Desilu's Oscar Katz on film — Fact Trek

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Maurice, Feb 16, 2021.

  1. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    On this date in 1973 the 2nd STAR TREK LIVES! convention kicked off, running Feb. 16–19 at the Commodore Hotel in NYC.

    Here's film from the event, complete with almost never-seen Desilu former exec Oscar Katz, + Dorothy Fontana + Leonard Nimoy. It's a nice glimpse into early Trek fandom.

     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2021
    Firebird, Valin, publiusr and 8 others like this.
  2. Commishsleer

    Commishsleer Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 19, 2013
    Location:
    Backwaters of Australia
    Love the fan's outfits.
    It all seems so earnest and spontaneous back then.
     
    Valin and StarCruiser like this.
  3. ZapBrannigan

    ZapBrannigan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Location:
    New York State
    If you look closely, you can actually see George Takei's head swelling as the fans cheer. :)
     
  4. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2010
    Location:
    publiusr
    Good days.
     
  5. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 22, 2001
    Location:
    Noname Given
    I always find it interesting that you still see the fans there claiming that Star Trek was the first "adult" science fiction show on television when that honestly just wasn't the case.

    Both the "Twilight Zone", and the 1960s version of "The Outer Limits" did plenty of adults science fiction during their runs.

    Make no mistake I love Star Trek and I'm an older fan of the original series (Saw my first Star Trek episode on NBC first run in 1969 at the age of 6 and was hooked); but I've always thought the claim that Star Trek was the first and only adult science fiction series ridiculous from the first time I heard the claim because it's just not the case
     
    StarCruiser and Valin like this.
  6. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    The way I've always heard (and said) it is that it was the first adult non-anthology SF show. But specifics tend to get eroded away with repetition.
     
    publiusr, ChallengerHK and Valin like this.
  7. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 22, 2001
    Location:
    Noname Given
    I was referring to the sound bite that's in the YouTube video. The fan making the comment draws no such distinction in the video.
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Yes, people get it wrong sometimes. My point is that it's more an incomplete statement than an entirely false one. There is an underlying truth there, but there's a key detail missing.
     
  9. Valin

    Valin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2003
    Location:
    Helium, Barsoom
    Oh my!
     
  10. Valin

    Valin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2003
    Location:
    Helium, Barsoom
    I remember reading "Star Trek Lives!" and wishing that I could have gone to the convention.
     
    publiusr likes this.
  11. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2010
    Location:
    publiusr
    One advantage of living on the coasts—instead of my podunk state.
     
  12. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    The Twilight Zone is arguably not a science-fiction show, as it is more a general fantasy and the fantastic show. The Outer Limits was SF and not aimed down at kiddies.

    Men Into Space was adult scifi and aired in the 1959–60 broadcast season.

    At best Star Trek is the first hour long science-fiction show with continuing characters aimed at an adult audience. You have to qualify all of those things or it’s not any sort of first at all.
     
  13. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    It was a mix of both fantasy and science fiction. It was largely fantasy, and many of its SF episodes had fantasy elements in them (e.g. "Death Ship" or "And When the Sky Was Opened"), but there were plenty of straight-up SF stories without anything supernatural or surreal about them -- "The Lonely," "Time Enough at Last," "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air," "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," "Eye of the Beholder," "The Invaders," "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?," "The Obsolete Man," etc. I'd even call something like "Back There" or "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" science fiction; the mechanism of time travel in those cases is never explained, but it isn't overtly supernatural either.

    For that matter, there were a couple of TZ episodes with no SF/F elements at all, "The Silence" and "The Jeopardy Room." Those were thrillers more in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, with twist endings but no unrealistic elements. And the pilot, "Where Is Everybody?", barely counts as SF, because there was a rational explanation for the weirdness (a result of the network being cautious about the fantasy aspects).
     
    Methuselah Flint likes this.
  14. Spock's Barber

    Spock's Barber Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 9, 2014
    Location:
    Standing Next To Kirk
    Leonard Nimoy’s comments were very accurate about the various reasons for the popularity of TOS.
     
  15. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    In short: it’s not a scifi show.
     
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Not exclusively, no. It was an anthology that included both fantasy and science fiction, and Rod Serling said so himself:



    Also:
    https://www.pbs.org/wnet/pioneers-of-television/video/rod-serling-on-science-fiction/

    It had horror episodes as well, and as I said, a couple of non-genre thrillers. It even had some very bad sitcom-pilot episodes with fantasy or sci-fi elements. It was an eclectic anthology, but SF was a major part of the mix. TZ has always been perceived and talked about as a science fiction show. A cursory glance through my copy of The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree turned up several such references in interviews with its creators.

    Genre categories are not walls with "Keep Out" signs posted on them. They're ingredients that can be mixed together in countless ways. And television genre series have frequently mixed SF and fantasy together or treated them interchangeably.
     
    publiusr and Methuselah Flint like this.
  17. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    /Lecture
     
    Ryan Thomas Riddle likes this.
  18. Kor

    Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2001
    Location:
    My mansion on Qo'noS
    If we narrow it down to "space opera" with ray guns and alien soldiers and swashbuckling adventurers and the like, then Trek did take a more grown-up approach with those tropes than what had usually been seen on American television before that.

    Kor
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2021