National Lampoon Magazine's "Detente Trek" comic

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The recent Newsweek issue with the Star Trek cover has an article in it that casts current administration figures in Star Trek roles. But it's been done before: the National Lampoon Magazine ran this political spoof in issue #72, in March 1976. The strip featured the Gold Key Star Trek font and put key figures in the Ford administration in the roles of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Sulu, Chekov and Uhura are still there, though.

This is one gaseous cloud that doesn't smell like honey....

Sadly for the crew, not only are Green Orion enchiladas just as hot and spicy as their women, but the captain can't resist them either.

Space Race: Trek vs. Space:1999

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Seriously; which ship and crew would you rather be a part of?

It was 1975...I was in the 11th grade in Ft. Lauderdale, and there was this show about to come out that had the temerity to try to "replace" Star Trek! The unmitigated gall! No show could do that! I was against it before I ever saw it for that reason (although I did watch it when it came out and kind of enjoyed it). I didn't realise that all the "Trek replacement" talk was only generated by the articles being written about it, not the show's producers. You hardly read an article about "1999" without there being a reference to Trek in the headline.

"Enterprise to Eagle One... have you seen our moon anywhere lately?"

The article posted this time came from the teen-oriented "Smash" magazine, and true to form it placed the two programs in competition against each other, although one was new and the other nearly ten years old. It was to Trek's credit that it could hold it's own and even be superior to a program coming out a decade later. The article is really more about Trek than the new show, which is recognizes as having problems, but on a TV schedule mostly barren of science-fiction, any new show done halfway decently would be welcomed.

Below is the first article about the show that I ever saw, and it did the most to predjudice me against it. This was clipped in the summer of 1975 from the Macon Herald.

Bonus (as such): Below is my very first Star Trek drawing of any kind, done when I was 11 years old, inspired by my only exposure to the show up to that point, the Gold Key comic. You are free to feel superior.

If Number One and Yeoman Colt had arrived five minutes later...

1975 Tech Manual ads

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Clipped with feverish anticipation from the Miami Herald on December 7, 1975. Four years later the first Trek movie would be released on Dec. 7th. Just sayin'.

Below is an ad that ran in the TV Guide about the same time. The Tech Manual and Blueprints were the biggest thing that happened that year, as far as I was concerned! Even my first kiss paled in comparision. But, you would understand if you saw a picture of the girl.

Bonus: Below is a scan of the 1976 package for a large poster that contained a Trek-oriented crossword puzzle. The poster inside is identicle to the image on the cover, only larger. I think it's funny how Kirk is shooting at something from safely behind Spock.

"Don't move, Spock... it doesn't seem to like Vulcan blood!"

I've been a bit lazy concerning how I posted the 1976 Star Trek cards by Topps... just haphazardly, with smaller images and not showing the backs. Well, no more! I am now posting larger scans, with the backs included, in numerical order, only skipping over those already posted. I start off the better approach to sharing them with the great box top, below:

Ten cents! Compare that price for what you might pay nowadays for a pack of collector's cards! Today's kids don't use bubblegum cards to put in their bicycle spokes, that's for sure. If they could afford them, they'd have to pry them from the cheeseburger-greased hands of the slurpee-guzzling parent's-basement-dwellers who are buying them for their collections. (No offense to such, if this applies.)

Note the tag about the coming movie... it would be another three very long years before it came out.

New Dimension For Star Trek

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Clipped from the Miami Herald on Sunday, November 19, 1978.

Below is my very first-ever Star Trek character drawing, circa 1971. Please allow for the fact that I was 12 when I did it. You can see the tape where I had it in my scrapbook. Heretofore my interests had been more along these lines... Yes, I was starting to grow up. Slightly.

"Oh, my...!" Takei-toons!

Another look back at a recurring theme from the original series with a new insight provided by George himself... (NOTE: for those sensitive to certain topics, I won't display these on the site. I believe in freedom of speech, but I won't put it in anyone's face out of respect. For those who think these are a hoot, it's here as a link. Click only if you are able to laugh without being offended by good-natured fun poking at George's antics.) Other captioned photos, having fun with various other original series characters, (such as this one and this one)I will continue to post on the main page, since no-one seems to have a problem with those. Satisfactory?

1977 Star Trek Stamp Packages

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In 1977, these Star Trek collector stamps came out... which I completely missed. I did manage to pick up these two empty stamp packages, though, about a decade later at a local comic book/used stuff store. Yes, I was that dedicated. They looked pretty cool, though, so I scanned them in, along with the back cover they all shared. And, it's neat that the stamps that were in each set are pictured on the covers, so we get to see what they looked like. Anyone out there have these stamps and the album?

Below, another of the brochures for the gorgeous Hamilton Star Trek plates that were issued in 1991 for the show's 25th Anniversary. Uhura looks especially beautiful in this painting.

A Star's Trek To Fame

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Clipped from the back page of the comics section of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in December of 1978.

Bonus picture: One article I posted recently called Shatner "comically handsome" and this huge picture (just click on it) illustrates the truth in that. "Ridiculously handsome" also comes to mind... uh... HEY, how 'bout that game last night? Heckuva game, heckuva game.

Nimoy's A Natural As Holmes

Clipped from the May 16, 1976 issue of the Miami Herald. I've posted another article about "Sherlock Spock" earlier, in case you missed it.

Bonus: The ad brochure for the Spock plate in the Hamilton Collection, released to commemorate the 25th Aniversary of Star Trek, in 1991. The artwork for these plates is some of the best ever created for an official product.

Boy, I sure am having a good time going through my collection cabinets and boxes to find items to post in this blog! I'm finding stuff I haven't seen in many years, and in some cases I don't even remember having things I've found. But for the most part it's a trip down memory lane, as many of the things I bring out trigger memories of the times when I first got them. I hope you are having as good a time seeing them, as I am having posting them!

1976 Village Voice Trek article

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Scanned from the clipping of the February 2, 1976 issue of the Village Voice newspaper. The article itself is a silly piece of psuedo-intellectualism, which I recognised even then, but a Star Trek article of any type was worth saving, and this one, when read between the lines, gave a nice look into the convention scene at the time. I lived in Ft. Lauderdale FL at the time I found this, and a Trek item was the only reason I would pick up a copy of this rag.

Bonus content: The covers of the Trek books have many times yielded memorable artwork over the years, and Bob Larkin was one of my all-time favorite book and magazine cover illustrators. Many of the best monster magazine covers came from him and I treasure each one in my collection. The one below is a scan of the cover of "Vulcan!" (presumably shouted when said out loud) published in 1978.

The ants at Vulcan picnics are slightly more aggressive than the Earth variety.

And below is the cover art alone... nice!

TV/Movie Pinups 1974 article: ST Up-Date!

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In the summer of 1974 I was 15 and still living in Macon, GA and whenever my mom took my grandma to the doctor I would get to go to the used bookstore downtown on Cherry Street. They had a shelf of used magazines, and that is where I found this followup article to the last post, from the TV/Movie Pinup magazine. (If you look closely you can see in some places where I foolishly wrote in some commentary.) After we left the doctor, we went by Fincher's Barbeque on Houston Avenue for lunch (an old-fashioned drive-in with curbside service) and I'd read the magazines I'd found while chowing down in the back seat on one of their delicious pulled-pork BBQ sandwiches. Good memories!

Of course, when we got back to my Grandma's house, the pages were clipped out of the magazine, which was then tossed out, and the article taped in my scrapbook, which then went into my safe-keeping place, the closet in the spare bedroom where I stayed when visiting her. It did not pay to leave such treasures at my home where they might be discovered and threatened with burning. In case you have read in this blog before about my struggles with my stepdad over my "childish" hobbies, as they seemed to him, here is a photo of him as he looked at that time. Just so you can get a mental image of what I had to deal with back then to be a trekker.

As a bonus, below is a scan from the old scrapbook, this time another of those fantastic publicity photos. My senses used to tingle when finding one of these!

Also of interest:

On my newspaper movie ad blog, "Held Over!" I have posted an article and photo featuring Jeffery Hunter, aka Captain Christopher Pike, from way back in 1954 as he starred in a movie called "The Young Texans."

1974 TV/Movie Pinups "Star Trek Spectacular"

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The "TV/Movie Pinups" magazine was a rich resource for semi-regular aticles about Star Trek. This was the first one I discovered, in 1974. I would haunt the Macon, GA used bookstore magazine shelf for these kinds of publications and flip through them looking for Trek content. I was always excited when I came across a pinup photo or a whole article like this one!

Below is a scan from my scrapbook of an 8 x 10 photo card that features one of my all-time favorite publicity photos taken of the cast.

Notice whose shoulder Uhura's hand is on. There's a lot to add credence to the new movie's idea that she had a thing for Spock. Consider the several times in the series that she and the Vulcan shared off-duty moments; there was more going on there than just officer's respect, I think. Look again at some of the pictures of her and Spock together in this previous post.