1977 Nichelle Nichols interview

In May of 1977, I was 16 years old, going on 14. While other kids that age were concerned with dating, school activities or sports, I was more concerned with getting to the magazine stand and getting the latest Trek and monster magazines that were out. Of course, that information has no bearing on the material I'm presenting today, except to fill in my own background and show how important these items were to me then, and because of those memories, they are still great to take out and read.

This time we are looking at Issue #4 of Media Spotlight, a publication put out by the same people, or at least the same company, that did "The Monster Times," except in magazine format, not newspaper, and not as much fun; but still well worth buying. Of the various Trek-oriented articles in that issue, I'm featuring the interview with Nichelle Nichols, who always attracted my gaze in every shot she was in.

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That is a great photo on the cover!

Our first bonus item today from the scrapbook is a flyer for one of the mini-cons that were a big part of the grassroots Florida fan scene back in the mid-to-late 70's. Since I could never go to them, I settled for collecting the exciting, well-designed flyers for the events. I only wish I had made some kind of date notation on them; since the year is not on the flyer, I'm not quite sure. But remembering where I was living and what I was doing when I got them narrows it down to probably 1976. They usually consisted of four pages, all of which are scanned in for you below. I'll be posting more of these flyers for other mini-cons in the future!

This mini-con, as well as most of the others that I'll be posting ads for, were organized (at least in part) by James Van Hise, the man responsible for the great "Enterprise Incidents" fanzine, which later went professional and got nationwide distribution.

I like Uhura's sassy pose back there.

And below is a final bonus item, the cover of the MECO disco album of the ST:TMP music, which came out in 1980. I put it on cassette and played that thing to death! Nice painting on the cover of an alternate ship design; I suppose that big window on the front opens up onto the shipboard discotheque.

"I feel like trekkin', trekkin', trek the night away!"

1999 Star Trek Weekly Log Book

This time we are "only" going back about 10 years to revisit a Trek product; and I put the emphasis on "only" ten years because 1999 seems so recent to me, not going back very far to feature an item. But, when I was a kid and teen, the ten years from the end of the original series to the new movie, only a little over a decade, seemed like an eternity... a long stretch of desert marked by occasional mirages of revival rumors and attempts. Looking back now on the overall nearly-45-year history of Trek, from the series to now, that first ten years now seems like a short period of time indeed.

Anyway, we go back just ten years for the item on this post, a notebook-format calendar/journal that featured a different photo from the various Trek shows for each week. Since this blog is devoted to the characters of the original series, those are the only pictures I'm picking out to show. First, the cover:

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Going back a bit further now for our "bonus" items, the front and back covers of a couple of the James Blish books that many Trekkers have good memories of. (I featured the earlier ones before in a post from The Monster Times reviewing some of them; look for the "book cover" tag to see all.) I know, these books are something most fans might still have in their collections, and it may be a bit redundant to feature them here since they were so ubiquitous; but each and every volume of these Blish episode adaptations meant so much to me, and figure so prominantly in my good memories of the time, that I felt that looking at them again now and then might bring up some good memories of your own. After all, it might have been years since you looked at these covers. My main impressions of the Enterprise, apart from the show itself, come from the paintings of the ship on these covers, starting with volume 4 (painted by Lou Feck, read more about him here) and going through 12. Be sure to click on the images to examine them in detail, larger than the actual book itself.

For years, these books were the main source of nourishment for my Trek hunger; oftentimes the only source during the early lean years. The brief adaptations, often little more than extended plot synopses, whetted my appetite to actually see the episodes, which in many cases would be years later. Volume #5, below, reminds me of when I bought it at the Ft. Lauderdale high school bookstore where I went in 1973 while in the 10th grade. I got many of the books that were so important to me there: "The Making of Star Trek," The World of Star Trek," "The Trouble With Tribbles," and several of the Blish novels. I would save up my lunch money by skipping lunch and buying the books I had ordered when they came in. I really desired my books more than food back then, and I remember that year as especially exciting as I absorbed the thick making-of books.

This next bonus item below goes back to 1972, from second issue of "The Monster Times." The article is looking forward to the historic New York ST convention, (the very first) happening January 21-23rd at the Statler-Hilton hotel. Were you there?

And lastly, another item from TMT, continuing my posts of the regular feature "Trek Talk," from issue #38, published January of 1975. This time, there is little actual news, in favor of basically re-printing a press release from Paramount to promote their new special effects system "Magicam" (read the Memory Alpha entry here). It was touted as the solution to a less-expensive way to revive the series, but ultimately not used by the time the movie came out (although the company did build the refit Enterprise miniature). It's a good thing, too; can you imagine how cheesy the revived show would look today had Magicam been used on a new TV version back in the mid 70's? It's use on "The Starlost" proved it to be ineffective at creating believable effects. I was skeptical about it even when reading this back in 1975. Still, it's part of Trek history and the efforts to being it back, and that's why I post these Trek Talk segments.

New link added to the links list: Veteren director Ralph Senensky is blogging now, in part about his role in Trek history, and it's all interesting reading. Visit it at Ralph's Trek and get the inside scoop on TOS production!

3-2-1 Contact article on ST:TMP

The collection cabinets yield up another article on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," this time from the January 1980 edition of the youth educational magazine "3-2-1 Contact," available for students to order much like the Scholastic publications. There are two parts to the material from this issue; first, a write-up on the movie, (which does manage to get a few facts wrong) and a more educational article featuring the film's science advisor, Jesco von Puttkamer of NASA.

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Bonus: Below is an ad from the second issue of "The Monster Times," published in 1972, for a color Spock poster. I'm sure this poster hung in a lot of young people's bedrooms. Did you have it?

Bonus #2: Below is another in the set of greeting cards put out in 1976 by Random House. Inside, the text says "With any luck at all your gift should arrive in 7 light years! Happy Birthday!" Of course, making the common error of confusing a measure of distance with time.

1976 Deforest Kelley Interview

I've posted items before from the great 70's fanzine "Enterprise Incidents," and today I'm revisiting it again with material from issue #2, published in July of 1976. This time we open it up for some items on Deforest Kelley, everyone's favorite sneaky-bad-guy- turned-irascible-humanitarian (as far as roles are concerned).

First up below, a reprint from the Archives page of a TV/Movie Life article on De, probably published in 1967 or early '68.

Below, another TV/Movie magazine clipping on De, from 1968.

And below we begin the magazine's actual interview with De, conducted in 1976.

Bonus: Below is another of the Random House Star Trek greeting cards, put out in 1976. Since McCoy was the focus of this entry, I thought it was a good time to post the card that featured him. The inside text says "...you can't keep a good man down!"

All of the above items were bought by me in the late 70's at the (sadly, now defunct) store in Ft. Lauderdale called "Starship Enterprises." Below you will see the younger, and much skinnier Fred inside the store during one of my visits. I was about 19 at the time; please don't hold this picture against me. I'll be posting more pictures that I took there in future entries.

I still have my copy of the life-size Spock poster behind me, and the black and white ST:TMP promotional stills on the wall in the background. And yes, I even have the U.F.P. badge I was wearing. I would look back and laugh at myself as a geek, except for the fact I still have all that stuff and really haven't changed much except put on some weight.

Shatner, Doohan in British TV commercial

I found this video while exploring the net for Trek material I hadn't seen before, and I sure hadn't seen this one or anything like it! It looks to have been made after Star Trek VI, when TNG was on the air, (or at least while the first TNG movie was being made) since Scotty is in the Enterprise D Engineering room. Enjoy!

Loved that the transporter accident put Kirk's head on the female cadet's body... which he seems to enjoy a little too much! And hearing Shatner use British slang; "I don't need a brolly, you wally!" Which in English would be "I don't need an umbrella, you idiot!" Funny stuff.

Update: thanks to some comments, we have narrowed it down to 1989-1990. I would have thought it was a bit later, due to the digital effects in the head-replacement bit, but I guess they could do a good job back then as well!

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.

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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.

1986 "Star" article on "The Voyage Home"

Today's post is a scan of an article on "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," saved from the "Star" tabloid paper, published September 30, 1986. This two-page spread took four scans to capture and then (roughly) photoshop back together into one page. Just sayin'.

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Bonus: Below, mother and son share an affectionate moment in a family photo.

Bonus #2: Below you will find another in the series of Star Trek greeting cards put out in 1976 by Random House. I've added a tag for "Greeting Card" to the sidebar in case you ever want to view all the posts with the cards included as bonuses.

The inside of the card:

And finally, the last bonus item: below is the next edition of "Trek Talk" from "The Monster Times," issue 36, published in August 1974. (You may view other posts with this feature by looking for it in the "tags" section on the bar to the right.)