1960's and risqué clothes?

[Nerys Myk]

Mary Anne was wholesome though
And they didn't do a lot of butt camera angles on Mary Anne.
Star Trek is rife with create camera angles on the women

It was a sexy sort of wholesome. A lot of skin was exposed

They needed some good looking men in the regular cast then too.
All we ever saw was top less / ripped shirt Kirk

Spock gets shirtless in at least one episode. We see some bare chested aliens men as well.

 

[Nakita Akita]

They should have had Yul Brenner play Scotty and Ricardo Montablan as Chekov.
And have them get THEIR shirts ripped every so often too.

 

[Spock's Barber]

They needed some good looking men in the regular cast then too.
All we ever saw was top less / ripped shirt Kirk

You should see the Youtube Joan Collins interview where she rips William Shatner for his fake tan, fake hair and fake height.

 

[Armus]

They should have had Yul Brenner play Scotty and Ricardo Montablan as Chekov.
And have them get THEIR shirts ripped every so often too.

Such a missed opportunity.

 

[Timewalker]

I've actually never watched Star Trek until just the past few weeks as an adult. I remember the women having the super stupid "uniforms" I remember finding it ridiculous as a nine year old. I never even watched enough Then to notice all of the other racy outfits.
And if they couldn't show married couples in the same bed, they sure show Kirk in some way more......

How many bedroom scenes did we see on Star Trek that featured a married couple, in the Original Series? The only married couple I can even think of were Sarek and Amanda, and they weren't in their bedroom.

Kirk wasn't married to anyone but Miramanee, but the farthest they were shown was kissing. The sex happened off-camera, as later on we're just supposed to fill in the details ourselves when Miramanee tells Kirk she's pregnant.

The only time we can reasonably assume he shared a bed (a real bed) with any women were Drusilla (implied in later dialogue) and Deela (Kirk sitting on the bed, pulling on his boots). And he wasn't married to either of these women.

I clearly remember watching The Edge of Night (an old soap opera my mother and grandmother watched). The married couples on that show slept in separate twin beds. This was in the 1960s. Of course they later changed with the times (the show was canceled in the 1980s) and married couples were finally allowed to sleep in the same bed.

They should have had Yul Brenner play Scotty and Ricardo Montablan as Chekov.
And have them get THEIR shirts ripped every so often too.

Can you imagine Yul Brynner explaining to Kirk that he started the fight in "The Trouble With Tribbles" because the Klingons called the Enterprise a garbage scow?

 

[Spock's Barber]

They should have had Yul Brenner play Scotty and Ricardo Montablan as Chekov.

...or Austin Powers as Dr. McCoy.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

See the chest on Ricardo is real! It's real!

 

[johnnybear]

Is there a thread on how many times Kirk did that I'm falling in love with you look as soon as he locked eyes with the lady guest star of the week and then that over the top loud music bashed our ears?
JB

 

[Jayson1]

Being sexy was seen as female empowerment and also sticking it to the old prudes who thinks the kids were being disrespectful. Today it's the kids who are the old prudes and telling the old people to behave yourselves, your embarrassing me. We are busy trying to change the world by typing on the phone about the evil's of Joker. Now put away your porn and come listen to this 14 year old girl explain climate change you backward savages. Also no more tasty food. Come eat your Kale before I leave for the protest march. I better not see any Chick Fil-A wrappers when I get back and also can I borrow some money and the car to get their.


Jason

 

[FreddyE]

Wasn´t there a thing internally called the "Theis Tittilation Theory" or something? That the sexyness of an outfit is directly proportional to the (perceived) probability that a "wardobe malfunction" might happen?

 

[ScottJ85]

Revealing clothing? And themes that pushed the boundaries for acceptable television in the late 60s?? Not in my Star Trek!!!

 

[ScottJ85]

Wasn´t there a thing internally called the "Theis Tittilation Theory" or something? That the sexyness of an outfit is directly proportional to the (perceived) probability that a "wardobe malfunction" might happen?

If I remember right, his theory was something like “take a non-sexy part of the body, reveal lots of it, and let the imagination do the rest”

 

[Christopher]

Wasn´t there a thing internally called the "Theis Tittilation Theory" or something? That the sexyness of an outfit is directly proportional to the (perceived) probability that a "wardobe malfunction" might happen?

Yes, according to The Making of Star Trek, p. 360. "According to Bill's theory, the degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly dependent upon how accident-prone it appears to be."

If I remember right, his theory was something like “take a non-sexy part of the body, reveal lots of it, and let the imagination do the rest”

That's part of it too, according to the following paragraph. Though it's not "a non-sexy part," just "nudity in unexpected places, such as baring the outside of the leg, from the thigh to the hipbone" (I'd hardly call that non-sexy).

 

[Shawnster]

I guess I'm thinking Andy Griffith and Gilligan's Island, Father Knows Best.
Those weren't very racy.

Andy Griffith - 1960 - 1968
Gilligan's Island - 1964 - 1967
Father Knows Best - 1954 - 1960

Just for reference and comparison.

Is this the only show made in the sixties that you've seen? As Maurice pointed out it was hardly unusual. This was the era of miniskirts, bikinis and the sexual revolution.
I doubt skin was a factor in the shows cancelation. In fact it may have help it stay around longer than it should have with its high cost and low rating.

This is an important point and one that drives me crazy when modern audiences complain about how sexist and exploitative Trek was by having women in revealing outfits. At the time, those revealing outfits, especially the mini skirts, were seen as revolutionary and very "pro feminist." They were not viewed as male exploitation but were the weapons used by women in the war of the sexes to fight against the male oppression of the day.

All these television shows need to be interpreted within the context of their times. Today feminists view the sexualizing of women as male dominance and the amount of skin shown is archaic. This would be like a modern day revolutionary turning his or her nose up at a musket as being archaic and a restriction on their weapons. Times have changed, battle tactics and weapons have changed, but that doesn't mean what came before cannot be appreciated or properly understood.

 

[Kor]

Unlike a lot of earlier TV space opera shows such as Captain Video and Tom Corbbett, Space Cadet which aired on Saturday mornings and were purely kids' stuff, Star Trek aspired to be somewhat more serious science fiction geared toward older viewers. And the expression and exploration of human (and alien) sexuality is very much in line with that. Literary science fiction had already been diving headlong into such themes for many years. TV sci-fi tends to lag behind the literary field by a decade or more, perhaps because mainstream audiences are slow to adapt to things that are different from what they are accustomed to, as well as restrictive broadcast standards.

They needed some good looking men in the regular cast then too.
All we ever saw was top less / ripped shirt Kirk

Well, "The Apple" and "The Way to Eden" come to mind.

Kor

 

[Winterwind]

I guess I'm thinking Andy Griffith and Gilligan's Island, Father Knows Best.
Those weren't very racy.

Andy Griffith and Father Knows Best (which was from the 50s) were very obviously family shows about um... family... so of course they weren't racy.

Mary Ann and Ginger were some very alluring outfits although the censors were tighter with Gilligan's Island than Star Trek's outfits for women. Still, plenty of innuendo on that island.

Having said that, really having a hard time taking the OP seriously, especially with the last sentence.

 

[Kor]

Well, to give the benefit of the doubt, not everybody is familiar with the dynamics of commercial television that would lead to a TV series being cancelled...

Mary Ann's and Ginger's outfits did push the envelope by being as revealing as they could be, while still adhering to the letter of 1964 broadcast standards requirements such as covering up the navel. Dawn Wells has spoken in interviews about how she co-designed Mary Ann's denim shorts to accentuate leg length by bringing the sides further up the hips and slightly dipping the sides of the waist line. In fact, she is cited as the very first person to ever wear "short shorts" on TV. Yet the waist line had to rise slightly higher at the center to cover the navel. And somehow this gave a more "wholesome" image than if the rise had been a mere inch lower, because heaven forbid we acknowledge the existence of belly buttons.

Another producer (I can't remember who, or what show they were talking about, maybe it actually had to do with Star Trek) complained about the arbitrary standard of allowing women's outfits that were very low-cut on top, but the censors would go into conniptions of you tried to show the lower portion of a woman's breasts at all.

Kor

 

[STEPhon IT]

Star Trek was a wonderful vehicle to show women had a choice of attire on board the Enterprise; some women wore duty dresses and some wore pants while the tunics were fitted. I thought Star Trek after TOS, before JJ Abrams, had gone too conservative on the outfits especially for women and should've embrace military standards of choices for women within the branches. Uniforms are fitted but have a choice of a skirt or pants which are flattering and professional. I didn't mind how risque' they were on Star Trek as long as these women had a choice to wear what they thought was appropriate according to the dress code. I'm open to the ideas of clothing for anyone to wear except when a power starts saying that one shouldn't or a woman shouldn't.

 

[Greg Cox]

It was a sexy sort of wholesome. A lot of skin was exposed
Spock gets shirtless in at least one episode. We see some bare chested aliens men as well.

Spock loses his shirt in "Patterns of Force." Turns out Vulcans have very hairy chests.

In general, though, we shouldn't confuse the 1960s with the 1950s, which was more much buttoned-up, at least as far as mainstream entertainment went. As noted earlier, the 1960s was the era of "Hair," the early James Bond movies and its many, many imitators, "Barbarella," Raquel Welch in the "One Million B.C," etc. Things were loosening up.

Beyond that, of course, there was a long-standing tradition, going back to Edgar Rice Burroughs at least, of pulp sci-fi and space operas being filled with scantily-clad space princesses and fembots and such. Just look at the robotrix's exotic dancing in METROPOLIS, Princess Aura in the old FLASH GORDON serials, and movies like "Queen of Outer Space," "Cat Women of the Moon," and even "Abbott & Costello Go to Mars."

 

[FormerLurker]

That's part of it too, according to the following paragraph. Though it's not "a non-sexy part," just "nudity in unexpected places, such as baring the outside of the leg, from the thigh to the hipbone" (I'd hardly call that non-sexy).

Or Vina's Orion Slave Girl dress.Random holes in the body below the bodice. Only shows a third of the skin visible on a two-piece swimsuit, but because they're random holes in a dress, they're sexy.

Another producer (I can't remember who, or what show they were talking about, maybe it actually had to do with Star Trek) complained about the arbitrary standard of allowing women's outfits that were very low-cut on top, but the censors would go into conniptions of you tried to show the lower portion of a woman's breasts at all.

It may have happened on other shows as well, but this was a Star Trek thing. Theiss was quoted complaining about it in World Of Star Trek. Someone on DS9 decided to get revenge for it early on, and had a Dabo Girl with underboob showing big time.