Props Re-used

Here's one.

 

Here's another.

 

I give them my props!

 

Great thread everybody-best read I have had here for a long time!

 

All around me are familiar vases...







And in Kirk's closet from the deleted scene in The Corbomite Manuever:
http://startrekhistory.com/restoration/lost4.html#CORB

 

Thanks alchemist. Any chance you could fix Part 7 of the Bruce Hyde (Lt. Kevin Riley) Interview. When I click on it nothing happens, the Flash Video will not appear/play, but the word "Stop" does appear below "Pt: 10 Professor Hyde"


Thanks,

Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

And, we see this odd vase with the funny coat hanger-type adornments another time, too: it shows up in the corner of Dr. McCoy's quarters near his bed in "The Man Trap"--which I guess makes this the very first time viewers saw this prop/set decoration:



Greg Schnitzer
Property Master
Star Trek Phase II

 

WOW ... it's like another main character! We have to give it a name! People can dress up like it at conventions, etc.

 

^ I may be conjecturing too much, but I've always assumed that this prop/set piece from Dagger of the Mind was a stylized/altered bust of Athena. Athena was a daughter of Zeus while Tantalus was a son of Zeus. Athena is often depicted as a goddess of war, wisdom, and justice, so the statues of her typically show her with a warrior's helmet. See this link as an example: http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Athena/index.htm

She was also given Zeus' lightning bolt (ray) to use as a weapon.

 

Interesting! This prop piece is just so ominous ... some head just sitting there in the scenes, taking it all in ... weird.

Working on my costume for conventions now! When people are talking, I'll sit on a nearby counter, etc.

 

I wonder how many times the bent necked bottle was used in Star Trek? I can think of four occasions: when the evil Kirk was drinking from it in The Enemy Within, Scotty getting the Kelvin drunk in By Any Other Name, the reception in Journey to Babel and again when McCoy is toasting Spock. Someone will have to fill in the name of this last episode. I saved this picture for a caption contest and lost the episode's title along the way. I can't remember where it came from.

How many other times do we see it? Also, somebody has posted where this bottle came from. Can you refresh my poor memory as to its origin?

 

Bones keeps plastic trombone mutes in his medicine cabinet.

 

It's a George Dickel bottle: http://www.goantiques.com/detail,george-dickel-bottle,1027136.html

 

It shows up in the new movie too! (not the original of course)

 

Many of Star Trek's props and set decorations--and even costumes and hair and make-up--work on almost a subliminal level. Deela the Scalosian seems sexy; Nilz Baris seems officious. The Engineering room seems powerful. Sickbay seems scientific and clinical; every place on the Enterprise seems "unworldly" and futuristic.

One of the simplest ways of conveying this "unworldliness" or futuristic feeling is by making props and set decorations in odd shapes. We've seen round (instead of rectangular) playing cards on Star Trek; we've seen odd hexagonal and boomerang wall decorations. We've seen that the "ray generator" is an odd shape with three odd prongs at the top; we've seen that Mr Scott's engineering circuit "jumpers" were oddly-shaped little building blocks. So, Star Trek art design is founded on the principle of odd shapes.

With this as a set up, there is a set decoration (well, two set decorations, really, since we always see them together), that do nothing more than decorate the set in the background and have an odd shape. They don't really have a name, and they aren't ever really touched by anyone so they aren't really props--merely set decorations.

These two white cone things have a wider base portion and a narrower but taller center portion. You can see them behind the "shower door" corrugated glass cabinet that is built into the wall between the Sickbay Examination room and the Sickbay Ward Room. (This is the same cabinet where Dr. McCoy kept his Saurian brandy bottles in "The Enemy Within.")

In fact, they are in nearly every single episode, starting with the very first regular production episode "The Corbomite Maneuver." Here's a shot from "The Corbomite Maneuver" (from the "Exam Room" side of the cabinet):



And here's a shot of these "white cone things" from the "Ward Room" side of the cabinet from "Journey to Babel:"



And just to show how little some things change even after three years and seventy-nine episodes, here's a shot from the final production episode "Turnabout Intruder:"



You can see that these "white cone things" are in the cabinet along with some other flasks and oddly-shaped containers and cylinders. (We never see the cabinet opened other than in "The Enemy Within," so we don't get a very good look at any of these things.)

These "white cone things" do make a couple of other appearances in Star Trek besides showing up in Dr. McCoy's cabinet. They were used to decorate George Samuel Kirk's laboratory and office on Deneva. (In fact, it looks like several bottles and such that normally live in Dr. McCoy's cabinet were pulled out and used for this one shot):


The "white cone things" make another appearance later in "Operation--Annihilate!" in Dr. McCoy's laboratory--although they are upended into a couple of other pots or containers from Dr. McCoy's cabinet:



So what are these odd shaped things, anyway?

To most people, it's just an odd shape. But to folks who are musically inclined, you might recognize this item as a trombone mute. The mute gets inserted into the bell of the trombone to create a muted jazzy sound for the trombone.

There are lots of different styles of trombone mutes--some fancy, some not so fancy, some made out of brass themselves. These particular mutes used in Star Trek were made by the Humes & Berg Manufacturing Company, Inc. in East Chicago, Indiana. They are "Stonelined Mutes." Here's a shot of one:



To prep them for Star Trek, all the labels need to be scraped off, the small cork wedges up near the top of the cone need to be cut or sanded off and the metal scalloped edge around top edge of the larger "base" needs to be ground down to make a smooth top edge. The red paint at the base and tip need to be painted over to give the device (or whatever the heck this thing is) a smooth, even, glossy white finish.

Here are my two Humes & Berg Stonelined trombone mutes all tricked out to look like Star Trek "white cone things," ready to be put into Dr. McCoy's cabinet in Sickbay the next time I'm at our studio in Port Henry, New York. They will probably just sit on the shelf in the cabinet, never to be seen clearly or even touched really:









If you ever want to put together an Internet production that is supposed to look like the original 1960s Star Trek, I think anyone on the Star Trek Phase II production team in just about any capacity could provide a word to the wise: the devil is in the details.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments about props or set decorations.

Slideshow is at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157604879985135/show/

Greg Schnitzer
Property Master
Set Decorator
Star Trek Phase II

 

Getting ready to change out the caption contest, I discovered the source of one of the screen caps I couldn't identify. The bent neck bottle here is from The Conscience of the King.

 

Oh man, those spray bottles really got around didn't they?

As a kid watching TOS re-runs, I used to think that the crew of the Enterprise must have had a lot for spray-gun fights amongst themselves. "What a fun ship I thought......."

 

Has anyone mentioned the re-used faux alien tree? The two-dimensional one. . .

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x17/The_Squire_of_Gothos_081.JPG

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x17/The_Squire_of_Gothos_383.JPG

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x09/Metamorphosis_092.JPG

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x09/Metamorphosis_115.JPG

 

I believe we saw the bent-neck Sauraian Brandy bottle--made from a George Dickel Tennessee Sour Mash Wiskey bottle (quart size with light amber glass)--in nine different episodes.

1. "The Enemy Within:"

The Evil Kirk gets a bottle from McCoy in Sick Bay and ends up leaving it in Janice Rand's quarters. You can make out that there were actually two Saurian Brandy bottles in McCoy's cabinet:





2. "Charlie X" (sitting on a tray on the tabletop in front of Janice Rand in the Recreation Room):



3. In "The Conscience of the King" as McCoy finally gets around to having "a drop of the true:"



4. "Court Martial" in Kirk's quarters on Starbase 11 after he was grounded:



5. "Space Seed" at the "coming out" dinner party for Khan; you can see two bottles in this scene, too:



6. "Journey to Babel" (where you can see two bottles are used at the delegates' reception):



7. "By Any Other Name" as Mr. Scott tries to drink Tomar under the table:



8. "Elaan of Troyius" as the Dohlman of Elas enjoys her meal:



9. (Lastly) "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" at a small get-together with Commissioner Bele:




Greg Schnitzer
Property Master
Set Decorator
Star Trek Phase II