The Fanzines of Trek -- in situ

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Oh boy. I stand corrected. There was a Vulcanalia in the late 1960s. At that time, I was a Trek fan, but didn't know fandom existed. (Too busy with Jr and Sen years of HS.

Newbie question: how does one navigate the huge amount of information on this site?

 

Hello, Sahaj! This is deeply esoteric stuff. No need to apologize. I am fortunate to have access to a complete archive of all extant 60s 'zines. I've put them all in chronological order by date. Vulcanalia started early this year (1967) but it's a Brooklyn based club, so I'm not surprised it's unfamiliar (though they are spreading, thanks to Nimoy talking about the club).

Yandro, as you likely know, is not specifically a trekzine, but one of the most famous genzines. It's been around for decades.

Do you mean the Trek BBS? There is a search function in the upper right. However, since it is verboten to post in threads more than a year old, it's often easier to just browse and surf the current content.

It's a cool place. Welcome aboard!

P.S. Sorry to everyone for not posting much. Transcription is a pain...

 

Yeah, it is. One thing I use a lot is I upload images of documents to Google Drive and then tell it to open them in Google Docs, and it will OCR it, with variable results if the docs were created with cursive-typing or the like. I just opened the page in the quote above and here's the raw text Google Docs returned

Not perfect, but easier to clean-up than transcribe from scratch, I think.

 

Thanks, Maurice. I've also just been flagging in general. A bit overextended.

I will note that the latest Vulcanalia (August 1967) is gushing about Nimoy's latest Dot record release: "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins", which was also recently performed on Malibu U, a musical variety show.

When one watches the clip on YouTube, it seems almost surreal, with the bopping girls and Nimoy clowning around. But that format was actually extremely popular in the mid 60s. Shindig!, Hullabaloo (homaged in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), The Beat!, Where the Action Is, American Bandstand--these were all shows where musical acts would perform. Sometimes live, sometimes looped.

Sadly, I think they're starting to die as of '67. Bandstand will last a good long time, of course, and we'll eventually get Soul Train (which has NO surviving episodes--a real shame), but Hullabaloo and Shingdig and Where the Actions Is are dead, and Malibu U only lasts this summer.

There's a show called Music Scene starting this Fall, though.

 

Okay, this isn't Trek-related, but it kind of is.

In January 1967, in the middle of Trek's first season, Quinn Martin Productions forayed into science fiction with The Invaders. You often hear about it in the 'zines in the same breath as Trek, usually with the qualifier that it's not nearly as good as Trek (which it isn't). QM, by the way, also did The Fugitive (which Invaders largely apes) and also Twelve O'Clock High, from which Star Trek cribbed it's most famous fanfare (Dah da DAAH dah dah dah dah DAAAAAH).

So, in this month's Lighthouse, science fiction writer Joanna Russ has this quite funny bit about The Invaders (and it describes the show, too, if you have no idea what I'm talking about):


The Invaders vs. The Milford Mafia

by Joanna Russ


ANNOUNCEMENT FOR SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA

THE INVADERS is a new television series recounting the tribulations of a young architect, David Vincent, unable to convince a cynical and indifferent world that aliens from a more advanced planet have begun making secret landings on our own. The Invaders assume human form, blend into all phases of our day-to-day life, and bide their time. Thus, each week, our young man, having had his life wrenched out of orbit, must ferret out and thwart -- virtually singlehanded — some new and ingenious alien master-plan for hastening the day they will take over.

One week, for instance, Vincent learns they have persuaded the war-weary commanding general of an atomic testing site that, by detonating a catastrophic antimatter bomb along with the scheduled nuclear explosion, he can frighten humanity into renouncing war forever. On other occasions, he destroys a swarm of man-eating locusts that the aliens have bred in order to decimate our population...foils a plan for the simultaneous assassination of all the world’s rulers...keeps aliens from assimilating and erasing the accumulated intelligence of the nation’s top scientific minds...tracks down and destroys a laboratory where human life is being chemically reproduced beneath the sea.

The producer of the show, Alan A. Armer of Q-M Productions, Goldwyn Studios, 1041 North Formosa Avenue, Hollywood, is in the market for many more such intrigues and master-plans. Science-fiction writers who can excerpt from existing published material, or who happen to think of any new ones, are urged to submit their notionsto Mr. Armer as soon as possible.

[The Submission]

Alan A. Armer
Q-M Productions
Goldwyn Studios
1041 North Formosa Avenue
Hollywood, California

Dear Sir:

To say that your recent communication fascinated me would be an understatement. In fact, so pronounced was the shock of its arrival that it was only after a quarter bottle of Calvados and some very serious talking to myself in the mirror that I could gather myself together sufficiently to answer you.

That I had to answer you was only too clear. The Invaders are not fiction at all; they are a desperate fact. They are here, and the first place to look for Them is in your public relations department. Or possibly in the mimeograph machine. I know perfectly well what is going to happen! next, but pursuant to the flimsy stratagem by which you pretend that this whole diabolical plot is nothing but a television series, I will offer it to you in the form of a suggestion:

THE INVADERS vs. THE MILFORD MAFIA

Anyhow, here’s this poor slob of an architect, David Vincent, who alone knows that They are invading -- though how he could find out, or why on earth he should be an architect, I can’t imagine, unless the Aliens have begun their plan to insidiously warp the human psyche by distorting the lines "and angles of our better known architectural monuments like, for example, Grand Central Station. (Something of the sort happens in a Lovecraft story called The Call of Cthulhu, which I offer you free of charge, especially since it isn’t mine.) So okay, he knows the Aliens are coming and by this time -- about halfway through the series -- he’s pretty much ground to a nubbin, what with foiling plots and destroying swarms of locusts and mousing around underneath the sea, which I should imagine would take not only a lot of time and energy but also an awful lot of money. In fact, he’s beginning to realize that he may not be able to make it into the summer re-runs, what with the strain on his health and his bank account. On top of this, his architectural business has just about given up the ghost because every time some poor nudnik comes in to see his secretary (who now has nothing to do except take cryptic messages and buff her fingernails) and asks, "Miss, could I please have a building?" his secretary has to answer, "Look, crumb-bum, do you think Mr. Vincent has time to run up some plans for some lousy palace or villa or something? He's off fighting Them, in case you didn’t know, and I suggest you take your gas-station or whatever it is to Mies van der Rohe. He got less on his mind."

So Vincent finally lures the chief Them to the annual Milford SF Writers' Congerence, knowing full well that not only are science-fiction writers the only people in the world likely to believe him (what science-fiction writers will believe, especially about editors, TV producers, etc. is phenomenal) but that they are actually the secret rulers of everything: The Masters of the World, as we call ourselves, or (in moments of modesty) the Milford Mafia. (I admit this to you knowing that you will not abuse a confidence.) Now, the Milford Conference is not only held among some perfectly charming country in Pennsylvania; it also takes place in a lovely old house decorated with all sorts of lovely old mottos (including antique Communist posters), and the owner, Mr. Damon Knight, President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, is not only intelligent, charming, honest, fearless and dedicated; he has an extremely handsome beard which I am sure would photograph beautifully.

Anyhow, the confrontation takes place, with the Them naturally extremely uncomfortable, but hiding it under a show of self-confidence while Mr. Vincent goes into the kitchen to recuperate, get a beer and strike up a romance with one of the female Mafia (perhaps you could work me into this). The science fiction writers have gone through all the standard arguments why They can’t win, but It remains adamant until Mr. Knight brilliantly plays humanity's trump-card.

"All right," he says. "You can have Earth!"

Now, of course They are rather taken aback by this. Still, the They pulls Itself together and accepts. Nothing can shake Its resolution, not even descriptions of the New York subway in August — The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Miami Beach Los Angeles — nothing. They allow in an iffy sort of way that They might nave to put up with a good deal when They take over humanity, but They insist They will take over anyhow, blast it, and that any Them who gave in -now would be unworthy of the name (of Them). Then, as fear rises in every Milfordite's throat, Mr. Knight -- who has left the piece de resistance for last -- leans forward, his eyes glittering, and whispers seductively, "What about television shows?" As the Them sinks back, fainting in terror and half-reverting to Its proper shape (the make-up department can take care of this)', the s-f writers bind It to Its seat, piling 1940’s science-fiction novels on Its stomach. A hitherto concealed television set emerges from the paneling.

Behold! Just spreading onto the cathode-ray tube is a drama entitled -- well, I won’t name names. But let me tell you, it does in that Them completely and entirely.

It’s a new television series recounting the tribulations of a young architect, David Vincent, who is unable to convince a cynical and indifferent world that aliens from a more advanced planet…

But I think you’ve already heard about it.

Sincerely,

Joanna Russ
7 Montague Terrace
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201

 

I wasn't quite sure where to put this -- it would have fit in the Guest Actors slot, too. But since it's contemporary literature, this made the most sense. Check this out -- or Bonk! Bonk! on the head!

 

Do you have the date and name of the paper? I'm guessing no, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

 

What about ship drawings pre FJ manual?
Those would not be tainted.

 

Ah, sorry -- it was that day's (8-20-67) Los Angeles Times. The LA Times and the Escondido Times-Advocate are the papers I read regularly.

Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.

 

Here's something you will definitely dig:



The latest issue of Yandro includes a bibliography of Star Trek 'zines and articles through July '67. Valuable zeitgeist stuff for Trek historians.

I will have to see how many of these I can get my hands on. Sadly, they do not list The Tricorder #1. Perhaps Juanita didn't get the copy I mailed to her...

 

We had a long discussion earlier about how many active fans there were in the United States in late '66 (to determine just how many letters might have been generated for the first Save Star Trek campaign).

In Yandro, Ted White notes that there are a whopping 200 fans in New York. Depending on how you slice it, New York had between 5-10% of the nation's population. So if you scale, there are only 2-4000 active fans in the US as of 1967.

This is exactly in line with the predictions I made earlier. Further support that the first campaign, which mostly tapped fans rather than the wider Trek community (which was only starting to cohere in November/December '66) was not very large -- probably on the order of 4000 letters customary for most write-in campaigns.

 

That turned out to be weirdly on-point for the FACT TREK piece we are currently working on.

 

Oooo... Give a brother a hint?

 

Star Trek test audiences.

 

So this is interesting -- a sneak preview at the second season. Note the wildly inaccurate speculation. Any idea where Fred got these? Are they based on the original scripts?

(this is from the September 1967 issue of Vulcanalia -- someone may have the original Fred Clarke article)

 

That's kinda hilariously off in so many ways!

 

It is, but it also has a weird resonance with reality that suggests a game of telephone/working from early scripts rather than inventing from whole cloth. Any insights?

 

Well, given many of these would already have been shot the time Vulcanalia went to mimeo, it's perhaps unsurprising the titles had leaked out. Telephone's as good a guess as many for these "off" descriptions.

 

The biggest weirdness is Takei writing "Mirror, Mirror" and "The Apple" being a McCoy episode (is he even in that episode?)

Those do seem to be the episodes that had been filmed as of the end of August. On the other hand, I don't know when Fred's article came out. It may predate the shooting of "Tribbles" and "I, Mudd", for example.

 

"Mirror Mirror" no idea, but McCoy is in "The Apple" where he argues with Spock about interfering with situation there.