TAS: why not canon?

[martok2112]

This is one of the reasons why I liked "The Real Ghostbusters" so much (though ironically they had to put the "real" in the title to distinguish between Filmation's The Ghost Busters show based on an old TV series, but this isn't about that). TRG, while still having the cuteness factor with Slimer (even though Slimer was in the movie but not friends with the Ghostbusters), the animation, voice acting, and writing was incredibly top-notch, for both kids and adults alike. With only minimal exceptions (i.e. the huge ghost containment unit), they stayed true to the source material. So true in fact, that IMHO it was actually better than the source material, and when GBII came out, I was disappointed that it wasn't as good as the cartoon

It's actually a lot more common for animated shows based on movies to be faithful to the source, allowing for the usual continuity tweaks that are usually necessary for an adaptation. Men in Black: The Series, at least in its first (and only good) season, captured the approach and flavor of the movie pretty well. Godzilla: The Series from the same producers was extremely faithful to the continuity and characters of the Emmerich Godzilla movie -- but much, much better than the movie, and more in the vein of the classic Godzilla movies with lots of monster-vs.-monster battles.

On the other hand, sometimes you get things like the Rambo animated series, in which an upbeat, surprisingly articulate Rambo leads a team of heroes against the aspiring world conqueror General Warhawk and his band of colorful henchmen, with all parties involved firing huge amounts of ammunition that never hit anybody.

Oh, then you'll love this: the original concept for the Rambo cartoon was that he was a socially conscious pacifist who tried to solve problems through understanding, and not firepower. But, apparently that concept didn't fly so well, so they figured "let's make the cartoon another G.I. Joe".

@CorporalCaptain. I was desperately trying to remember the name of the Emergency! animated series. (and me being a dumbass, I forgot I could look online....lol). I vaguely remember Emergency +4, but I do remember it existed.

 

[Commishsleer]

Lots of really interesting comments. One of the things I picked up on was the whole "richard Arnold hated TAS thread". Since he is so accessible at various events I asked him flat out about tas. This is his reply:

"Gene used to say that he only did it because he needed money at the time, and therefor things that he would never have allowed in live action Star Trek made it into the episodes. In fact, there were only a couple of episodes that he considered to be decent!"

I'm sure smarter folks than I can make out what to think about this. I was curious about the comments and, when given a chance, flat out asked.

Thoughts?

Not to dispute Richard Arnold's recollections but GR could also ditch the 3rd Season of TOS because he wasn't producer or wasn't happy with it? Does GR have the power to diss something he worked on and created and was responsible for because in reflection Season 1 of TNG was a lot better than anything that came before it ?

If we're going to take GRs opinion probably just TMP and TNG Season 1 and 2 should be canon. He certainly didn't approve any episode of ENT or VOY or DS9.

 

[Christopher]

On Roddenberry's characterization of TOS as an inaccurate dramatization, I don't have a source to quote, but he did sometimes answer fans' questions about the change in the Klingon makeup in ST:TMP by suggesting that they'd always looked that way but TOS just hadn't shown it correctly.

Oh, then you'll love this: the original concept for the Rambo cartoon was that he was a socially conscious pacifist who tried to solve problems through understanding, and not firepower. But, apparently that concept didn't fly so well, so they figured "let's make the cartoon another G.I. Joe".

Except that in GI Joe they used lasers. They somehow got away with firing actual bullets in Rambo -- but they must've gotten their bullets from the same suppliers as the A-Team, since they were just as harmless to anything living.

The idea of Rambo preferring peace doesn't seem totally strange to me. After all, the original book and film First Blood were scathing anti-war tracts about the crime of turning Americans into killing machines and then failing to help them readjust to peacetime, with Rambo as a victim of the system rather than a hero (he actually died in the book). But the sequel went in, well, a rather different direction that I don't think the novel's author was too happy with.

The only reason I watched the Rambo cartoon was because most of its musical score was tracked from Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic scores to the first two films. And the only reason I ever watched those films was because I wanted to hear the music from the cartoon in its natural habitat, so to speak. I think Rambo is my favorite Goldsmith score even though I don't really like anything else about the movie.

If we're going to take GRs opinion probably just TMP and TNG Season 1 and 2 should be canon. He certainly didn't approve any episode of ENT or VOY or DS9.

That's pretty much how he seemed to approach it in later years, from a very self-centered perspective: that Star Trek was his creation and he wanted to purify it of other people's influences and interpretations. And Arnold certainly bought into that and promoted it quite assertively.

 

[Mysterion]

The Bishops current reside at the See of Paramount and the See of Bad Robot. The Holy See of CBS has authority over both. We are simply members of the congregation and don't get a vote.

So when the schism comes, who will be the "Martin Luther" who leads the Star Trek Reformation movement?

 

[martok2112]

On Roddenberry's characterization of TOS as an inaccurate dramatization, I don't have a source to quote, but he did sometimes answer fans' questions about the change in the Klingon makeup in ST:TMP by suggesting that they'd always looked that way but TOS just hadn't shown it correctly.

Oh, then you'll love this: the original concept for the Rambo cartoon was that he was a socially conscious pacifist who tried to solve problems through understanding, and not firepower. But, apparently that concept didn't fly so well, so they figured "let's make the cartoon another G.I. Joe".

Except that in GI Joe they used lasers. They somehow got away with firing actual bullets in Rambo -- but they must've gotten their bullets from the same suppliers as the A-Team, since they were just as harmless to anything living.

The idea of Rambo preferring peace doesn't seem totally strange to me. After all, the original book and film First Blood were scathing anti-war tracts about the crime of turning Americans into killing machines and then failing to help them readjust to peacetime, with Rambo as a victim of the system rather than a hero (he actually died in the book). But the sequel went in, well, a rather different direction that I don't think the novel's author was too happy with.

The only reason I watched the Rambo cartoon was because most of its musical score was tracked from Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic scores to the first two films. And the only reason I ever watched those films was because I wanted to hear the music from the cartoon in its natural habitat, so to speak. I think Rambo is my favorite Goldsmith score even though I don't really like anything else about the movie.

Yeah, I didn't have fond memories about the Rambo cartoon, except for the music. (Also, Trek guest star Michael Ansara was the voice of Rambo, so that was another plus.)

2 and 3 are over the top, comic bookish, typical 80's movies. Loved 2 as a kid, and 3 was ok. To me, the first and fourth Rambo movies are the best...and I can watch 1 and 4 without facepalming. (Please, do NOT make a Rambo 5!) Jerry Goldsmith's score is iconic and powerful in the first two films.

I never read the First Blood novel, but I did remember hearing that Rambo died in that novel. (And, in a deleted scene in the movie, Rambo commits suicide instead of surrendering himself to Col. Trautman.) Sadly, the movie powers that be didn't quite believe in a movie where a character that Stallone plays dies...especially by suicide. "We can't kill off an action hero when Stallone is playing him!" (Even if Stallone agreed to do the suicide scene, which was scrubbed.)

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I didn't have fond memories about the Rambo cartoon, except for the music. (Also, Trek guest star Michael Ansara was the voice of Rambo, so that was another plus.)

No, Ansara was the voice of the villain, General Warhawk. Rambo was voiced by Neil Ross, a prolific voice artist and announcer whose other roles include Shipwreck on GI Joe, Keith and Pidge on Voltron, Norman Osborn on the 1990s Spider-Man series, and the Biff Tannen museum video narrator in Back to the Future Part II. He's also played Han Solo in a few video games, and -- incongruously -- was also the regular announcer on Playboy's home videos from the '80s and '90s.

But there were other Trek guests in the Rambo cast, notably Alan Oppenheimer as Col. Trautman and James Avery as Rambo's sidekick Turbo, as well as various characters played by Michael Bell, Robert Ito, and Frank Welker (who did the "Spock cries" in ST III).

I actually found the show surprisingly watchable, despite the stupidity of the premise and the ludicrous, constant gunplay. Maybe it was just the music putting me in a good mood, but I felt it was well-animated (a couple of its animation directors, Kevin Altieri and Dick Sebast, went on to Batman: TAS) and mildly entertaining.

2 and 3 are over the top, comic bookish, typical 80's movies. Loved 2 as a kid, and 3 was ok. To me, the first and fourth Rambo movies are the best...and I can watch 1 and 4 without facepalming.

You know, I saw the fourth film not that long ago, out of some obsessive sense of completeness, and I honestly cannot remember what I thought of it. I guess it was neither good enough nor bad enough to register.

 

[Lance]

(Remember, Roddenberry's own take on TOS in later years was that it was in some ways an inaccurate or exaggerated dramatization of what had "really" happened.)

Anybody have a link or reference to this? Seems like a fascinating read.

Here's the relevant section of the TMP novel:

Unfortunately, Starfleet's enthusiasm affected even those who chronicled our adventures, and we were painted somewhat larger than life, especially myself.

Eventually, I found that I had been fictionalized into some sort of "modern Ulysses" and it has been painful to see my command decisions of those years so widely applauded, whereas the plain facts are that ninety-four of our crew met violent deaths during those years - and many of them would still be alive if I had acted either more quickly or more wisely. Nor have I been as foolishly courageous as depicted. I have never happily invited injury; I have disliked in the extreme every duty circumstance which has required me to risk my life. But there appears to be something in the nature of depicters of popular events which leads them into the habit of exaggeration. As a result, I have become determined that if I ever again found myself involved in an affair attracting public attention, I would insist that some way be found to tell the story more accurately.
(P. 7-8)

Yeah, that's the general gist of Roddenberry's point, albeit expressed 'through' Kirk himself.

I've come to thinking that Roddenberry might have come up with this as an explanation why Phase II was going to be somewhat different to TOS, in regards to some of TOS's more ridiculous tropes being absent (Kirk putting himself in danger repeatedly in particular). I suspect that it might also have been used as a means to discount all those occasions in TOS when Kirk was consciously shown interfering with planets and cultures in contradiction of the prime directive. The inference was going to be that "those events in TOS did happen, but not necessarily exactly how we saw them actually depicted on TV".

Basically I think GR's thinking had changed, and he wanted a clause in there to allow for a kind of 'cosmic retcon' of some of the elements in TOS that his 1970s self had now found lacking.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

That's a large part of the reason Roddenberry went with Filmation -- their commitment to doing a faithful adaptation. A lot of their adaptations were extremely true to the source materials. Their comedy adaptations occasionally added a few of the expected embellishments (The Brady Kids was theirs), but their New Adventures of Gilligan, for example, was pretty true to the original, aside from adding a cute monkey sidekick for Gilligan and shifting the storytelling more to morality tales where Gilligan was the innocent who remained immune to the others' follies. But their adventure shows were generally extremely true to the source material.

I found The New Adventures of Gilligan a pale spinoff of the live action series, as the wit, often cutting humor of the original was nowhere to be found in the cartoon. Like too many Filmation productions, the morality angle was up front--and screaming its lesson.

Filmation's other misstep--My Favorite Martians--was another poor adaptation, where the chemistry and experience of live action stars Bixby & Walston was exchanged for Jonathan Harris, a couple of the staff voice artists, and a vault full of sight gags abused in all previous Filmation comedies. One could easily insert Archie, Greg Brady, Frankie or Sabrina in the series without missing a beat.

Filmation's Tarzan and Flash Gordon shows were the most faithful screen adaptations those properties have ever had, and their Zorro was pretty true to the original pulps, aside from the reduced violence.

Agreed--aside from Star Trek, the series you note were examples of Filmation at the height of their creative powers.

However, they were the exception--not the rule where cartoon adaptations were concerned. The aforementioned Happy Days, Brady Bunch and Rambo cartoons were bad enough, but....

...The Karate Kid, Fantastic Voyage, Emergency +4, The Little Rascals & The Addams Family the Ewoks and Droids series, Punky Brewster (still hard to believe that happened), or the various spin-offs that appeared on ABC's Saturday Superstar Movie, were not much above a test pattern in terms of being faithful to the source or entertaining.

...which brings this back to TAS: Filmation's Star Trek--considering it was carrying the weighty baton of a celebrated, one-hour sci-fi drama--proved its worth by not simply being a spin-off "in name only," which is one reason why so many adults--probably more than children--supported the series during its short run.

 

[Christopher]

I've come to thinking that Roddenberry might have come up with this as an explanation why Phase II was going to be somewhat different to TOS, in regards to some of TOS's more ridiculous tropes being absent (Kirk putting himself in danger repeatedly in particular). I suspect that it might also have been used as a means to discount all those occasions in TOS when Kirk was consciously shown interfering with planets and cultures in contradiction of the prime directive. The inference was going to be that "those events in TOS did happen, but not necessarily exactly how we saw them actually depicted on TV".

Basically I think GR's thinking had changed, and he wanted a clause in there to allow for a kind of 'cosmic retcon' of some of the elements in TOS that his 1970s self had now found lacking.

Also it was just that a lot of the stuff in TOS was the result of budgetary compromises, network interference, and the like. In TMP, he (and Wise) retconned the Klingons' appearance, put more aliens in Starfleet, and made the technology more advanced; there were probably a number of other elements of TOS he would've chosen to ignore or retcon if there was no longer a budgetary need for them. (All the Earth-duplicate worlds were the biggest, silliest budgetary compromise, and they were clearly abandoned in the TNG era -- since holodecks provided a more plausible excuse for using backlots and historical costumes/props/etc. to save money.) Also there were probably things from some of the less successful episodes that he would've been happy to ignore, like Spock having his brain removed and the ultra-crowded Gideon somehow having room for a whole duplicate Enterprise.

Plus he probably regretted some of the '60s sexism, racial stereotypes (e.g. the "Paradise Syndrome" Indians and the Excalbians' poor excuse for Genghis Khan), and the like that slipped into the show. I just read a comment from David Gerrold that Roddenberry did want to include gay characters in TNG but more homophobic heads prevailed. I doubt he would've gone that far in Phase II, but it shows he was able to move forward with the times.

 

[Lance]

That's a large part of the reason Roddenberry went with Filmation -- their commitment to doing a faithful adaptation. A lot of their adaptations were extremely true to the source materials. Their comedy adaptations occasionally added a few of the expected embellishments (The Brady Kids was theirs), but their New Adventures of Gilligan, for example, was pretty true to the original, aside from adding a cute monkey sidekick for Gilligan and shifting the storytelling more to morality tales where Gilligan was the innocent who remained immune to the others' follies. But their adventure shows were generally extremely true to the source material.

I found The New Adventures of Gilligan a pale spinoff of the live action series, as the wit, often cutting humor of the original was nowhere to be found in the cartoon. Like too many Filmation productions, the morality angle was up front--and screaming its lesson.

Filmation's other misstep--My Favorite Martians--was another poor adaptation, where the chemistry and experience of live action stars Bixby & Walston was exchanged for Jonathan Harris, a couple of the staff voice artists, and a vault full of sight gags abused in all previous Filmation comedies. One could easily insert Archie, Greg Brady, Frankie or Sabrina in the series without missing a beat.

Filmation's Tarzan and Flash Gordon shows were the most faithful screen adaptations those properties have ever had, and their Zorro was pretty true to the original pulps, aside from the reduced violence.

Agreed--aside from Star Trek, the series you note were examples of Filmation at the height of their creative powers.

However, they were the exception--not the rule where cartoon adaptations were concerned. The aforementioned Happy Days, Brady Bunch and Rambo cartoons were bad enough, but....

...The Karate Kid, Fantastic Voyage, Emergency +4, The Little Rascals & The Addams Family the Ewoks and Droids series, Punky Brewster (still hard to believe that happened), or the various spin-offs that appeared on ABC's Saturday Superstar Movie, were not much above a test pattern in terms of being faithful to the source or entertaining.

...which brings this back to TAS: Filmation's Star Trek--considering it was carrying the weighty baton of a celebrated, one-hour sci-fi drama--proved its worth by not simply being a spin-off "in name only" which is one reason why so many adults--probably more than children--supported the series during its short run.

Absolutely. This was exactly the point I made earlier about why TAS compares favourably in context of other cartoon adaptations.

So many animated adaptations as you describe took themselves a long way from the source for the sake of appealing to a perceived children's audience, often gimping the source material in the process. TAS never did that. It stands almost alone as being an animated adaptation that mostly, not completely but mostly, respects its live-action source and strives to provide a continuation of it. Some elements of the show were undoubtedly very much in the realm of kid-vid television..... the Glommer from the "Tribbles" sequel, or perhaps the guest character in "B.E.M." which could have been from any children's TV show from the time, although we must be thankful that unlike Bat-Mite it was not introduced to be a regular part of the format..... but on the whole, TAS compares favourably against other animated adaptations, simply for the fact that it respects the source material and strives to replicate rather than 'change' it.

It's like I said before, even something as simple as retaining the same interior sets for the Enterprise and the same Starfleet uniforms was not something necessarily assured by animated adaptations at the time. But TAS took as its corner-stone a need to 'be' Star Trek. Fontana summed it up best when she said they approached it like they were writing for Star Trek, pure and simple, and they didn't consciously make concessions for a child audience. I think the final product holds up well because of that.

Considering the changes that got made to the majority of animated adapations of live-action material, we definitely "dodged a bullet" with TAS being so relatively accurate to TOS.

 

[Christopher]

So many animated adaptations as you describe took themselves a long way from the source for the sake of appealing to a perceived children's audience, often gimping the source material in the process. TAS never did that. It stands almost alone as being an animated adaptation that mostly, not completely but mostly, respects its live-action source and strives to provide a continuation of it.

I already provided other examples of shows that do the same, including other Filmation shows and a number of more recent animated continuations of movies. So it's relatively unusual in the grand scheme of things, but not "almost alone."

Some elements of the show were undoubtedly very much in the realm of kid-vid television..... the Glommer from the "Tribbles" sequel, or perhaps the guest character in "B.E.M." which could have been from any children's TV show from the time, although we must be thankful that unlike Bat-Mite it was not introduced to be a regular part of the format.....

Now, that's not a fair assessment. The glommer could be said to be a counterpart to the various monsters we saw in TOS such as "Beauregard" the weeper plant from "The Man Trap," the flying parasites on Deneva, the true forms of Sylvia and Korob, the space amoeba, and so forth. As for "Bem," the episode was actually a rejected pitch for the third season of TOS, so Bem was actually conceived as a live-action character. (There was a character played by Mark Lenard in a second-season episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century who had a similar ability.) True, both had somewhat cartoony designs, but that doesn't mean they're childish in concept.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The Bishops current reside at the See of Paramount and the See of Bad Robot. The Holy See of CBS has authority over both. We are simply members of the congregation and don't get a vote.

So when the schism comes, who will be the "Martin Luther" who leads the Star Trek Reformation movement?

The Inquisition will be calling soon.

 

[Lance]

^ I do accept that actually, Christopher. It was mainly the designs I was thinking of, but the concepts themselves weren't necessarily that bad..... I was thinking more that I can imagine in another universe an animated Star Trek adaptation where the B.E.M. creature was introduced as a regular on-board menace, ala Bat-Mite, Slimer, , etc etc etc. In design it and the Glommer are depicted as being very kiddie-friendly, shall we say. It's the general absence of those sorts of additions that I think makes TAS such a strong entry into this genre.

I remember watching it as a child (bear in mind this was the late 1980s, when TAS was released on video) and found nothing untoward about it. It felt like the adventures of NCC-1701. I saw no distinction between it and TOS, and it wasn't until later that I kind of rallied against this idea that TAS wasn't worthy of inclusion in canon, precisely because everything I seen of it felt intrinsically like proper Star Trek. I couldn't understand why anybody would want to banish it from canon.

Somebody mentioned The Real Ghostbusters earlier. Now, that is a series I admire too, I think they did a pretty good job of keeping faithful to the broader style of the original movie. But it did make far more reaching changes than did TAS to Star Trek. The introduction of Slimer as a comical menace is as given, but even the character designs were made more 'friendly' as it were. Compare Bill Murray's balding, grizzled looking, every-man appearance in the movie to the chiselled good-looker that the Venkman character is in the cartoon. I mean, TAS never did this. It was so strict in it's depiction of the TOS characters that it basically transcribed them to cartoon form exactly as they appeared in TOS. Cartoon-Shatner even looks like he's wearing a wig. And then you've got things like the containment unit being turned into a gateway to some giant parallel universe where all the ghosts hang out with each other after being caught, or Mister Stay Puft being retconned as a pal of the Ghostbusters who lives inside the unit..... while The Real Ghostbusters remained true to the spirit of it's source, it definitely made some sweeping changes to make it more kid-friendly. That much is indisputable.

In terms of accuracy, I'd be hard pressed to find many animated shows as completely true to their source as Star Trek: The Animated Series was. Which is why for the longest time I could never understand why other fans were usually so disparaging of it. It just felt like Star Trek to me.

 

[Christopher]

Compare Bill Murray's balding, grizzled looking, every-man appearance in the movie to the chiselled good-looker that the Venkman character is in the cartoon. I mean, TAS never did this. It was so strict in it's depiction of the TOS characters that it basically transcribed them to cartoon form exactly as they appeared in TOS.

The difference there is a matter of likeness rights. TAS had the original actors' participation and had their permission to use likenesses of their faces. But the Ghostbusters actors were bigger stars and the show couldn't afford their likenesses or participation. (Well, mostly. Ernie Hudson actually auditioned to play Winston on the show but was rejected.) So they had to change what they looked like.

Also, Murray, Ramis, and Aykroyd didn't look different enough from one another for animation, where the characters were often drawn small and in the distance and it was important to be able to tell them apart. So Peter got lankier, Ray got stockier, Egon got that weird hairdo, and they all got different hair and jumpsuit colors.

Cartoon-Shatner even looks like he's wearing a wig.

I always figured TAS Kirk's design was just a streamlining of his TOS appearance, but not long ago I saw Shatner in something from 1973-4 (it must've been either one of his Mission: Impossible appearances or "Burning Bright" on The Six Million Dollar Man) and realized that his hairstyle in that was very much the same as it was in TAS. So they must've based the design on his contemporary appearance.

And then you've got things like the containment unit being turned into a gateway to some giant parallel universe where all the ghosts hang out with each other after being caught, or Mister Stay Puft being retconned as a pal of the Ghostbusters who lives inside the unit..... while The Real Ghostbusters remained true to the spirit of it's source, it definitely made some sweeping changes to make it more kid-friendly. That much is indisputable.

Depends. The episodes aired on ABC Saturday mornings had to conform to the standards and expectations of the time slot, and got increasingly kiddified once J. Michael Straczynski was out as story editor (and eventually got those dreadful Slimer cartoon shorts added on), but the original-to-syndication episodes -- basically episodes 14 to 65 -- were free from network pressures and thus could go in a more adult, more intense, more bizarre direction. It's just one of the long list of animated series that started out smart in their first seasons and got increasingly dumbed down by network pressure to become more kid-friendly in later seasons (see also Filmation's Flash Gordon).

Although the first couple of episodes of TRGB were more kid-oriented than the rest of the season. I read an article where JMS actually apologized to the audience for those first two episodes, which were written before they'd realized how far they could push the envelope of Saturday morning programming. Under JMS, the show was pioneering in its efforts to take American animation in a more sophisticated, grown-up direction, and paved the way for later shows like Batman: TAS and Gargoyles. But once it was out of syndication and stuck on Saturday mornings full time, it got pushed downward in maturity again.

 

[Hober Mallow]

TRGB was actually very continuity conscious. They did one episode in which the Murray/Ackroyd/Ramis/Hudson film was beingh filmed as a based-on-a-true-story account of the "real" (cartoon) GBs. The did an episode in which they explained why the uniform colors changed (that's some Trek-level continuity porn right there). Janine got a a totally different voice later in the series along with a new look, and then they did an episode to explain that, too.

Funny thing about Arsenio Hall beating Ernie Hudson for a role Hudson originated.

 

[Christopher]

Janine got a a totally different voice later in the series along with a new look, and then they did an episode to explain that, too.

Actually that was due to network pressure to make her more conventionally pretty (although her original character design was really hot under those granny glasses, I thought), and took hold mainly after JMS had left as story editor. When he later came back on a freelance basis, he wrote "Janine, Is That You?" to explain the changes, and implicitly to protest them.

Funny thing about Arsenio Hall beating Ernie Hudson for a role Hudson originated.

Well, the thing is, being a good on-camera actor doesn't necessarily make you a good voice actor. The year before TRGB, Hudson played Cyborg on The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, and really didn't give a very good performance. He's done much better voice work in recent years, but back then, he wasn't so great at it.

 

[BillJ]

Basically I think GR's thinking had changed, and he wanted a clause in there to allow for a kind of 'cosmic retcon' of some of the elements in TOS that his 1970s self had now found lacking.

I think that Roddenberry forgot that the first goal of making a TV show is to make it entertaining so people will want to watch.

 

[Christopher]

A belated thought on this part:

I was thinking more that I can imagine in another universe an animated Star Trek adaptation where the B.E.M. creature was introduced as a regular on-board menace, ala Bat-Mite, Slimer, , etc etc etc.

I don't really see that. What Filmation characters like Bat-Mite and Orko had in common (aside from, well, absolutely everything beyond name and appearance) is that they were childlike -- well-meaning innocents who made mistakes and were met with patient guidance and forgiveness by the adults of the story, as a vehicle for the moral messages as well as a source of comic relief and identification for the young audience. Slimer wasn't used in quite the same way, but he was still presented as a childlike innocent and bumbler for kid appeal. But Commander Bem was hardly childlike, and he wasn't particularly well-meaning. He was an arrogant being who considered his race superior to others and believed he was thus entitled to experiment on them without their consent and place them in danger for his own edification. I don't know why you'd see him as a comic-relief figure or a child-identification figure.

 

[Lance]

Compare Bill Murray's balding, grizzled looking, every-man appearance in the movie to the chiselled good-looker that the Venkman character is in the cartoon. I mean, TAS never did this. It was so strict in it's depiction of the TOS characters that it basically transcribed them to cartoon form exactly as they appeared in TOS.

The difference there is a matter of likeness rights. TAS had the original actors' participation and had their permission to use likenesses of their faces. But the Ghostbusters actors were bigger stars and the show couldn't afford their likenesses or participation.

Oh, I know the reasons for it. In fact I sort of agree, in the sense that I think both the Egon and Ray designs perfectly manage to capture the characters themselves from the movies without necessarily resembling the actors at all. But there's just something about the Venkman design that has always bugged me. Have you ever had a chance to see the original The Real Ghostbusters pilot promo, Christopher? I think the Venkman design seen in that is actually to my mind more like how I wish they'd had him look in the show itself. The design of the pilot version of Peter, with messier hair and slightly more rounded features, to my mind looks more like the Venkman in the movie, without necessarily being the exact likeness of Bill Murray.

But as you said, maybe after they made the pilot version they mandated that Venkman's design needed to be still further distanced from the screen original. Obviously the other Busters were given tweaks as well. But what can I say, it's just a personal preference.

 

[Dukhat]

If we're going to take GRs opinion probably just TMP and TNG Season 1 and 2 should be canon. He certainly didn't approve any episode of ENT or VOY or DS9.

Well of course he didn't. He was dead before any of those shows debuted.