The Monster Times #2 Interview With Shatner

The second issue of The Monster Times newspaper was super-special to young Trekkers like myself, being pretty much the first magazine to devote an entire issue to the subject. Below is the entire interview with Bill Shatner, conducted just after the series had ended, in 1969.

(To view full-size, click on the images. Once open, you may have to click on it one more time to enlarge.)

If you loved TMT and have fond memories of it, you will enjoy the group I have created devoted to it on Facebook! Join today and get in on all the fun, as we have several contributors and editors of the magazine as members, including the interviewer in the article Steve Vertlieb, and writer Gary Gerani! https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheMonsterTimes/

Bonus: Below, a publicity photo of Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Yeoman Martha Landon (Celeste Yarnall).

Bill Shatner: A Restless Man

From a movie/TV magazine in around 1967 comes this article about Shatner that still seems to be relevant to the way he lives his life!

(Click on images to enlarge. Once open, you may have to click again to view full-size.)

Bonus #1: A 1967 article about the emotion-filled Leonard Nimoy. Note the half-shaved eyebrows that he had to endure for the whole series!

Bonus #3: Below, a rare publicity picture of Nimoy and Jill Ireland.

Bonus #4: Rare image of Jeff Hunter with a laser pistol prop! Note the industrial-strength tinfoil that was used for the cave walls and the rock formations on Talos IV. Very effective at creating rock-like surfaces! But I think a coat of matte-textured spray paint would have been more effective at making the reflective tinfoil surface look less metallic.

Happy Birthday, Bill Shatner!

Happy 85th birthday to the best Captain in Starfleet; past, present, future, alternate future, alternate universe and beyond! He doesn't let age slow him down, and we wish him many more.

Now would be a good time to revisit some of the many posts here devoted to The Shat by clicking here!

Happy Birthday, William Shatner!

Happy (belated, it was on March 22nd) 84th Birthday to William Shatner, a man that makes the Energizer Bunny tired just watching him! Shatner brought a lightness to a role that could have been deadly serious, giving us a quick-shooting, hard-kissing, karate-chopping, outrageously-bluffing and awe-inspiring Captain that always led, never sent his officers into action.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

"Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal."

In honor of Bill, go back and view all of the Shatner-centric posts on this blog. The Power of Shat compels you!

"The Wrath Of Khan" Behind The Scenes Article

From issue #16 of Enterprise Incidents (published April of 1984), edited by superfan James Van Hise, comes this behind-the-scenes article on the first sequel. The photos are great, but the really interesting part is the text with the information from the director Nick Meyers!

 (Click on images to enlarge; once open, you may have to click again to magnify.)

The woman in the top photo of the page above seems to be thinking the herself "Wow, what awesome pecs!" Meyer confirms they are real in the article.

Below, two pages of technical drawings of the Enterprise from the same issue, focusing more on the detailing of the model than the parts of the ship.

 

Bonus #1: Below, the best color photo I've seen of Khan's child that was cut from the film. There is another photo of him in this article I posted earlier about TWOK and Nick Meyer.

Bonus #2: Shatner raiding the fridge while shooting the series!

"Welcome to my Dressing Trailer! Care for some sherry before I show you the 'Captain's Log?'"

Happy Valentine's Day, Kirk-style!

Kirk was a real romancer, so, guys, take a cue from him today and learn how to make your lady swoon! If you don't get the same results, tell her to close her eyes and imagine you are the young Captain Kirk.

In case you didn't get enough, here's another one with the same theme, but using a different song: http://youtu.be/yvbS-2LWIOU

Bonus: Star Trek's first couple: Decker and Illia from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." They would later be re-named and written into "Star Trek: The Next Generation" as Commander Riker and Deanna Troi.

1991 article: "The Undiscovered Kirk"

 More from the 25th Anniversary issue of Starlog, issue #175, this time featuring an interview with Shatner about the newest movie "The Undiscovered Country." Besides the excitement over the film, Shatner talks a little about the last one which he directed, and explains why he felt it didn't go over as he had hoped. I don't blame Bill for everything wrong with the movie... he was a fair director, and with a better script he could have had better success. But, as with his Kirk character in ST 6, the responsibility for anything that happens on the ship falls onto the Captain... so he shoulders the burden for the relative lack of success of "The Final Frontier." This time, the ship was back under the command of Nick Meyers, who brought it back on course for one final glorious voyage.

(Click on images to enlarge; once it opens, you may have to click again to view full-size.) 

Bonus: Another variation of the "Spock with test tubes" shot from a photo session taken after the second pilot but before the first regular episode filmed.This whole set of pics made him look more like a chemist than a science officer, but at the time, a table full of test tubes and bubbling beakers was the fastest shorthand to suggest that a character was a scientist, "doing science." At least they didn't hand him a clipboard and stick him in front of a bank of old IBM computers with reel-to-reel tapes like "Lost In Space"!

 I still get extra nostalgic seeing pics from this session, since one of them was the first photo of Spock I ever clipped for my scrapbook, or even recall seeing.

Kirk and The Gorn: The Rematch

This video advertising the new Star Trek game is hilarious!

Bonus: Below, Clint Eastwood and his children visit the set during the filming of the memory wall scene not used in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." I hope it made his day; seeing this did mine.

Happy Birthday Bill!

Happy 82nd Birthday to William Shatner, a man that makes the Energizer Bunny tired just watching him! Shatner brought a lightness to a role that could have been deadly serious, giving us a shooting, kissing, karate-chopping, bluffing and inspiring Captain that always led, never sent his officers into action.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

"Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal."

In honor of Bill, go back and view all of the Shatner-centric posts on this blog. The Power of Shat compels you!

"Shatner: Then And Now" 1977 Article

From issue #3 of the "All About Star Trek Fan Clubs" magazine, published in June 1977, comes this loose filmography that features some photos of Bill from his various appearances. The feature runs out of steam quickly, as the last two pages switch to a nonsensical "biorhythms" article that takes up space (we'd learn more from a chart on his bathroom habits), but has some good photos from his "Barbary Coast" stint.

The cover art (scanned, as is everything on this site, from my own copy) is about the best the magazine ever featured, in my opinion.

(Click on images to enlarge. Once it loads, you
may have to click it again to view full size.)

1978 Article: The Technology Of Trek

This time, I'm bringing you more material from Issue #3 of the awesome Science Fantasy Film Classics magazine, published July 1978. You can view the cover here, and earlier content I've posted from this issue here, as well as here. And there will be more to come in future posts, you can be sure. This time the article focuses on the wonderfully thought-out technology that set the show apart from all other TV sci-fi, and was years ahead of its time. It was the technological trappings that made the setting so believable. The article looks at the technology on the show and where things were at the time, and postulates which items could be created and how long in the future it might be. With the exception of the transporter, which was more of a time-and-budget-saving device than a real possibility, many of the ideas are much closer to reality now, and some have been realized. The furthest away from being possible any time soon is warp drive, being only a theory.
(Click on images to enlarge. An additional click once the window opens may be necessary to view at full size.)

Bonus: a full-page photo of Bill Shatner from one of the TV-movie magazine articles published in September of 1967, during the show's original run.

"Wrath Of Khan" Cable TV Premiere

This local Telecable cable guide comes from the WV/PA area, and came out in April of 1983 when "The Wrath Of Khan" (notwithstanding the TMP photo used on the cover) was premiering on pay TV for the first time. The nice interview with Shatner is the highlight of the issue, but there were a number of other items scattered throughout the digest-sized magazine that I also included.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

"Spock..." "Yes, Jim?" "You're... standing in my way."

Don't forget to visit my new blog devoted to the other Star Trek shows that came after TOS: www.MyStarTrekScrapbook2.blogspot.com!