Here’s today’s flashback: Nichelle Nichols gets a decent 1-page article in that new-fangled People magazine about her NASA Career. Now if only they could have given her a cover! It should be noted that Trek stars, despite their wild popularity in in the seventies, pretty much never got any covers in weekly glossies. A shame too, they deserved a little more attention than, say, Donny and Marie, but such it was.
Tomorrow: Nimoy in Equus
Here’s today’s flashback: A shout out to Majel Barret-Roddenberry for giving Gene the idea for his TV Pilot ‘Spectre‘ — Sounded like a good idea but it’s funny that at the time CBS declined his pilot because ‘no one is interested in the supernatural’ –But Gene was ahead of his time by about 20 years (Remember the craze X-Files started?) Now to be honest, I wasn’t into supernatural much either, but I bet this would have worked. Also a quick blurb about the Star Trek phenomenon and a listing for another Roddenberry movie “The Questor Tapes”. Gene kept busy during the 70s, a shame none of his projects took off the way he hoped. (I think Genesis II would have made a great series). And look at the babes in the photo upper left. I bet these little starlets were thinking “Wow, we’re in a Gene Roddenberry picture! We’re gonna be stars!” Dream on girls.
VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED (For written profanity and some gross-out humor, porn reference)
As requested by a member — “What’s in Spock’s Scanner, Parts I,II, and III. These are very clever mash-ups with lots of side glances and double takes. It appears that Spock spends a lot of work hours looking at ‘Spacebook’! Love the Kirk gag in part one, giving the illusion of a hand-held camera view of his antics on Platonius. Not too thrilled with the written profanity, gross-out humor, and reference to tacky porn. But on the whole, it has some very funny moments.
Congrats to Blackmoon Productions for all it’s hard work. Enjoy.
Here’s today’s flashback: A 1977 review from Starlog magazine of Nimoy’s new weekly documentary series “In Search Of...” ( I can still hear the theme song) And more delays on that supposed Star Trek movie. Roddenberry wanted a script that would please the fans, but Paramount found his original script “too much like a TV series”. Unfortunately, the final result was too much like a a very slow, very boring documentary, not like the original at all, (and don’t get me started on those hideous footie-pajama uniforms!) Glad Wrath of Khan came along in ’82 as of much better representation of what Trek should be. In Search Of… was an interesting series, although I’m sure much of its info is outdated now. The episode that really bugged me was about a cult around ‘St Germaine’; creepy. As a youngster, I was willing to believe that there was a Loch Ness Monster, and maybe even that ancient civilizations etched big pictures into the deserts to communicate with aliens, although I mostly watched for the Nimoy segments. In a later episode, Nimoy ‘searched’ for Vincent Van Gogh, and cleverly plugged his new one-man-show Vincent. 
Rock, Paper, What? I love Reily.
Here’s today’s flashback: From April o f1977. Movie magazines were getting wise to the renewed Trek phenomenon that was everywhere and actively sought related news that would make good copy (I suppose they couldn’t resist a girl in a chain-mail bikini too) I was just happy to have a pin-up of Nimoy, even if it was in that silly Tholian Web spacesuit (I bet those six costumes broke the production bank that week!) They were much more sophisticated than the shower curtain get-ups from The Naked Time!) Love the pensive podium picture too.
The guitar man is back! Just came across new batch of Nimoy with a guitar! With those hands, it seemed a natural fit (wonder if he still plays? Hope so. ) The last one just killed me! (You just know Spock had groupies..hey, I feel an idea for a StarTreKomic coming on…)
Reminds me of how, at the end of his long day at work, my dad (his name was Bill) used to take out his guitar and strum along with Segovia records. How I miss him.
Here’s this weeks Fan Art Friday! Star Trek Jam Session by taconaco . Just too cute for words!
Here’s today’s flashback: From 1977, an interesting mix of articles…upper left is an ad for the syndicated episodes of ‘Marcus Welby, M.D.’ but for some reason back in the 70’s, when repeats of currently airing series were shown in syndication, they were not called by their original names. ( I recall Bonanza in syndication was called Ponderosa) Maybe it was a legal issue, but anyway, in this episode with William Shatner, it’s is called “Robert Young, Family Doctor‘ which is a total misnomer, since Robert Young is the actor playing Marcus Welby, but not an actual doctor, and for some reason, it’s a picture of Bill Shatner as Captain Kirk, which nothing to do with the episode, although he does play a pilot with clipped sentences! Here’s a pretty hilarious scene, listen to Bill shout “Whoooa look at that green patch down there!” Then, a postcard from the (then) new National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, where they exhibited the original Model Enterprise! I went to see this, and forget about The Spirit of St. Louis! This was the ENTERPRISE! However, the engine nacelles were painted bright red, not frosted as I thought they would be. No matter, it was thrilling to see the real thing. In other news, there’s another Q&A about which TV show has smarter viewers, Star Trek or Mary Hartman? A mention of TV space parody that ‘Trek fans will hate” and a great note about Nichelle Nichols turning her typecast image lemon into lemonade, and she daylights as a NASA spokeswoman, making promotional films about the space program and hosting tours – Good for her! I wonder how many kids ended up in the space program because of her? More on Monday!
Here’s today’s flashback: From March of 1977, James Doohan appeared locally at Binghamton University (then known as Harpur College, SUNY Binghamton) and amazingly, I did not go to this show! (at least I don’t remember going!) Maybe seeing him at the NYC convention was enough? This is a charming interview, and Jimmy is humble and happy with his life. He says that people wouldn’t want him to spout Shakespeare, but I think he would have been great in Macbeth or The Taming of the Shrew! Great guy, well missed. 🙁
And more questions, this time wondering if Bill Shatner liked that newfangled english Sci-Fi show –Space 1999? (Anyone here watch that? it was fun)
