Star Trek: The Animated Series music

Star Trek TAS music! Art by Kail.

Woah, spooky. I was only thinking today that I wished Arex and M'ress were in that famous TAS cast publicity shot you see around. And yay, M'ress without her sometime-black koala nose - but with her black collar.

The glommer burps!

The glommer, a prototype genetically-engineered tribble predator created by Klingons ("More Tribbles, More Troubles" episode of Filmation's Star Trek: The Animated Series), stalks a group of tribbles. The glommer is the four-legged, orange creature pictured above. Note that the handsome brown tribble (left) once appeared onscreen in the live-action "The Trouble With Tribbles".


The glommer selects a Filmation-pink "safe" tribble, which has also been
genetically enhanced to prevent it multiplying out of control.


An upside down glommer is sated!

The Klingons' glommer breeding program must have been successful after all: glommers (each with one "safe" TAS pink tribble as sustenance) are finally available through David Gerrold's Tribble Toys website or Roddenberry.com!


As it appeared on "More Tribbles, More Troubles"

Chekov's TAS cameo?

"Beyond the Farthest Star", the first episode aired of Filmation's "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (TAS): Arex is navigator and Sulu is helmsman, with Kirk in the command chair. Uhura's chair is vacant.



Seconds later: suddenly, a redshirted Chekov(?) is navigator - and Uhura is back in her usual chair.

This brief sequence is perhaps a re-use of part of some TAS pilot/test bridge footage, maybe before they were certain the budget couldn't afford Walter Koenig's voice, and before Arex was conceived. Note that "Chekov" is even in red, a precursor to his proposed role in "Star Trek: Phase II", as security chief (a Chekov "Phase II" redshirt uniform was auctioned off diring the "It's a Wrap" eBay auctions of Paramount costumes and props) and, of course, came to fruition in ST:TMP.

Okay, so maybe they accidentally threw Scotty into the scene but...



Seconds later again: Arex is back, as the bridge shakes!

(It's fun to speculate. It's certainly not the only blooper in TAS.)

Where are all the Trek book tie-ins for kids?

Over on TrekBBS, some fans of JJ Abrams' recent "Star Trek" are pondering the total lack of book tie-ins aimed at children.

Putting my teacher-librarian hat on here:

As children in the 60s, my brother and I both read his copy of "Star Trek: Mission to Horatius" by Mack Reynolds. We enjoyed it, and my brother's book secretly made its way into my growing ST collection in 1980, but the book's content wasn't anything Earth-shattering. At least not for us, although it may have piqued our curiosity for TAS when we found that in b/w on Saturday mornings in the 70s.

Having met many members of ST's "first fandom", those who were watching ST as kids and who also craved reading about ST were devouring the James Blish (TOS) and Alan Dean Foster (Filmation's TAS) episode adaptations. The selection of ADF as writer of the 2009 ST novelization was met with much enthusiasm from those ST fans who'd learned to read with "ST Logs" 1-10.



Although I have the delightful Lawrence Weinberg "ST III Storybook" in my collection, and have bought additional copies for all three school libraries I have taught in over the years, it never gets borrowed. Likewise, child interest in the Pocket/Minstrel YA books for TNG, DS9 and VOY has been minimal compared to the war SW kids devour SW YA books.

If you look back at other seemingly YA ST books, they are also more appealing to adults (as collectibles) than to kids (as reading material). "ST II Biographies", the matching short story collections and choose-your-own-adventures for both ST II and ST III, the ST IV YA ("Young Adult") novelisation, the TNG movie YA adaptations... how many sold to/for kids, and how many went straight into adults' collections? Ditto the old TOS and TMP pop-up books, and Daniel Cohen's "The Monsters of Star Trek".

I do know some kids who collect all the "Star Wars" YA books, but (like "Goosebumps" books and "Ben-10" books), they collect them as they would gum cards, and they don't necessarily use the books as reading matter.

Both SW and ST can appeal to young kids, but the ones inspired by ST seem to have no problem becoming consumers of the regular ST novels, thus skipping the YA stage completely.

Feeling animated about the upcoming Star Trek movie?

Some clever Star Trek fan has been busy...

The teaser trailer for the next Star Trek movie, had it been produced by Filmation:



Here are some favourite (legitimate) stills from the more recent, longer trailer:


A Vulcan city


Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan (aka Vasquez Rocks)


Alnschloss K'Bentayr of Monchezke, as featured on a publicity support website

Nero and prison guards

And... a special addition to the Internet version of the new, longer trailer:


"Live long Star Trek, and prosper..."

Thelin and The Chimes at Midnight

Thanks to Titan's "Star Trek" magazine editor, Paul Simpson, for organising this beautiful illustration of Andorian Mr Thelin (late of "Yesteryear", TAS) to accompany the magazine's extract of a story out of "Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions", volume 2 in the series of novella omnibuses.

"The Chimes at Midnight", by Geoff Trowbridge, tells of the life that could have been, ie. if Spock had died during his kahs-wan practice run at age seven, and Thelin went on to be Kirk's first officer on the Enterprise. the timeline continues on through the movies years, paralleling the Genesis Project years and beyond.

Below (left), here's how he appears, drawn in the Filmation style, in the Titan ST Magazine, US #12, Jul/Aug 2008, p. 56:


Pocket Books cover art (right) by the talented John Picacio

Kirk and the animated common people

This is a great Youtube find: William Shatner (aka James T Kirk), singing "Common People" on the "Has Been" CD, set to edited images from the Filmation Star Trek animated series. Some cameos by M'Ress and a jammin' Mr Arex!

Origins of Filmation's TAS: 1969!

Titan's latest "Star Trek" magazine (Aussie version #90 JUL/AUG 2007; UK #132) features a bonus section, including "The Secret Origins of 'Star Trek: The Animated Series'" by Andy Mangels.

Andy's article includes reprints of official comments, from Paramount to Filmation (dated October 15, 1969), about Don Christensen's 1969 "concept paper" proposing for TAS: a training ship called Excalibur; Scotty's moustache; new characters called Tun-Tun, Stormy, Ploof, Steve and Bob; and a suggestion to eliminate Chekov and his paired cadet, Chris, in favour of finding a cadet pairing for Uhura.

Excalibur (originally proposed as 6D12 Lightly) would have been able to break up into smaller pods. It sounds like Tun-Tun was already slated to be replaced by the moustachioed Scotty - and his cadet counterpart, Stormy, was to be dropped. Steve was Spock's cadet companion, and Bob was McCoy's. There was concern that Kirk's companion looked too much like "any boy in the world", and Sulu's and Uhura's companions were not decided yet (although a preliminary sketch of the female cadet paired with Uhura is in "The Art of Star Trek" by Garfield & Judith Reeves-Stevens, so she did see further development).


From "The Art of Star Trek" - Note the pre-TMP moustache on Scotty!


Three early story outlines were "The Space Cocoon", "The Impossible Rainbow" and "Klingon Attack". Some "crab/spider" business in "The Space Cocoon" was deemed unacceptable for a kids' show, but there was an effort to boost up the educational angle of each TAS instalment from even this earliest incarnation. There were aliens called trogs.

Perhaps "The Space Cocoon" inspired the story about the pod ship of "Beyond the Farthest Star" (That ship was built by an insectoid race, and there was already talk of the TAS cadet ship being able to break into smaller pod vessels?) "The Impossible Rainbow" was about "a quiet boy" and fantasy becoming reality - perhaps inspired by "Charlie X"? There was concern there was "no real point" to "The Klingon Attack" and it needed work to draw out the interrelationships and to add an educational message.

Very cool trivia from the archives! Thanks Andy Mangels, Filmation animator/historian Darrell McNeil, and Titan!

Do you know the way to ShiKahr?

American television audiences channel flipping for random episodes of original Star Trek (TOS) in syndication are enjoying all-new special effects footage, which is being recreated/repaired/enhanced with CGI in remastered, high definition versions of the episodes. Although current syndication advertisement ratios require extensive cutting of popular lines and (sometimes) whole scenes, there is an intention to release uncut HD DVDs of the "remastered" TOS.

TOS was made on film, not videotape, which means that it looks amazing on HD TV, but the FX made in the 1960s are simply not up to scratch, due to the number of composite film layers required to produce SPFX footage of transporter effects, phaser beams, ship passes and matt paintings. The episodes still look good on regular TVs, but DVD already shows up problems (the joins on Nimoy's pointed ear tips, for one) and HD TV and DVD will show up many more faults, especially in the old SPFX.

While some fans have been angered by any attempt to meddle with a cultural icon - especially the attempts to recreate CGI versions of the Enterprise's rotating nacelle caps, and the artists putting miniature, moving versions of themselves in the new computer-drawn matt paintings - the CBS SPFX team are doing an amazing job, from the still and moving examples I've seen so far.

But last week, CBS unveiled its remastered version of "Amok Time". Suddenly, that well-known scene of Spock and Kirk's battle for T'Pring, Spock's intended bondmate, has been elevated, literally, onto an impossibly precarious land bridge, similar to those seen in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"! And, in the distance, we can now see a CGI recreation of Spock's home city of ShiKahr, which had previously been named and visited in the Filmation animated episode, "Yesteryear" (TAS).


Left: ShiKahr in TAS; Right: a distant ShiKahr in TOS-R.

While most of Filmation's TAS was shunted out of "canon" via a Star Trek Office memo in 1989, several names and events from "Yesteryear" (plus Captain Robert April of "The Counter-clock Incident") are embraced by the "Star Trek Encyclopedia" and the "Star Trek Chronology", with Gene Roddenberry's approval. Unfortunately, Spock's city of birth is misspelt "ShirKahr" in those publications, and that pesky error has permeated TAS mentions in other licensed Star Trek products.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the moon-like object in the sky over Shikahr in the "Yesteryear" still, that is "T'Kuht", coined in the 70s by fanzine identity, Gordon Carleton, to explain the misleading TOS quote, "Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura" (in "The Man Trap"). Jean Lorrah once wrote Sarek & Amanda fanzine stories for T'Kuhtian Press.

The TAS error in "Yesteryear" (ie. Dorothy Fontana had scribbled "remove moon" on the art she approved for Filmation, but it wasn't noticed by the animators) was retconned as "Vulcan's twin planet" in the booklet accompanying View-Master's "Yesteryear" adaptation, "Mr. Spock's Time Trek". The planetary body was also shown to dominate the Vulcan sky in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (TMP) in 1979 (below), although it was eliminated for the director's edition DVD.



Several years later, the planetoid turned up in a Pocket Star Trek novel as T'Kuht in "The Vulcan Academy Murders" (below) by Jean Lorrah, acknowledging Gordon Carleton for the name and explanation. The planetoid is even on the cover of "The Vulcan Academy Murders" (below left) and Michael Jan Friedman's "New Worlds, New Civilizations" (below right).



The name is spelt "T'Khut" in Diane Duane's "Spock's World", Jeri Taylor's "Voyager: Pathways" and the books "The Worlds of the Federation" and "New Worlds, New Civilizations". It's called "T'Rukh" in AC Crispin's novel, "Sarek", with an explanation that the name changes are seasonal. It's T'Kuht again in "The Needs of the One" a DC Comics story in its TOS Special, Series II, and Geoffrey Mandel's book, "Star Trek Star Charts".

With the animated series often considered the bastard child of the Star Trek phenomenon, it's always a thrill to me to see TAS acknowledged. With the new version of "Amok Time", ShiKahr and TAS take a new step towards legitimacy and acceptance!

Getting animated again

Ballantine/Del Rey's 40th anniversary reprints of Alan Dean Foster's adaptations "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (the "ST Logs") turned up in Sydney yesterday!

Filmation's animated series (affectionately known as TAS) was the first TV spin-off of the original series (affectionately known as TOS). Science fiction author James Blish had adapted TOS into short stories for Bantam Books to great success, and Alan Dean Foster was offered a similar opportunity for TAS.

Originally, the first six singly-published "Logs" contained three episode adaptations (plus expanded scenes) each, but the last four "Logs" contained just one episode in the first third of the book, plus new adventures of ADF's creation. There are five volumes in the new trade paperback collections, two "ST Logs" in each book. A different one-page introduction from the author prefaces each volume:

In "Logs One and Two", ADF discusses getting the job, his excitement about writing for ST, and the trepidation of possibly padding out 20-page scripts into 60,000 words.

In "Logs Three and Four", he mentions how some authors consider novelization assignments to be hack work, and demonstrates how "Fire photon torpedoes, Mr Sulu!" can become two paragraphs of exposition.

In "Logs Five and Six", ADF discusses Filmation's approach to animation and mentions how he recognized a friend's artwork style in a cel from TAS used on the original release of "ST Log 5".

In "Logs Seven and Eight", he talks about the day Judy-Lynn del Rey told him to start padding out each remaining script into one per book. ADF's additional Kumara the Klingon adventure in "ST Log 7" is mentioned as being ADF's rejected two-parter script pitch for the third season of TOS. He was told to resubmit for Season Four. Sigh.

In "Logs Nine and Ten", ADF discusses how he deliberately kept the two strongest SF storylines to last, then worried how Larry Niven (creator of the kzinti) would react.

Keep in mind that each new introduction is only one page long. But irresistable to me. Had all five pages been repeated in each volume, I'd have probably only have bought the one volume, because I already have these adaptations as single volumes (Ballantine) and in the Pocket International three-volume set.

If you've never read the "Logs" (or even never seen TAS), but like "Star Trek" stories of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy era, then you need to know that there are slabs of additional material grafted onto the 22 TAS stories: flashbacks (including Uhura's childhood, M'Ress's family on Cait and her early career), extra subplots, sequels to TAS episodes - and whole new adventures, including several meetings with Kumara, Kirk's feisty Klingon roommate from an Academy exchange program. ADF wrote knowing that TAS was a show airing on Saturday mornings and primarily aimed at children, but also being watched by adult TOS and science fiction fans (still mourning the loss of TOS?) the world over. I've heard of numerous fans who recall the Foster's "Logs" as one of their first ever independant novel-reading experiences as children. They come with my highest recommendation.

This set of reprints is timed to celebrate 40 years of the original "Star Trek" and the forthcoming international release of TAS as a DVD boxed set later in 2006.