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Why didn't Theiss find a shirt that photographed green, then.

I am not a fanboy trying to do mental gymnastics to find some canonical reason for green vs. gold. It just struck me as odd that professionals would use a material that photo'd gold when they wanted green.

Frankly, this clears up some mystery, because it always struck me as a bit farfetched that ONLY the command tunics would do that funky transformation under the lights.

I now believe they were gold, likely through some purchasing snafu, not corrected til S3 when the velours needed replacing. Thanks again, also for the Cawley/Elvis info. What an interesting man. Especially if he turns his obsessional nature to Elvis costuming, a similar area (fan-named jumpsuits, websites detailing which suit was worn at which show on which date, etc.).
 
Something I just remembered from a previous discussion, specifically that ViewMaster set of "The Omega Glory". I happen to have a pristine set, and those tunics are most definitely green, or at least olive drab.

As soon as I can figure out how to scan those puppies in without destroying them, I'll post some pics. Unless someone else with an unfaded set beats me to it...
 
No, no...the fanboy looking to make sense of all of this was me! LOL...me the whole way.

As for James' Elvis stuff...Yup. The same crazy attention to detail goes for his Elvis outfits too. Crazy. You'd have to do a double take to insure he's not wearing the real thing. Funny thing is that when performing Kirk, he prefers to wear the screen used Shatner tunics he owns...you don't think as Elvis he does the same thing do you?

Nah...
 
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Oh yeah the viewmaster set has indeed come up before...
...it wasn't processed correctly.
And before someone asks the Goldkey comics were miscolored. ;)
 
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Captain, seriously...I swear I wouldn't lie to you, and ALL of these arguments including the viewmaster sets, stills, fading, color processing, Bill Theiss' possible colorblindness...all of this has been discussed over and over again.
They were gold.
Third season was green.
I swear to you, that's it. There's no great mystery. Email James Cawely if you want. I'm pm'ING his email to you right now.
 
Ha ha! I just brought up the greenish viewmaster pics a few days ago in some other thread.

I'm believing you, John. But why WOULD the comics render the shirt in green if they truly were gold? I know they also had flames coming out the nacelles, but changing shirt colors seems a bit arbitrary. Well, I don't expect you to know why the artist did what he/she did. I'm just wondering.

Be well! This has been a revelatory day.
 
Actually the whole thing looks kind of burnt orange to me. :)

viewmaster_scan.jpg
 
Actually the whole thing looks kind of burnt orange to me. :)

viewmaster_scan.jpg

They brought back the red bridge lighting from early S1 for that one. I had forgotten.

Seriously, I'm afraid to go find my reels. They've been in a dark box for years. That should help, right?

Also, I've been exploring your other threads on boards where I'm not a member. One of my only regrets In life is getting rid of my Donmoor short sleeve. I still have the insignia, glued to a mustard polo shirt as a command casual variant.
 
You must have run across one of my many Donmoor threads out there on the interwebs...I even wrote a piece about those for Rodderberry.com's old "Plasma Vent"

Here's one...

As for my Donmoor tunics, well...

My beloved Donmoor tunics, made in 1974. The green one there is mine.
Kids20in20Star20Trek20Shirts.jpg

My little green Donmoor shirt is the first piece of STAR TREK clothing I ever owned.
Back during the heyday of STAR TREK fandom (in the 1970's, the first wave of STAR TREK in wide US syndication) a children's clothing company named Donmoor was given a liscense to make all sorts of clothing for kids including a line of uniform shirts. Donmoor was given four color samples from Paramount Licensing when these shirts went into production. Gold, Blue, Red and Green from Kirk's wrap. When they went into production all four of the colors were changed to a darker shade. Who knows why, maybe they thought the darker colors would stand up better to the abuse of kids running and playing in them. Anyway, Command Gold became a dark mustard/orange/gold color, Sciences became a really dark blue, Eng Red became a blood red, and the Optional Command Green of Kirks wrap became an emerald green. All of the shirts regardless of division color had Command patches, and were short sleeved.

NewColorSamples.jpg


I had two actually. The green one above was given to me by my Mother when I was four years old. It's now one of my oldest and dearest possessions. I also had a gold one that I lost on my Grandfather's boat over 25 years ago, and then found on eBay a couple of years ago! Not another shirt, but the ACTUAL Shirt I lost so long ago on another coast. Years after my Mom, Dad, my kid brother and I moved to the west coast, and a few years before my Grandfather's death, the boat was sold to another family, and then stripped of everything. The shirt was found, and sold to a second hand store. Then a woman bought it and sent it to her Trekkie daughter, who years later put it up on eBay. I happen to be surfing ebay, find it, confirm it's provenance with the seller, and it sits in a shadow box in my office today. What are the odds of that?
Anyway, I've owned and loved that little green COMMAND shirt for 36 years now, and I dearly wish I could wear it one more time.



Actualy, James and Patty did give me a rather awesome gift earler in the year...

greensmall.jpg


and Chani who makes the TOS t-shirts for Roddenberry.com and ThinkGeek gave me the only official green TOS t-shirt in the world.

GreenME1.jpg


You wanna talk green command shirts? How about those? I was actually fairly millitant about green command shirts. So you know I was a hold out in the whole 1st season was gold thing, but...well you know. I even created this image and used it as my avatar in the last war before I saw the truth...

KirksGreenshirtAvatar.jpg



So does anyone else remember wearing Donmoor shirts?

John
 
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Yeah, I had one of the gold ones.

So, that PM had Cawley's address? I thought that was yours. I always check those notifications before diving into the forums.

I trust you'll explain why I'm asking him about the Enterprise Restoration Project...?
 
Yeah, I had one of the gold ones.

So, that PM had Cawley's address? I thought that was yours. I always check those notifications before diving into the forums.

I trust you'll explain why I'm asking him about the Enterprise Restoration Project...?


Hahahaha...no. I'm sorry if there was any confustion.
The E.R.P. is my project (as if James has the time to take on one more thing) as is the phone number I gave you.

The "iamkirok" email address is James' address incase you had any questions reguarding the color of any of Bill Theiss' tunics. ;)

John
 
Sorry. I was in no way trying to be patronizing, just trying to keep the discussion somewhat light and punchy. This can be really touchy and by making somewhat light of it to include the concept of a long drawn out conflict, I was hoping to keep it fun. That's all. Though I do forget occasionally that humor and sarcasm rarely works on the net without the liberal application of emoticons.

:)
Understood. Just bear in mind that emoticons aren't a sure-fire solution, either! As we used to say on the Delphi network 20+ years ago, "there's no inflection in ASCII."
 
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I'm sorry guys.
You know I was just passing through the board this morning and noticed Plynch's thread and thought I'd check it out.
I had no idea what I stumbled into and foolishly tried to help.

Plynch,
I'm sorry.
Now that you know the truth, I fear it's going to be a tough road to hoe around here. But keep the faith, and know that beyond this board, there's a whole universe of Star Trek costuming fans who also know that the 1st and 2nd season tunics were gold.
So if you find life around here tough after all of this, remember there's more of people like you and me and less of the small covens of "greens" that are still out there...and, well, there's less of them everyday.
Someday, if you need to...find me.

Take Care,
John
 
See, this is all too fun.
The question has been reduced to...

ViewMaster slides
verses
Bill Thesis' personal notes and fabric swatches.



Wow.

James was right to wash his hands of the discussion, but I'm always too optimistic.
 
This is going to require technology I don't possess at present. Maybe if I get one of those projectors.

The point is that in the ViewMaster pics (not the horribly degraded ones seen upthread) those second season velour command tunics are not only green, but the same shade of olive drab/avocado green that we see more clearly displayed in the third season tunics. I don't know what kind of lights the ViewMaster folks were using when they took those pics between takes, but they definitely hit on the color Theiss was after.

So the question I have is not what color that velour is now, but what color it was back then.
 
You must have run across one of my many Donmoor threads out there on the interwebs...I even wrote a piece about those for Rodderberry.com's old "Plasma Vent"

Here's one...

As for my Donmoor tunics, well...

My beloved Donmoor tunics, made in 1974. The green one there is mine.
Kids20in20Star20Trek20Shirts.jpg

My little green Donmoor shirt is the first piece of STAR TREK clothing I ever owned.
Back during the heyday of STAR TREK fandom (in the 1970's, the first wave of STAR TREK in wide US syndication) a children's clothing company named Donmoor was given a liscense to make all sorts of clothing for kids including a line of uniform shirts.


So does anyone else remember wearing Donmoor shirts?

John

ASGL1319 - Oh boy do I remember those 'Donmoor' TREK shirts.

Your story about the loss and recovery of your gold shirt is amazing,... and has a happy ending!

Now, for my Donmoor TREK shirt 'Tale of Woe' LOL!!

I recall being totally traumatized when, after excitedly dragging my mom to the local department store to get one,... I discover, to my horror,... Ta Da,... short sleeves.

My whole world imploded.

And it imploded as only it can in the universe of a 10 year-old boy.

My relentless fantasy of watching STAR TREK in my own gold command shirt - fully armed with Fluff-n-Nutter sandwich and Yooho - went up in flames instantly.

My mother, trying to console me - as only mom's can do - says to me, and weakly comes out with: "Well,.... maybe this is what Captain Kirk wear's in the summertime".

I just lost it. BAAaaawwwwLLL!!!!! LOL!!!!

So here I am, 10 years old, and having one of those kiddie red-faced melt-downs in the boys department of Sears, or someplace,.. LOL!!!,... and trying to explain to my mom, through tears and hyper-ventilating, that not only don't they wear SHORT SLEEVES, they do not need them because the material adjusts itself to the wears core body temperature and that of the planet the are on.

My mother was just helpless and so utterly lost as to what to say next LOL!!!!!!

So, prior to reading your awesome post and great pics, I had forgotten all about The Donmoor Shirt episode.

To quote a different space-fairing Doctor: "Oh,.. The PAIN,... THE PAIN!!!!"

LOL!!!! Thanks !
 
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