I couldn’t resist doing another batch of these. Funny how the Voila! app makes all the women on the show look even more doll-faced; Stella too! Of course the lighting and common soft focus on TOS added to it! By the way, for those wondering, a reader asked why I made all the characters look like children in my last post. Well, that’s all part of the app algorithm! Also, the original app gives you three versions of the original, and in the last post I cropped them all down to the ones I though looked best – mostly in ‘royal’ mode, whatever that is! For this post, I’m posting all the versions per character, (I love how Khan, looks like a perfect Mort Drucker caricature. You’ll see that not all of them quite work! Sometimes in profile, a nose gets nipped! And with with aliens; Balok’s puppet looks like something out of Salvador Dali! However, since so many of them look pretty cool, (We have some gorgeous Diana Muldaur here in both of her Trek roles) that’s a testament to the beautiful photography of TOS! Enjoy, and hope you’re doing well on these blessed summer days. -Therese <3
Here’s an idea I’ve had for a LONG time and I finally got it to come to fruition. As I’m sure many of you have seen, in the past I have made many silly collages which combine the two best pop culture phenomenons of the 1960’s; Star Trek and The Beatles! You can see my previous ‘Beatle Trek’s’ here.
Anyway, for ages I wanted to recreate the famous Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band except make it with memorable Star Trek Characters. As the centerpiece, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty replace the Fab Four, and I poured over many pictures to find just the right character to fill in for all the originals (and a few more) for this cover.
You’ll note that the Klingons replace the waxworks figures of The Beatles, Mohammed Ali’s robed boxer is replaced with robed Lord Garth from Whom Gods Destroy, glamorous Droxine and Carolyn Palamas take over for Marlene Dietrich and Diana Dors. I’ve added many other characters in positions close to the originals: notice Miranda Jones’ hand behind Kirk, just as Issy Bonn’s hand was behind Paul McCartney’s head in the original! I also have many more women in this version than the Pepper album. But as The Beatles chose their favorite heroes for their album, I chose my favorite characters for this. And of course you will find our dear Celeste Yarnall (Martha Landon in The Apple) in the mix. Although she sadly passed before she could see it, her widower, Nazim assured me she would have enjoyed it. Indeed, I have always found creativity a balm for sorrow, and I recommend creating something yourself, anything with your heart and hands, to help you at your sad times.
You’ll notice that most of these characters are not crew members, as I did a massive collage of as many Enterprise members as I could in the past. I also intentionally posted some characters in black and white instead of color, like on the original. If you look closely, you’ll see Alexander from Plato’s Stepchildren in Shirley Temple’s place and Balok from The Corbomite Maneuver flopped out like the doll in Rolling Stones sweater too! I even used Star Trek plants to replace the flora of the original. And be sure to look out for 4 hidden Spocks (as well as the main one in the center)!
If you can’t identify all the characters, I created a numbered key for the poster below. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think! Thanks, Therese <3
Key to Characters in“Captain Jim Kirk’s Comely Starfleet Brand
Ruk (Ted Cassidy) in What are Little Girls Made Of?
I admit, growing up this wasn’t one of my favorite episodes, but watching it now, it has a delicious darkness about it. Michael Ansara’s Kang is a sympathetic Klingon, and ever so cool. I still think the end is kind of goofy, but in reality, wouldn’t it be nice if we could laugh away all our war and destruction? Here’s to the pursuit of Peace.
What do you get when you cross a Klingon with a megalomania-cal protozoa? Why, Commander PLANG, of course! Here’s the latest in my SpongeTrek series, Plankton as ‘PLANG’, with apoligies to the wonderful Michael Ansara (Kang) 🙂
