Digging through a pile of old and fading videotapes recently, I found two prime time TV promotions that my Sydney Star Trek club, the now-long-defunct ASTREX, did for the Nine Network when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was finally able to make its TV debut (1991, dating by my then-new beard). There had been a twelve-month "video holdback" while CIC-Taft/Paramount released monthly two-episodes-per-tape on sell-thru VHS. This angered the Seven Network, who had held the rights to the original series, and had first bite at TNG. The rights sat unwanted until Nine Network boss, Mr Kerry Packer - a big TOS/TNG fan - told Nine to buy the new series.
Essentially, they had seven of us describe our favourite characters and attributes of TNG. Here are a few screenshots from Promo #1:
Ian: "Data, the android... He wants to be human more than anything else."
Scene from "Encounter at Farpoint"; Wesley Crusher's voice over: "Wow!"
Scrolling text at base of screen: "Australian Star Trek fans discuss Star Trek: The Next Generation."
(Nine Network Australia, 1991.)Pretty cool, eh? I must learn how to upload to
Youtube some day...
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2 comments:
Love the explosion behind "They Love It!" Looks like TV marketing was just as cheesy in Australia as it was here in the US. Who am I kidding? It's still cheesy here in the US.
A teaching colleague from my first year at her school saw closed-circuit episodes of TNG screened in a ski chalet, owned by Kerry Packer in winter 1991. There was a terrible blizzard outside and he had to keep everyone entertained!
She came back to school apologising to me that she had seen “new Star Trek”, but I told her I wasn’t jealous and had been watching eps taped by a US penpal.
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