"Oscar Where Are you?" Oscar Katz & Early Star Trek

[Maurice]

Normally I post this stuff in the Introducing Fact Trek thread but I think a lot of people miss new topics of interest when we make everything a reply under an umbrella topic.

So today I want to share a recent discovery passed on to us by @alchemist.

In January 1972 the first large Star Trek convention, Star Trek Lives! was held at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in New York City. It was the first Trek-focused con to have people from the show actually in attendance, and on Saturday the 22nd these special guests did three panels. The 2nd and 3rd panels were a talk by Gene Roddenberry followed by an audience Q&A featuring Majel Barrett and Dorothy Fontana. But the 1st is the most notable from a historic perspective: a talk by Oscar Katz, Desilu's Executive Vice President in charge of Production from April 1, 1964 until March 11, 1966 and the man who brought Gene Roddenberry to the studio with a mandate to develop new shows.

A fellow named Bill Kobylak was given tape recordings of all three panels, and he generously gave FACT TREK his blessing to transcribe them. So today, that's just what we've done, focusing on the Katz panel.

(LINK TO BLOG POST)​

So, why begin with Katz?

Well...

1. The other speakers have been interviewed countless times and there's little new in these early tellings.
2. Katz is a seminal figure in Star Trek's birth, but little known, rarely interviewed and never in depth; most of what we know about his tenure comes from 3rd parties, some with their own agendas.
3. He died just months before the publication of Solow & Justman's Inside Star Trek book and never had a chance to address its assertions. (His account of what happened with Jeffrey Hunter differs from Solow's, for instance,)
4. His account is full of details we've never seen reported anywhere else, and contradicts some of the conventional wisdom about the show's beginnings. Notably, Katz addresses some of the details in The Making of Star Trek, confirming some, disagreeing with others, and adding his perspectives on both.
5. Historical. This recording is of his one and only Trek con appearance one of only two Trek con appearances we are aware of

This will be a two-part article. Today's Part I is the full transcript with no fact checking. Part II (coming later) will be a FACT TREK fact check comparing Katz's recollection to the documentary record and other accounts by the likes of Solow, Roddenberry, et al.

 

[Warped9]

Fascinating!

 

[BK613]

@Maurice Thanks for this; very informative and I'm definitely looking forward to the fact-checked part as well.
Paragraph 5 of OK's comments appears to be a duplicate of paragraph 4 (see, I read it .)

 

[Maurice]

@Maurice Thanks for this; very informative and I'm definitely looking forward to the fact-checked part as well.
Paragraph 5 of OK's comments appears to be a duplicate of paragraph 4 (see, I read it .)

Thanks for catching that. Squarespace's editing tools are really terrible and when we have to move text around sometimes glitches like that happen. I've fixed it.

You get today's JR. FACT TREKKER award!

 

[plynch]

Yes, I like separate threads, and you're really not "introducing" fact trek anymore.

 

[Harvey]

@Maurice Thanks for this; very informative and I'm definitely looking forward to the fact-checked part as well.

We hope to have Part 2 finished this week. Working on it now and there's plenty to address when you line up Katz's comments with Inside Star Trek, The Making of Star Trek, production paperwork, and other archival documents.

I'd also like to go back and transcribe the other two recordings (with Roddenberry and Barrett/Fontana), but for all the reasons Maurice outlined, this was the most interesting of the three and so we're focusing on it first. (Plus, the audio quality on the Barrett/Fontana panel in particular is lousy, so transcribing that will be a real drag.)

It perhaps goes without saying, but if anyone else on this forum has recordings of the cast/crew of Star Trek making public appearances in the 60s/70s, that's of particular interest to @Maurice and I, so let us know.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Wonderful stuff! I’m looking forward to part 2.

 

[Ssosmcin]

That's really cool for two reasons: he was there at the beginning and it was close enough to the production time to be fairly reliable. And two, Oscar Katz??!!! The fact that they even thought to invite him to a con is incredible.

 

[Maurice]

Turns out he was scheduled to appear at the 1973 Star Trek Lives! con as well. We're assuming he did speak, but—obviously—things can happen, but we're assuming he did and tweaked the post accordingly.

Part II is apace, but it's a lot of work comparing various accounts from TMOST and Inside Star Trek and Katz's much later quotes in Star Trek Creator and figuring out the timeline from memos and articles in the trades, et al. @Harvey dug up a smoking gun contemporary (1964) letter from Roddenberry about a meeting with Solow that basically contradicts Solow's 1996 account of their first meeting. Fun.

 

[Christopher]

Really interesting piece -- thanks for dredging this up.

I wonder what the other non-Trek proposals were that Roddenberry had when he first came to Desilu. I would imagine they include some things we've heard of, like Police Story, but did they include early versions of some of his later pilot proposals that we know about?

Katz confirms what I'd read elsewhere, that "Wagon Train to the stars" didn't mean "Western in space" as people assume today (since there were countless Westerns on TV at the time so that was hardly specific enough), but "pseudo-anthology format driven by the regulars helping guest stars of the week with their problems," which was what WT in particular was known for. Indeed, he specifically cites it as the format option that would not include exploring the frontier but would instead be focused on shipboard drama on the standing sets.

It's interesting that TOS never really did an episode of the pure "first type" that Katz specified. There were a number of shipboard bottle shows, but usually catalyzed by visitors to the ship rather than crew members (e.g. "Charlie X" or "The Ultimate Computer") or at least partially involving scenes on a planet (e.g. "Where No Man..." or "The Naked Time").

 

[Harvey]

I wonder what the other non-Trek proposals were that Roddenberry had when he first came to Desilu. I would imagine they include some things we've heard of, like Police Story, but did they include early versions of some of his later pilot proposals that we know about?

I have a scan of the notes Roddenberry sent to his agent after this meeting, including descriptions of all the shows discussed. We'll detail this stuff at some point.

 

[Christopher]

I have a scan of the notes Roddenberry sent to his agent after this meeting, including descriptions of all the shows discussed. We'll detail this stuff at some point.

Yay!

 

[BK613]

Thanks for catching that. Squarespace's editing tools are really terrible and when we have to move text around sometimes glitches like that happen. I've fixed it.

We hope to have Part 2 finished this week. Working on it now and there's plenty to address when you line up Katz's comments with Inside Star Trek, The Making of Star Trek, production paperwork, and other archival documents.

Glad to help and should have thrown an @ at you also @Harvey . Keep up the good work.

I'd also like to go back and transcribe the other two recordings (with Roddenberry and Barrett/Fontana), but for all the reasons Maurice outlined, this was the most interesting of the three and so we're focusing on it first. (Plus, the audio quality on the Barrett/Fontana panel in particular is lousy, so transcribing that will be a real drag.)

FWIW, I should mention that stuff that has become old hat to you two (seeing 'it' so much as you two do as you research) doesn't mean that we mere plebes have seen 'it' or wouldn't appreciate another version of 'it.'

Turns out he was scheduled to appear at the 1973 Star Trek Lives! con as well. We're assuming he did speak, but—obviously—things can happen, but we're assuming he did and tweaked the post accordingly.

I haven't reviewed the text of the book recently but there is a picture in The Making of the Star Trek Conventions with the caption ""Joan Winston and Oscar Katz introducing the "Genesis II" slide show at the 1973 con". (edit: the book title does not have the word Star)

You get today's JR. FACT TREKKER award!

Off to work on my acceptance speech.

 

[Neopeius]

This will be a two-part article. Today's Part I is the full transcript with no fact checking. Part II (coming later) will be a FACT TREK fact check comparing Katz's recollection to the documentary record and other accounts by the likes of Solow, Roddenberry, et al.

Great stuff!

Really looking forward to the fact check. For me, this is current news. Interestingly, the fanzines around early Fall were hoping Trek would be a mid-season replacement like Batman; they probably got the idea from the second pilot being shot so early compared to regular season pilots.

I wouldn't know any of this inside baseball as an outsider at the time, so I'm enjoying the feeling of omniscience.

 

[plynch]

This all goes to show how dodgy history is, so much based on memories. Even a memo about a meeting is someone's memory, put into writing. ANd boy do things get passed on as fact. Somewhere in my files I have a music PhD dissertation that cites Cash Markman.

His is a book with truthful-looking words, so it must be so. (Though in fairness, that is why we cite, so others can know and perhaps dispute our sources.)

 

[Maurice]

FWIW, I should mention that stuff that has become old hat to you two (seeing 'it' so much as you two do as you research) doesn't mean that we mere plebes have seen 'it' or wouldn't appreciate another version of 'it.'

Well, in fairness most of what Roddenberry, Fontana and Barrett say is pretty much the party line and many many variants of it have been out there for ages. There are only so many hours in the stardate so we have to be at least a teeny bit selective in our subjects, so we tend to aim at stuff that is more obscure than Gene tellling an audience for the umpteenth time that the network was a bad guy. But @Harvey is a sucker for transcribing even unintelligible audio so who knows?

I haven't reviewed the text of the book recently but there is a picture in The Making of the Star Trek Conventions with the caption ""Joan Winston and Oscar Katz introducing the "Genesis II" slide show at the 1973 con".

That's good to know. I was puzzling over the program for the 73 con and wondering why Katz's name was alongside "Genesis II".

Great stuff!

Really looking forward to the fact check. For me, this is current news. Interestingly, the fanzines around early Fall were hoping Trek would be a mid-season replacement like Batman; they probably got the idea from the second pilot being shot so early compared to regular season pilots.

I wouldn't know any of this inside baseball as an outsider at the time, so I'm enjoying the feeling of omniscience.

You're welcome.

The tweet we did pointing to this has gotten a surprising amount of attention...more than I expected given so few fans probably even knew who Katz was. So that's gratifying.

This all goes to show how dodgy history is, so much based on memories. Even a memo about a meeting is someone's memory, put into writing. ANd boy do things get passed on as fact. Somewhere in my files I have a music PhD dissertation that cites Cash Markman.

Our rule is that temporal proximity helps in judging veracity. We have a Roddenberry business letter from perhaps the day of a meeting vs. Solow's 30-years-on recollection and you can probably guess which one lines up with the known facts best.

His is a book with truthful-looking words, so it must be so. (Though in fairness, that is why we cite, so others can know and perhaps dispute our sources.)

We're sticklers about citations. We are always diving into old newspapers and trade publications to check when things were announced or schedules, because even with the contemporary production documents, you can't just trust a single source. There are over 40 citations at the end of our piece "Red Skies, Red Garters" (link).... a piece I am very proud of because it demonstrates that Star Trek was not created in a vacuum (pun intended).

Also, we're always struggling with how to phrase stuff to make the meaning as clear as possible so that readers don't jump to the wrong conclusions. I mean, today we saw the following interpretation of something Katz said (emphasis mine):

TrekRanks Podcast
Amazing transcript from @FactTreksof Oscar Katz, an EVP at Desilu, who was a huge part of the birth of Trek. There's a fascinating revelation here about why NBC didn't buy "The Cage" as the first pilot. According to Katz it wasn't because it was "too cerebral," but because...1/2

...it was such a high quality they knew advertisers buying into it would expect this level of quality each week. NBC believed this kind of episode would only be producible once in 10 shows, so they asked for the 2nd pilot so that they could sell a more representative product. 2/2​

Which completely misread Katz's statement, so we had to reply:

@FactTreks
@TrekRanks Mmmm...not exactly. Katz is saying NBC felt the pilot was not a representative example of the average show in terms of content/story, rather like "Tribbles" is not an average show. The "quality" was a factor only in that Desilu proved they could actually deliver it.​

We're also lucky to have partnered with @alchemist and able to share things with him. We've gotten a few lovely exclusive photos that way.

 

[BK613]

That's good to know. I was puzzling over the program for the 73 con and wondering why Katz's name was alongside "Genesis II".

Here's a relevant passage from that book:

"Elyse [S. Rosenstein] suggested I [Joan Winston] introduce the next guest. It was Oscar Katz, vice president of programming, East Coast, for CBS. He had brought slides from Gene's then-new project, "Genesis II," Oscar gave a short introduction and then an explanation of each of the slides. It was very well done and the fans could not wait to see the show." TMotTC, page 51​

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Fact Trek needs a 5 or 6-part documentary. That would be the kind of BTS truth TOS had needed for a very long time.