Tin Tin and Jack in Penrith

Doing the rounds of Facebook last week was this parody cover mock-up of a "Tin Tin" comic:



While the scene is almost-instantly recognised as The 'Riff for all manner of iconic reasons, there still seemed to be something missing. It occurred to me today: the image needed a few inappropriate palm trees!









As you can see, the Red Rooster takeaway food store, depicted in the joke cover, is a more generic Red Rooster, but most of the elements were visible today. Minus the colourful human riff raff.

Star Blecch from MAD TV

Cool! Continuing MAD's tradition of satirising all the Trek films, only animated! This is the MAD parody of JJ Abrams' 2009 version of "Star Trek". Thanks Youtube, and Robert Bruns for the heads-up.


Star Blecch

Star Trot x 2

I'd seen "The Paul Hogan Show" version of "Star Trot", but this TV parody of "Star Trek" with the same name from the much earlier "Mavis Bramston Show" - another iconic Australian satirical sketch comedy series - and featuring Johnny Lockwood, later of "Number 96" fame. Very cool Youtube find!



Note that the captain calls one female officer "Number One", so it also drew from "The Menagerie" ("The Cage" being unknown in Australia in the 60s). The "Mavis Bramston Show" ran 1964-68, so it was sending up "Star Trek" as a then-current show.

Here's the "Paul Hogan Show" (late 70s/early 80s) version. It once received a write-up in "Starlog" magazine, long before Hogan became a household name in the USA. The skit uses the same Spock-in-the-elevator joke, not just the title of the old MBS skit:

Time to get "Away From it All"

... as narrated by Nigel Farquhar-Bennett in 1979.
And, if you can sit it out, you shall understand all. (I've been looking for this for a loooong time.) This travelogue ran as a film short before Monty Python's "Life of Brian" in some cinemas and has not been seen since. (And it's not on the DVD, much to fans' frustrations.)

Australia continued the tradition of film shorts for much longer that the USA. I think the last genuine film shorts I can recall seeing with main features in cinemas were "Rocking Horse Winner", which accompanied all of our viewings of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", and the black and white short film "Frankenweenie", which accompanied Disney's "Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend" - much to the surprise of "Frankenweenie" director, Tim Burton, who only discovered that it had finally been given a release when my Sydney-based "Batman" fan club, "Battalion", was able to attend a Tim Burton press conference in 1989.

Book trailer for "Night of the Living Trekkies"!

I picked up my copy of "Night of the Living Trekkies" today! And realised it already has a great book trailer for it on Youtube!


"Night of the Living Trekkies"
by Kevin David Anderson & Sam Stall

And, while on the subject of Youtube, I also love this German television promo for their SciFi channel:

Ensign Sue Must Die!: Pot Luck Comics

If you're a fan of JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movie, or an appreciator of the "Mary Sue" phenomenon, in which female fans would place a glorification of themselves into "Star Trek" fan fiction, to flirt with Kirk (or Spock, or both), look glamorous, save the ship and still e home for breakfast, you might enjoy Ensign Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue in this marvelous comic strip parody:

Pot Luck Comics present... ENSIGN SUE MUST DIE!:

Night of the Living Trekkies

Coming soon...


"Night of the Living Trekkies"
by Kevin David Anderson & Sam Stall

Via Sea of Stories:
It’s a zombie apocalypse and only one thing matters: What would Captain Kirk do? Just as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" blended monster mayhem with the world of regency romance, "Night of the Living Trekkies" mixes a zombie apocalypse with the enduring mythology of Star Trek. Our story follows a rag-tag group of “Trekkies” en route to an annual Star Trek convention. Arriving with homemade uniforms, glued-on prosthetics, and plastic phasers, these fanboys know more than any rational adult should know about Kirk, Spock, Next Generation, particle physics, and black holes. But when aliens release a zombie plague upon the Earth, all of this “Starfleet training” suddenly becomes a lot more relevant. Our fanboys find themselves trapped in the Botany Bay Hotel and Convention Center — and desperate to escape. And one reluctant fan will discover his inner Trekkie, rise up, and take command of the crew. Fast, funny, and loaded with countless references to Star Trek, geek culture, and science fiction conventions, "Night of the Living Trekkies" will appeal to anyone who enjoys science fiction, horror, and the comic scene.

$14.95 (USA price) - Quirk Publishing, 4 Sept 2010.

... mash-up novel, "mixing a zombie apocalypse with the enduring mythology of Star Trek," will join such Quirk Books titles as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Android Karenina". (And the author is Kevin David Anderson, not the more well-known Kevin J Anderson.)

Chekov: "Botany Bay. Botany Bay? Oh no! We have to get out of here."

Funny thing is, one of my regular haunts, the Novotel Hotel and Convention Centre at Brighton-le-Sands here in Sydney, is on the shores of Botany Bay:
www.novotelbrightonbeach.com.au

I wonder if the parody novel is set in Australia?

Still waiting it out: Starship Exeter

Still no word on the release of the oft-delayed finale of "The Tressaurian Intersection", the second "Starship Exeter" fanfilm episode, but in the meantime, the underlings had some fun with this:

Starship Exeter: The Night Shift

Meanwhile, here's Episode #1, with a cameo from moi:

Parody time - times three!

I love these new Youtube finds:


"JJ Abrams" reveals his plans for "Star Trek": a parody, of course.


"The Lord of the Rings" movie... of 1940!

An ingenious parody of "The Lord of the Rings" by O. Sharp. With Humphrey Bogart as Frodo Baggins, Sydney Greenstreet as Gandalf and Marlene Dietrich as Galadriel.

And...


How "Lord of The Rings" Should Have Ended!

A hair-raising tale

Yeoman Janice Rand cast a furtive, desperate glance over her shoulder - she could see the approaching, remastered Gorn as it lumbered towards her, blinking in magnificent CGI, over a dusty vasquez of rocks. Janice looked about, but could see no diamonds, coal or sulphur to make herself a cannon, so she detached her basketweave hair bun and tossed it at the Gorn, knocking him out cold.

Janice smiled. Hair today, Gorn tomorrow.

;)

Not All Dogs Go to Heaven

I happened to catch this "Star Trek" parody episode of the cartoon "Family Guy" last night, not long before bed. Spotto the Andorian, with his blue antennae, in the audience!



The episode was titled "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", and the "Next Generation" crew (Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Wil Wheaton, Denise Crosby and Marina Sirtis) provided guest voices, as the Griffin family heads to the annual Quahog "Star Trek" convention.

Hilarious!

Phunny phony Trek

A talented Photoshopper has been having fun with some Star Trek novel covers.

Check out: Mighty God King's blog!

I can't make up my mind on a favourite. "Collectible Plate" is pretty hilarious, but so are most of the others!

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Escaping the string of high-temperature days out here in western Sydney this week, some friends and I went off to see the animated film, "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa", sequel to the popular and successful "Madagascar".

Predictably, it was a clever mix of slapstick humour for the ankle-biters in the audience, and some clever parodies and homages to famous films and TV shows for the adults. Again we follow the misadventures of a lion, zebra, hippo and giraffe (and some manic penguins and a few monkeys). Last time they escaped Central Park Zoo and ended up, not in Africa but Madagascar. This time they try again for Africa.

Certain sequences were tips of the hat to films such as "West Side Story", "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Born Free", and classic TV's "The Twilight Zone" (William Shatner's oft-parodied "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" episode).

Voice actors Chris Rock (Marty the zebra) and Ben Stiller (Alex the lion) did a very funny promotional interview for this film on "Rove", a few months ago, and they mentioned how weird it was when their voices get dubbed into foreign languages, and yet they're still the headline stars who travel the world to discuss the film. Essentially they are promoting their names on the film poster! (Mind you, the fictional characters have inherited lots of quirky traits of all the cast. Melman the Giraffe is a close cousin to Ross of "Friends", thanks to the contributions of David Schwimmer.)

Some will say it wasn't as funny or fresh as the original, but for me it certainly pushed all the right buttons. Well worth a look. Escape... 2 the cinema.

The Wrath of Jim the Toad (and Spock the Gerbil)?

In the 80s, two fellow Star Trek fans were playing with a computer's drawing program, trying to keep their minds off the drudgery of preparing yet another issue of the Star Trek fan club's newsletter. In the wee hours of a weekend, they came up with the hilarious and silly "Adventures of Jim the (ugly) Toad and Spock the Gerbil".

Imagine my fascination tonight, browsing the piles of old sale books at Galaxy Bookshop, and discovering, for just $5: Commander Toad and the Voyage Home (Putnam & Grosset, 1998) by Jane Yolen, and illustrated by Bruce Degen. Mainly, it's a parody of "Star Wars", although the logical sidekick, Mr Hop, seems to have derived from a certain pointy-eared celebrity.

Morass for M'Ress

I've been searching high and low for my back issues of "Dreadstar" comics to share a particular frame. And I finally found them today.

Issues #63 and 64 (First Publishing, 1991) of "Dreadstar" by Peter David featured parody Star Trek pixie-like characters, who are amazed to meet Cookie, a felinoid alien who closely resembles Lieutenant M'Ress the Caitian of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (TAS).

When Peter David took over DC's Star Trek comic (Series I), he inherited Arex and M'Ress (formerly of TOS) who'd only been recently been re-introduced to the Star Trek universe in comic book adventures set after "ST IV: The Voyage Home". Then Star Trek went on hiatus while Pocket Books' and DC Comics' tie-in licences were renegotiated. With DC's Series II #1 ready for release, the Peter avid and the editors were asked to change their plans for M'Ress - and antelope woman M'yra literally took her place.

But Peter David wasn't yet done with M'Ress. Changing her name to Cookie (and giving her a fluffier tail), he added a new felinoid character to "Dreadstar", as a vivacious love interest for regular felinoid alien, Oedi. Cookie and Oedi married in issue #62.

When "Dreadstar" was winding up its ongoing story arcs, Peter David went out with a bang when he unleashed the United Franchise of Worlds (a parody of Star Trek's United Federation of Planets) in "The Day the Urth Stood Still" and "Franchise & Empire".

As an all-powerful Great Bird of the Galaxy swoops down elsewhere, the Chekov-like pixie alien, "Navigations Officer Anton" (ho ho!), mistakes Cookie for a "Lieutenant Morass". Later, with Tibrus and his crew incapacitated, Captain Jean-Paul DeGaulle explains that "zee Benedyct [Arnold?] was something of an embarrassment to us". Someone later complained - of the United Franchise, in particular - that "with all the stuff they eliminated... they sound kind of dull..." Hilarious stuff, especially for those fans following both storylines, and the ongoing Richard Arnold versus Peter David feud.


ANTON:
"... Lieutenant Morass eess no longer een offeecial conteenuity.
She was only aneemated and doesn't count."

Star Trek: The Mego Picture

This is an excellent Star Trek parody from Youtube, which must have taken a bunch of looney Star Trek fans a long, long time to create:




Enjoy!

Andorians old and new - and Spider-man, too

I'm still attempting to do some housework, but I keep finding things with which to play "Show and Tell".

I recently discovered that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" made its own curious guest appearance in a 1980 issue of Amazing Spider-Man #203. Spider-Man's alter-ego, Peter Parker, and his friends were excited about going to see the premiere of ST:TMP (itself a Marvel cross-promotion at the time, since Marvel was doing the tie-in comic based on ST:TMP). As soon as the Klingon ships began to fire torpedoes, the supervillain du jour sends an energy blast right through the movie screen...

"Amazing Spider-Man" #203, 1980

Cool, eh?

I regularly get to add new Andorians to my Star Trek Rogues' Gallery of Andorians pages, but if they are in novels, there aren't usually any new portraits to share. A few months ago, a Japanese-influenced graphic novel anthology, Star Trek: The Manga: Shinsei Shinsei (2006), included an Andorian (and other aliens), who'd been seemingly assimilated by proto Borg (below, left). The story is "Side Effects" by Chris Dows, illustrated by Makoto Nakatsuka.



An earlier comic - a parody this time by Peter David & Richard Howell and illustrated by John Heebink & Jim Mooney - is Soulsearchers and Company (1995), issue #15. I recently ordered this (previously unknown) title from the amazing online comic seller, Mile High Comics. In "To Boldly Search", David & Howell's regulars end up on a studio set of the fictitious Cosmic Convoy: Venturer, a starship very like the USS Voyager. Many of the actors resemble "Voyager" characters; the captain looks like Kate Mulgrew (as Janeway), but is called Genevieve (as in Bujold). One actress (above, right), whose hair and costume make her resemble Kes the Ocampa, is wearing Andorian antennae.

There's also a new Andorian due in IDW Publishing's Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between #2 (2007). Schwin is an Andorian archeologist colleague of Captain Picard's. I can't wait to preview him here, so please watch this space...

Meanwhile, back to the housework and filing tasks...

Crossovers are cool!

I've been cleaning out the Star Trek Shrine and finally found a She-Hulk/Star Trek crossover parody I've been dying to share. The Hulk's cousin, "The Sensational She-Hulk" (issue #12, Feb 1990) is making a feature film at Major Motion Pictures. Crashing through a soundstage wall, she interrupts William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton making a crossover Star Trek movie, long before "Star Trek Generations" was ever conceived. The comic was written for Marvel Comics by Peter David, of course, a prolific "Star Trek" novelist and comics writer.

Less explicable is this frame of 1986's "Elftrek" #1 (below), which contains an obscure Number 96 reference - to the 1973 novelization Bev & Bruce & Maggie & Don - in an American parody comic, "Elftrek", which sends up both "Star Trek" and "ElfQuest". (The arrow and question mark are mine.) I guess artist Martin Poe at Dimension Graphics has an Australian connection?



Of course, the actual "Number 96" paperback's title was a parody of the movie "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", and that's part of the above panel, too. ("Troublets" is a reference to the "Star Trek" episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles".) If anyone knows Martin Poe, please let him know I'd love an answer as to how the "96" reference came about. I feel like the only reader of "Elftrek" who ever got the joke!

Starship Exeter at ConQuest 25, Brisbane

As I mentioned previously, I'm just back from Queensland where I was asked to present the first Starship Exeter episode, "The Savage Empire", in which I have a cameo appearance, at the 25th annual science fiction media convention, ConQuest.

It played in three sections during intervals at the gala banquet, held on the Saturday evening, and I was asked to introduce the episode with a few anecdotes about the fan film's producers, how I came to be involved, and previous ConQuests I've attended.

A little daunting, since it has been several years since my last ConQuest, and I wasn't sure how my audience would react. I wasn't even sure how many people would be there, whether the celebrity guests would be in attendance, or whether most Queensland fans had already viewed the Johnsons' films via the Internet. Luckily, I can tell you that the reactions to "The Savage Empire" were extremely favourable. (Wait till they see the new episode!)

I'm used to seeing the footage on a tiny mpeg frame on my iMac's monitor screen, or sometimes via DVD on a television screen. At ConQuest, Sonja the media magician projected "The Savage Empire" onto a Very Large Wall! Scary!

The souvenir convention book said of my spot:

"Ian McLean came to Star Trek and science fiction media fandom by way of Filmation's animated Star Trek (coming soon to DVD!) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He spent over a decade as President of ASTREX, a Sydney-based fan club. A frequent visitor to ConQuest, Ian was often featured as a panelist or Master of Ceremonies. These days, Ian is a frequent poster on Psi Phi, TrekBBS and Blogspot ("Have Phaser, Will Travel").

"His Andorian persona, Captain Therin, has been similarly prominent over the years, appearing in fanzine fiction, at costume parades and gala film premieres, and hosting live convention gameshows. Sale of the 23rd Century and Perfect Botch won National Science Fiction Media Awards in the category of Best Australian Audio-Visual. Most recently, Therin had a park named after him in the Pocket novel, Andor: Paradigm by Heather Jarman (Worlds of DS9, Volume 1).

"Ian launched his exhaustive Rogues' Gallery of Andorians onto the Internet in 1997, with the aim of cataloguing every appearance of antennaed blue aliens in Star Trek - and was soon contacted by Jimm and Joshua Johnson of the USA, who were developing Starship Exeter, a Trek-inspired fan film. It sounded like a pipe dream, but Ian was invited to make a guest appearance, as Senator Therin of the Andorian Planetary Council, in their first episode, The Savage Empire. Therin's scene was shot in Sydney on video and mailed off to Texas where it was integrated into the main footage. The Savage Empire was released online in 2002 to great acclaim. It has inspired a wave of similar fan films, many with production qualities that seemingly surpass the 1960s source material and take the humble Star Trek fanzine to a new plane of existence.

"Starship Exeter: The Savage Empire will be screening during the Saturday night banquet."

Getting animated!

The final series of "Star Trek" not-yet-available-on-DVD has been announced for commercial boxed set release! Filmation's "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (aka TAS), which I used to watch in glorious black and white limited animation on Saturday mornings in the 70s, and then in colour repeats on breakast television - "The Super Flying Fun Show" with Miss Marilyn (Mayo) - was my first real introduction to "Star Trek", consolidated by a few random TOS ("the original series") episodes, again to celebrate the arrival of colour TV Down Under, and then the mesmerising "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979.

I'm really looking forward to the DVD text commentaries by Michael and Denise Okuda on three of the episodes, including two of my favourites ("Yesteryear" and "The Counter-Clock Incident", plus "The Eye of the Beholder") and all the other bonus features. "Yesteryear" was a story involving the Guardian of Forever time gate from the live-action "City on the Edge of Forever", and "The Counter-Clock Incident" featured the first captain of the NCC-1701 Enterprise, Robert April, and his wife, Sarah.

References to TAS in latter day Star Trek tie-ins have been annotated at my site, Toon Trek. A work in progress, I've tried to annotate the list with every element of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" that has appeared in "Star Trek" episodes, movies, novels, comics, games, etc. Another great site about TAS is here.

A frequently asked question about TAS concerns its controversial "removal from the canon" via a memo from Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek Office at Paramount during that prolonged hiatus between Seasons One and Two of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Why de-emphasise TAS stories? Who knows, the definitive answer is buried under red tape, but keep in mind that: TAS identities, DC Fontana and David Gerrold, had begun legal proceedings in regard to their departure from the staff of TNG; Peter David was asked to discontinue using Arex and M'Ress as characters in his post-ST IV comics; Filmation was being disbanded as a company; and SF writer Larry Niven was just about to launch "The Man-Kzin Wars" books and a licensed "Ringworld" RPG, both featuring kzinti. (It would not have helped him if the TOS and TNG comics and novels started playing with "The Slaver Weapon"'s animated kzinti with, or without, Niven's input.)

But it doesn't matter to us, the fans, any more if TAS is canonical or not. Paula Block, of Viacom (now CBS) Licensing, started letting back in references to TAS in the books within weeks of Roddenberry's death (and Richard Arnold's departure from the STO) in 1991. The novelization of TNG's Spock episodes, "Unification" by Jeri Taylor, briefly references the Phylosians, of "The Infinite Vulcan" and "The Time Trap" fame. Arex and M'Ress have since time jumped into Peter David's "New Frontier" novels (from "Gateways: Cold Wars" onwards) and a member of Em/3/Green's species - P8Blue the Nasat - has turned up in the "Starfleet Corps of Engineers" (SCE) eBooks.

By the way, the above Bill Redfern pic is not actually a still from TAS. Caitians and Andorians used to feature in the online parody, "Haul Trek: Misadventures of M'Iskiti" by the late Paul S Gibbs (who once started up an email correspondence with me, and long held a hope that his Admiral M'Ress fan stories might have had a chance to transform into professional, licensed Star Trek novels). After putting a lot of energy into his TAS-homage "M'Iskiti" strips, he decided to strip out all the "Star Trek" references, changed M'Iskiti's name, and concentrated on crafting a more original humorous science fiction pastiche in panelled cartoon form, presumably again hoping for a commercial sale. Andorian captain, Aydestinguis Thesspiahn, (above) of the freighter Pharsicle was turned into a non-ST green humanoid for the revamped "Freighter Tails". That's the real M'Ress below, between a kzin and Lieutenant Arex.