25th Anniversary articles from the Official Fan Club Magazine

Wow, Star Trek's 25th anniversary doesn't seem like it was so long ago when I remember it. It was in 1991, and this issue of the Official Fan Club Magazine covers it with an article on the stars titled "Star Trek: Past, Present And Future." The inside cover has a couple of interesting behind-the-scenes images from the filming of "The Cage."  The cover, by artist Keith Birdsong, portrays the good captain, along with some unnamed (and villainous-looking) bald guy in the background.

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

Below: From the same issue, a first look at "The Undiscovered Country."

Bonus: below, an ad from the back of Starlog for one of my favorite plate paintings, celebrating the 25th Anniversary.

Bonus: below, an unusual (and very smug) photo of Captain Kirk, who presumably just completed successful first contact with the Deltan ambassador.

"It's true... bald IS beautiful!"

1980 Interview with Gene Roddenberry

From issue #40 of Starlog, published in November of 1980, comes this interview with the Great Bird about the Star Trek: the Motion Picture, in which he looks back on what it turned out to be. The points he makes about the differences between a movie and a TV show are still valid when applied to the recent movies by JJ Abrams. Great pic of Gene in the Captain's chair!

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

Bonus: below, "Men In Tights,"  a b&w production shot of Kirk and Charlie Evans about to wrestle in the gym. When watching this scene, it might seem like Kirk is bullying him, but he is just trying to teach him social interaction skills and how to take competition without getting angry. Charlie fails to learn the lesson.

Bonus: Another page from one of the coloring books that were put out to tie-in with ST:TMP, but seemed to be recycled material from earlier TOS versions. Can you figure out what they are looking at?

1977 article "Spirit Of Star Trek"

From the great third issue of the short-lived "Media Spotlight" (which was a descendant of "The Monster Times" newspaper, except in magazine format and focused more on science fiction than monsters) comes more material. I have posted some from this issue in the past, and will continue until all the Trek content is available. You can view the cover here. View all the Media Spotlight magazine posts here.

This time the article is titled "The Spirit of Star Trek" and addresses the philosophy behind the series. Written by the (now) late Hal Schuster, who wrote loads of articles for magazines plus authored and published many unauthorized Trek books (those that were not officially published by the holders of the Trek copyrights).

(Click on the images to enlarge. You may have to click on the opened image again to view full size.)

"Allowing Lisa Frank to design these spacesuits was not logical." 

Bonus: Below, a couple more pics from the "Official USS Enterprise Officer's Date Book," a "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" tie-in from 1980. You can find other posts from it under the "calendar" tag. The first one highlights the embarrassingly-designed costume pants that lets everyone know what kind of mood you're in. But since these are Bone's own clothes and not a uniform, we can only assume that they don't wear underwear in the future. And they're not ashamed of it.

 

"Why yes, Jim-boy... I AM happy to see you. Why do you ask?"

"Leonard Nimoy Dropped From Star Trek!"

From the magazine "TV Picture Life" comes this 1970's article about one of the close calls wherein we almost saw Leonard replaced by another actor in the Spock role. This one was over a script; the other time, according to the book "Inside Star Trek" was over him wanting a raise. Fortunately, the conflicts were resolved. Can you imagine someone else in the role? Actor Lawrence Montaigne (Decius in "Balance of Terror" and Stonn in "Amok Time") was their backup plan if negotiations failed, and even Mark Lenard was considered. How weird would that have been?

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

Bonus: Below, a behind-the-scenes shot from the first episode filmed when the series began production, "The Corbomite Maneuver." Note Uhura's command-gold uniform, the only time she wore that color. I liked her in red better. (Update: an asute reader pointed out in the comments that she still wore gold in "Mudd's Women," which was the next episode filmed after "Corbomite." Thanks!)

1977 article "The Return of Star Trek"

From the low-rent magazine "Space Wars" comes this October 1977 article on the return of Trek. Just goes to show that I bought anything related to Trek back in those days, eager as i was for the slightest morsel of new info. Not that this article contained any; but I bought it anyway. The article is only titled on the index page.

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

Bonus: Below, a page from the book "Charting The Undiscovered Country: The Making of Trek VI."

1986 Article: The Writers of Star Trek

From the 20th Anniversary Celebration issue of Starlog, published in November of 1986 (see the cover here), comes this article on a couple of writers of the original show. The pages feature two rare publicity photos of the guest stars from a couple of the episodes.

(Click on images to enlarge; once open you may have to click again to view full size.)

Bonus: a full-page ad from June 1992 issue of The Official Fan Club magazine with James Doohan in costume as Scotty advertising the QVC show that he was a guest host on. Did you order anything from this program?

Bonus: A publicity photo of Nimoy taken during the filming of the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Nimoy's high collar was different from the other costumes, made with snaps on each side so that it could be put on and taken off without messing up his makeup.

 

Bonus: more of the promised TOS original novel covers, this time from "The Abode Of Life," published in May of 1982. The cover art by "Rowena" was from the TMP era, but with brown cowboy boots rather then the built-in footy-pajama type. Also, that pulp-inspired raygun is about as far away from a phaser as one can get. I know some of my readers get a kick out of this non-regulation art, because it came from a time before the Trek merchandise became more tightly controlled. But at the time it just made me scratch my head and wonder why they couldn't get things like this right.

Happy Birthday, George!

 Happy 76th birthday to George Takei, known to TOS fans everywhere as Hikaru Sulu! Mr. Sulu's professionalism, likeability, and many hobbies, such as botany, fencing, guns and more made him an interesting character. And George's outgoing personality and rapid-fire laugh made him a convention favorite of many fans! Below is an autographed photo I got from him by proxy while he was at a convention in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in the mid-70's. One guess as to why I missed the con!

Click on the link below to view all my previous posts featuring George in case you missed some!
http://www.mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/search/label/Takei

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