me know, and you'll get even more, and more often!

"Mad" Spoof of ST:TMP

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Ye Olde Collection Cabinet opens to reveal a well-done spoof of Star Trek:The Motion Picture from the pages of Mad magazine... issue 216, published July 1980. Long-time Mad artist Mort Drucker does his usual hilarious job of illustrating. Unlike the Crazy TMP spoof, which merely imitated Drucker's previous Trek parodies, this one was written after actually seeing the movie, and depicted the events, sets and uniforms fairly accurately... except where space effects of V'Ger are shown. Can't figure that one out. I hardly think the artist was working only from publicity stills. Maybe they found it too hard to put V'Ger down on paper?

Below, a cute caricarture of Three Men and A Babe found somewhere on the web, I know not where now.

And, today's Gratuitous Uhura picture, related to the post by virtue of it being from ST:TMP. Any excuse...

Uhura was put off by the junk-revealing jumpsuits that some of the male crewmen were wearing now.

Finally, a note I received about a couple of lucky (and rich) fan's opportunity to sit and shoot the breeze with ol' Pointy Ears himself... the latest bid when I looked was over $5,000!

Hey Frederick:

Taylor here from Attention with some exciting news for you and the readers of your blog My Star Trek Scrapbook.

I wanted to reach out to you about the Leonard Nimoy auction that is currently open at Charity Buzz. Fans can bid now for their chance to enjoy a private tour of the iconic Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles with the one and only Mr. Spock. This auction is valid for two people and is your chance to spend the day getting to know the man who played Spock.

All proceeds from the auction will benefit RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights and was donated by Leonard Nimoy.

Thanks for your time and I hope you can share the news. If you have any questions feel free to send them my way.

Taylor Newby
Attention
532 Broadway, Fl. 10
New York, NY 10012
www.attentionusa.com
blog.attentionusa.com

Stephen Collins ST:TMP Interview

Star Trek Day: A Flashback to 30 Years Ago!

(Click to read larger-sized.)

Clipped from the Atlanta Journal on Thursday, Dec. 6, 1979.

It was the weekend of the big premiere of the long-awaited Star Trek: The Motion Picture! It was coming out the very next day, Dec. 7th, and the papers were full of items to save. Of course, it would be a full month later before I got to actually see the movie; my stepdad, you recall, was vehemenantly anti-Trek (because I loved it, not because he ever saw it) and he was watching like a hawk to make sure I didn't go see it. I finally went a month later after the heat was off and caught it at a discount theater, after saying I was going by the mall... which I did, I drove right by it on the way!

But not even that could blunt the joy and excitement I felt at the return of the show in movie form, and opportunities abounded for collecting items! Fortunately, I am no longer under such cruel restrictions, and am looking forward to going this Saturday to see the new Trek movie, which has had the kind of excitement not seen since the first movie all those years ago. And the reviews are being much kinder to this one, so we have no doubt that Trek will go on.

Below, since the interview this time was with Stephen Collins, here is a good promo shot of him as Captain Decker. (Since he's wearing that infamous one-piece jumpsuit, be thankful that the picture is only from the waist up.)

(Edited on 10-28-2014: Since the news broke a few weeks ago about the admission that was secretly taped and made public about Stephen's indiscretions toward minors, the comments made by visitors and myself in the comment area below about his "overall decency" now seem misplaced. There is an ongoing investigation, but no charges have been filed yet. This whole situation makes me sad.)

Bonus items: Below, a humorous "newspaper clipping" that was actually from a Mad magazine, from 1977.

Below, a page from a ST coloring book, that came out about 1976 or so. Copy it to your computer and do your own digital coloring, or print it out and let your kids have at it! The art and likenesses were actually pretty good in this series, so I bought them and hid them well, along with my flattened ST:TMP Happy Meal boxes. Most teens would have only had to be worried about hiding a Playboy, right? Not me! A coloring book of ST would have been fuel for a very tense few moments of yelling and berating me for the "childishness" of my hobby, indeed! I think finding a Playboy would have brought him a sigh of relief.

From the other end of the artwork spectrum: below, a lovely painting of Uhura, one of the best I've seen! Source: http://mshindoiart.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=2&pos=16

"Let's open hailing frequencies, shugah!"

Ah, Nichelle, your character may be recast, but you can never be replaced, and your beauty never eclipsed by another, nor that red miniskirt filled out better.

1976 Mad Star Trek Musical

Shatner and Nimoy have a laugh at their expense during filming.

In October of 1976 I found this issue of Mad which featured an awesome Trek spoof, "Keep On Trekin': The mad Star Trek Musical," one of many Trek parodies they did. I have just about all of them, from the first onward, and I'll feature them all sooner or later. But this one had an awesome cover painting, one of my favorites. As always, click on the images to view the Angry-God-Apollo-Sized scans. Enjoy!