Nerdy Enough Fer Ya?

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This, my second Best of Trek article, is the epitome of the old English class assignment, "Compare and Contrast."

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That is, you take two things and assess similarities and differences.

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My pride in American Lit class was to compare Rev Dimsdale in The Scarlet Letter with John Lennon's song "Crippled Inside," from Imagine.

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Anyway, this is about the various video and TV versions of STTMP and STII.

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Back in the Day, that is in 1983 or so, there weren't any of these fancy DVD thingies (or even freeze-frames you could see very well).

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So these articles were researched by having two VCRs hooked up to the same TV and playing two videotapes of the same thing and switching a "video switcher" back and forth a few million times.

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And these were the old 50-pound VCRs with "piano key" buttons.

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If you actually take the time to READ this whole article, congratulations to you.

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If you think it was worth reading, then let me know, and congratulations to ME!

I wanted an alliterative title, and "Variations and Vexations" was the best I could come up with at the time. Got a better one? "Visions and Versions"? "Differences and Distractions"?

I Got Paid!

When I read the first few Best of TREK paperback anthologies, I wrote them a letter asking if they would like an article on how to customize a couple of AMT Enterprise models, combining them into a Dreadnought class.

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That never happened, but later on I sent them an article on the hoopla surrounding Spock's death in STII, before STII in fact came out.

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Any chance to use the phrase "He's Dead, Jim" in print, eh?

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Oh, yeah. With the $35 I was paid for the article, I was able to buy a new cassette boombox to listen to while working the overnight shift at Coastal Mart.

Not Quite STAR TREK

Welcome back, Campers!

I had to spend last night finishing up the SoonerCon 2009 Program Book, but we're back to share some rip-offs of Star Trek images.

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Galaxy 666, by Pel Toro, is so forgettable I've forgotten about it. But I did read it, in another lifetime. This treasure was so wonderful that the art director at the publisher decided he had to cheat to sell the book.

It looks to me like he basically took a piece from an Erector set kit and glued it across the warp nacelles of an AMT Enterprise model kit, along with some orange bubbles on the ends of the nacelles and atop the saucer.

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Now, the second tome, The Love Bomb, actually was written with Star Trek in mind. As with Galaxy 666, time has mercifully blotted most of the story from my mind.

But I do recall that the alien in question (the grinning Spock lookalike in the cover art) has come to Earth in search of a little , umm, lady companionship, whilst spreading the sex-is-good philosophy with the same urgency as the real Spock used to preach logic.

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The rear cover shows the art a little larger.

Next up, some of my *actual* publications.

Tulsa Star Trek '83

Guess what! it was in 1983.

I had a dealer's table, and took my VCR and a little TV to play my blooper tapes to draw some attention.

Friday night I slept in my car in the parking garage of the hotel. My big beast, a 1968 Ford Galaxy, had room on its vinyl back seat for me to curl up on.

During the day Saturday, I met a nice guy and his aunt, and I was able to crash on their couch that night. In return, I was kept semi-awake by duping VHS copies of Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.

Yes, these were bootleg of unreleased-to-video films. As the Japanese-Jewish lawyer said, "SoSuMe."

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Among the guests at Tulsa Star Trek '83 were Jimmy Doohan and George Takei. I was able to crash Doohan's table and get someone to take my picture with him. The photo is a good illustration of how a guy looks when he is holding a pen in his right hand but he has no middle finger. As you should know, Doohan's middle finger was shot off on D-Day.

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George Takei, the fitness guy, had invited/challenged any and all comers to jog with him. So on Saturday morning, about twenty people headed out onto the streets. When I stopped at a Git-N-Go about 500 feet into the jog to wait for them to pass on the return trip back to the hotel, I was joined by a couple of other smart fellas.

After I loaded up my leftover merchandise Sunday afternoon, I headed back toward OKC. I got about twenty feet when the car cronked out. Thank heavens my big brother and his wife live in Tulsa, and gave me a place to sleep, and a lift to a garage, where I had to spend all but a pittance of the $400 I had made, to replace the harmonic balancer on my car.

So overall I'd say that this convention was a washout, except for these photos, which prove that I was once lanky.

Finally, Decker Gets His Picture on a Box!

Here is the last of the four McDonald's STAR TREK Meals boxes.

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Pity Stephen Collins. He was originally hired as the lead in STAR TREK: The Series, when in 1977 or whenever, Paramount was planning to launch the "Fourth Network." Then Star Wars hit big, and SF was glamorous again. Paramount decided to go for a Trek movie.

Then sort of like in the actual film of STTMP, Shatner/Kirk swooped in and took over the ship!

Or, as the actual box caption says below Collins'Decker's portrait, "The young captain is removed from command of the ship when Kirk returns."

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Not, "Decker saves the ship because of his understanding of the new Enterprise." Or, "Decker has sex with a robot to save the Enterprise and Earth." Nope, just "removed from command."
And don't forget Mr Spock saying, "Help! we are lost."
To quote Hekyll and Jekyll, See you next week with a brand new post. Ta ta!

Third Week of Happy Trek Meals

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When I see the topsy-turvy Klingons on the front side, it makes me think of Terry Gilliam's use of moving cutouts on Monty Python. I can almost hear a bumbling humming in the background as the Klingons compete in the Galaxy Head-Standing Competition. "I would've won, Bert, if not for these bloody bumps on me fore'ead!"

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I think the image of McCoy in the top left of side two looks a little like Frank Langella as Dracula, getting twitchy and ready to gnosh on somebody.

The last box tomorrow! Next week, some photos from Tulsa Star Trek '83, and how I (almost) jogged with George Takei.

McDonald's Happy Meal, Week 2

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The second Happy Meal box.

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Note the Enterprise burping at the top left of side 1.

Meals to Make Trekkers Happy

The first of 4 Star Trek: The Motion Picture Happy meal Boxes.

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No, I don't have any more toys, I got rid of them in the 1980s.

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Notice the comic on the back side of the box. The four boxes serialize the first 5 minutes or so of the movie.

Stuck in the Dealer's Room with Me (apologies to Stealer's Wheel)

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At BabelCon '81, as in many cons, I sold stuff in the Dealers' Room. At '81, I shared my table with my friend Ed Porter, who can be seen in his Battlestar Galactica Colonial Warrior outfit.

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Many times I'd wear a Trek costume, and as you can see, I wasn't the only one.

The gal with the bagpipe and also in the STTMP Engineering outfit was named called Sunny, if I recall. She could actually PLAY that thing.

At a Saturday night room party where I was present with Sunny, writer C J Cherryh, Jimmy Doohan, and others, she had her bagpipe (in its case) and Mr D agreed to autograph it for her. Now, as I said last week, this was before STII's release, and SOMETHING was in the wind as far as "a big thing happening" in the movie, but we didn't know what.

Mr D wouldn't tell us anything either, but he DID write on Sunny's bagpipe case, along with his name, the words "a sombre tone," which meant a lot more after we saw STII and knew Spock had snuffed it, joined the choir eternal, was an ex-Vulcan.

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As is apparent, on Saturday morning I shaved off my mustache, the better to wear Vulcan eyebrows and ears for the Saturday evening Costume Contest.

Am I the only would-be Vulcan to actually trim his eyebrows and glue on the clippings to make the Vulcan angled eyebrow?

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Sometimes, gals just came by to say hi and have their picture taken. No problems with that!

Starting tomorrow: Did somebody say McDonald's STAR TREK Meals?

BabelCon '81

In 1980, members of STAR OKC decided to throw a "big" con. It was called BabelCon '81 and we had a big guest, Mr James Doohan himself.

This was after STII had wrapped, but before its release. Rumors were flying that something *BIG* was going to happen, but nobody really knew what. We didn't know, anyway. This was in the olden times when the most recent TREK news was presented by Entertainment Tonight, which concerned itself with entertainment and not transexual anorexic foreign adoptees announcing plastic surgery.

So, Jimmy Doohan came to OKC and met a pack of starstruck kids. We took him out to eat on Thursday night before the con, when he happily posed for pictures with any gal on his lap, but especially my sweet Joyce (remember, my lady of the golden needle?)

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Nerdy kids that we were, after he signed nearly everyone's STAR OKC T-shirts, we decided we all had to autograph one for him. And he actually put it on! For a minute.

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(By the way, this minimalist T-shirt design was created by Yours truly.)

On Monday, some photos from BabelCon '81 featuring TREK costumes, back when you had to MAKE THEM YOURSELVES.

Doesn't My Wife Make Great Costumes?

In the blue outfit, I'm a smirking Vulcan with an unsufferable eyebrow.

In the red STII outfit, I'm challenging my wife to a wrestling match (or at least hoping to).

For the blue STTMP outfit, we went to the local fabric store and found a pattern for a 2-piece outfit that was close, at least in the sketches on the front.

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We found some doubleknit material that was pretty darn close in color, and voila. With an "invisible" zipper up the back of the neck and an elastic waistband, I was good to go.

The shirt patch was bought. The wrist communicator was a cut-up plastic car cupholder with a cutout to show some chrome plastic model car parts. The Perscan "belt buckle" is a plastic audio-cassette box with more strips of a cassette box painted silver and glued on. The silver dial in the Perscan "Belt Buckle" is the grooved screw-on cap of a tube of Testor's model cement.

The dear wife of mine sewed two slots in the front, so that the elastic strap velcroed to the Perscan "Belt Buckle" could be underneath the shirt except where holding the buckle. Since the cassette box making up the buckle was hollow, I had a place for a con badge inside, perhaps. But since she also sewed "non-patterned" pockets into the pants, I could just use them for my car keys.

(The wrist communicator and the Perscan Belt Buckle are visible in the photo from yesterday's post.)

The STII outfit was just a pair of boots and turned-under elasticized legged-pants. I had a white turtle-necked shirt whose collar was turned down and vertically stictched for that "trapunto" look.

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The jacket -- ah, the jacket! Back to the pattern store to find the closest match. Then for dear Joyce to make the thing, with the right lining for the turn-down flap, and velco to hold it shut, with gold and red trim to finish it off.

I found a circular belt buckle and made a plastic Starfleet "arrow", glued it on, and spray-painted the thing gold.

Boy, my dear Joyce does great work, eh?

Yes, You Must Look at Old Photos

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One of the many promos for STTMP was a mail-in premium for punch-out cardboard ships from the movie. On a 4-way armature styled to look like spacedock in texture, we have five ships. The Enterprise hangs from the center, and the other four ships are the Klingon Bird of Prey wasted at tne film's opening, the Vulcan shuttle Spock arrived in, an Enterprise shuttlecraft, and a Work Bee used in the Enterprise's refit.

The set is still hanging from the ceiling, but (like, me, alas!) a little saggier than when new.

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In another photo I'm making a silly Vulcan salute while standing next to an STTMP poster and the Enterprise model from the movie.

In the last photo I'm in front of a nifty mylar sTTMP poster in the lovely costume created by She Who Is My Wife. PS Was I ever that young?

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Next time, some Con photos of Trek people that I cornered.

Autographs, We Got Some

I figure I'm not doing too bad considering I don't go anywhere.

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These are all instances where THEY came to ME.

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I wonder if Mr Nimoy noticed the "Book Rack" stamp visible through the back of the front page of his I Am Not Spock. In other words, "No royalties, Mr Nimoy."

Or to my town, anyway.

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This is the "collectable" printing of the STII Fotonovel.

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The Unknown Collector's Item

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Film buff Richard J Anobile, who had edited frame-blowup movie books for Casablanca, Frankenstein, and other, did the Fotonovel treatment for STTMP and STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Khan. The Motion Picture's book had pages in color, but Khan's pages were black-and-white.

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The earliest printing of the STII "Photostory" had an interesting misprint. Some pages were out of order. One one page, McCoy discovers the bodies hanging upside down in the Regula One Station.

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On the flip side of the same page, instead of Kirk lowering the bodies, we have from much later in the film, Khan talking to Kirk, who's been marooned inside the asteroid.

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Someone wrote to Starlog (I think it was) to complain, and the publication responded that Pocket had corrected the misprint. However, after correction, the reprint wasn't relabeled as a Second Printing.

Me? My mercenary brain said, "Collectible!" So I bought multiple incorrect copies as I found them, and sold them for $10 or so per pop.

Once again, the page with Khan on the flip side is the wrong one.

April Fools, Mr Roddenberry!

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At the Premiere of Star Trek The Motion Picture, my wife and I met Ed and Kathy Porter, who coincidentally lived five blocks away. Ed and I crafted many a silly, ne'er-do-well thing, including writing a pseudo-news story concerning him and me guest-starring in the sequel to ST:TMP.

To show off and maybe get a reply, I sent the two "articles" and a letter to Gene Roddenberry at Paramount.

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Imagine my surprise to get a reply. Yeah, it was a form letter, but also "personalized."

BabelCon 1 in 1980

In summer 1980 I found out about a STAR TREK convention at the Southgate Inn in OKC. I went, and signed up for the weekend.

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It was run by people from S.T.A.R. OKC, that's the Oklahoma City chapter of the Star Trek Association for Revival. Or it was. Until the club gave up the ghost about 5 years ago, it was one of only TWO of the original S.T.A.R. clubs left -- the other was in Texas.

Here is my badge and a newspaper photo taken at the costume thingie Saturday night. In keeping with the episode "Journey to babel," this was called the "Ambassadors' Ball."

Being a proper Vulcan, I didn't eat any meat off the buffet.

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Left to right: That's me; Bog Higgs as the Alien from the movie of that name; and Leta Walker as "Man Trap" 's salt vampire. In front is a guy named Gary as a Jawa.

My character, Commander Selik, is from a STAR TREK novel, Fields of Attraction, that I wrote about 40-60 pages of, and plotted out completely, took place immediately after Kirk said "Thataway" at the end of STTMP. It involved Sarek's funeral on Vulcan, a second Federation starship whose Vulcan second officer was preparing a mutiny against his human captain, a First Contact with a new race, and everybody's engines not bein' able to take any mooorrrrre.

On Real Photo Paper

My friend Melinda found these three pix while moving. She gave them to me. I give them to you.

from "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

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a posed studio shot, some time after "Charlie X" made 3-D chess popular:

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from "Spock's Brain":

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When You're First in Color Television, There's Got to Be a Reason.

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If memory serves, this ad appeared in a 1967 issue of Newsweek. The original has another full-page ad on the back, with no date showing.

Notice that the "middle" scene, the one on a "planet" set, is from "Man Trap," the first aired episode.

See you next time, and howdy boy to Frederick! Visit his Star Trek Scrapbook blog! The link is to the right in the Links list.

And the Winners Are ...

As you can see, the Number One winner was my pal Larry Nemecek, future author of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, among other nifty tomes.

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But I came in Number Two (I tried harder?). Notice the artistic underlining.

And for prizes, I got a STTMP poster, and this cool-beans belt buckle, only slightly the worse for nearly thirty years' worth of wear ...

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Next week, let's Trek into the 1980s!