Yep!
Fact checking These Are The Voyages....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
Yep!
The book claims that Star Trek actually missed an airdate. On December 29th, 1966, a re-run of "What are Little Girls Made Of?" aired when a new episode should have been screened, and was trounced in the ratings by the other networks, who ran new programming.
This is a new claim as far as I know. In every other book I've read about the show, it was the clever re-use of "The Cage", and the around the clock efforts of everyone at Desilu that kept Star Trek from just barely failing to deliver.
This is a big claim. I mean, the show is lucky it was not cancelled on the spot.
Unfortunately I can't take it at face value with all the errors and omissions in the book.
This is a new claim as far as I know. In every other book I've read about the show, it was the clever re-use of "The Cage", and the around the clock efforts of everyone at Desilu that kept Star Trek from just barely failing to deliver.
This is a big claim. I mean, the show is lucky it was not cancelled on the spot.
Unfortunately I can't take it at face value with all the errors and omissions in the book.
It's not a new claim, actually. The back story is explained in INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY. I can pull a quote if you want.
He's off by a week. "Shore Leave" had its debut airing on December 29, 1966; the "Little Girls" rerun was the previous week, December 22.
http://archive.is/F203O
Inside Star Trek does cover this. They managed to avoid reruns for most of the season due to the occasional pre-emption giving them an extra week, but:
(From p. 250 of the hardcover edition)
So even if the other networks did run new programming that night, it wouldn't have had an impact on ratings and advertising.
Regarding the reply from Marc Cushman labeled "19 hours ago":
Marc Cushman said:
Calling it a hoax at this point is fundamentally dishonest, and this passage would seem to blame The Lensman for Marc Cushman's own mistake. If anyone involved in this incident has contributed to the distortion of history, it was Marc Cushman, by electing to include The Lensman's self-described fan art without proper review or attribution.
Funny, I recall that being mentioned. I gotta check...
Okay, my bad. I was recalling the commentary about the uniform mix-up in "Charlie X" due to moving scenes around in editing.
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It's not a new claim. It's talked about in the Justman/Solow book.
Well this is surreal. 
I've created a lot of stuff meant to evoke a certain time or vibe, and of all the stuff I've done like that, the last one I expected anyone to believe was real was the first one that I ever did. Indy, I didn't see this on Mr. Cushman's page...did he delete the thread?
Well, it's not like the "Amok Time" cover uses an image from ST:TMP:TDE or anything.
The guy looks roughly my age, and it's possible he's not versed in Photoshop, or pays much attention to modern tools for digital art. My experience with most folks my age is that they don't really know the full capabilities of such programs. Still, the "Amok Time" cover should be not only obvious, but painfully so. I mean that's the discussion ender right there, (aside from the fact that I clearly stated it was a "faux cover" and all) and yet it's surprising that no one seems to have caught that. C'mon people!
Exactly. I object to that usage because it implies that I set out to deliberately fool people. It was my entry for a TrekBBS art contest, nothing more. I created a few more because I liked the concept. In addition, I'm hardly the first person to create something that "might have been, but never was". I'm not sure how much Mr. Cushman visits DeviantArt because the site is replete with such works.
As i said, surreal.
Yeah, pretty much. That work was created at least a decade ago, not only that, but I didn't realize it was still on The Astrobar site. Aside from TrekBBS, that's the only place I ever posted the thing, and considering The Astrobar has had a couple of revamps, I wasn't even sure it was still on the site.
Indeed it does!
While I'm not up on all the particulars and points of contention with Mr. Cushmans work, I'd be happy with proper accreditation.
Thanks to IndySolo for trying to set the record straight with Mr. Cushman.
I've created a lot of stuff meant to evoke a certain time or vibe, and of all the stuff I've done like that, the last one I expected anyone to believe was real was the first one that I ever did. Indy, I didn't see this on Mr. Cushman's page...did he delete the thread?
Well, it's not like the "Amok Time" cover uses an image from ST:TMP:TDE or anything.
The guy looks roughly my age, and it's possible he's not versed in Photoshop, or pays much attention to modern tools for digital art. My experience with most folks my age is that they don't really know the full capabilities of such programs. Still, the "Amok Time" cover should be not only obvious, but painfully so. I mean that's the discussion ender right there, (aside from the fact that I clearly stated it was a "faux cover" and all) and yet it's surprising that no one seems to have caught that. C'mon people!Exactly. I object to that usage because it implies that I set out to deliberately fool people. It was my entry for a TrekBBS art contest, nothing more. I created a few more because I liked the concept. In addition, I'm hardly the first person to create something that "might have been, but never was". I'm not sure how much Mr. Cushman visits DeviantArt because the site is replete with such works.
As i said, surreal.
Yeah, pretty much. That work was created at least a decade ago, not only that, but I didn't realize it was still on The Astrobar site. Aside from TrekBBS, that's the only place I ever posted the thing, and considering The Astrobar has had a couple of revamps, I wasn't even sure it was still on the site.
Indeed it does!
While I'm not up on all the particulars and points of contention with Mr. Cushmans work, I'd be happy with proper accreditation.
Thanks to IndySolo for trying to set the record straight with Mr. Cushman.
It's not a new claim, actually. The back story is explained in INSIDE STAR TREK: THE REAL STORY. I can pull a quote if you want.
Thanks man, but I trust you. I am trying not to ask you too many fact-checking questions just now, I have the feeling you are going to be very busy over the next few years if Cushman is writing more books
Thanks for clearing this up Christopher.
Cushman doesn't mention the unscheduled re-reun was in a non-ratings week, and was "pre-arranged" with NBC.Just on this Robertson guy, he seemed to rub a few people at Desilu the wrong way, and he might well have been difficult to deal with at times, but his heart was clearly in the right place : he wanted Star Trek to succeed for his network, and pushed Roddenberry hard to deliver the best material possible. I'm no writer, but it seems a lot of the points he raises in the memo's make a lot of dramatic sense. Seems like he was another person who contributed to Star Trek's success who finally is getting some overdue credit.
Now, back to The Lensman's saga. Congrats Lensman, you are famous, enjoy the ride, and a well deserved credit, hopefully in the "third time lucky' edition
Well this is surreal.
I've created a lot of stuff meant to evoke a certain time or vibe, and of all the stuff I've done like that, the last one I expected anyone to believe was real was the first one that I ever did. Indy, I didn't see this on Mr. Cushman's page...did he delete the thread?
My bad, it's on the "These Are the Voyages" facebook page. On the right you'll see "Recent Posts by Others". Click on that and scroll down and you'll see this conversation. I wish I had a more direct link to it.
Neil
The Justman/Solow book claimed that GR was given his choice of people from NBC to work with, and he selected Robertson... and then lived to regret the choice. It also posited that Robertson's relationship with the production team--GR particularly--deteriorated gradually over the first two seasons. One reason offered for this was Robertson's insistence that episodes show the advertised "strange new worlds" as often as possible (Robertson disliked "bottle shows").
I've found Robertson's memos, as detailed in the Cushman book, to actually be surprisingly insightful. Has he been given a bad rap all these years?
I've read a lot of Robertson's memos (more than are quoted in the Cushman book), and my opinion tends to be...mixed. I don't think he deserves all the harsh words he receives in the Solow/Justman book. He had creative and useful suggestions (which, to be fair, the Solow/Justman book also acknowledges once or twice) on many occasions.
He also, though, could be stubborn, and his aversion to bottle shows was financially unreasonable. Not to mention, the series produced plenty of great bottle shows, which should have made Robertson reconsider his position, something I don't think he ever did.
There are still a lot of memos from him that I haven't read, though, so consider my opinion incomplete at present.
He also, though, could be stubborn, and his aversion to bottle shows was financially unreasonable. Not to mention, the series produced plenty of great bottle shows, which should have made Robertson reconsider his position, something I don't think he ever did.
There are still a lot of memos from him that I haven't read, though, so consider my opinion incomplete at present.
His insistence on "planet stories" might well have been because in his mind and/or that of his superiors "strange new worlds" is the show they bought and the show they agreed to pay for, so they were keeping the production honest about what they had been promised. If Roddenberry and company had told NBC "we'll do half 'strange new worlds' stories and half 'shipboard adventure' stories" then maybe Robertson wouldn't have pushed so hard for the former.
I agree. Part of the issues with Robertson seems to be that he took GR and Solow at their word...literally. Star Trek was sold to NBC under the premise it would be an action-adventure series exploring "strange new worlds" which could be produced on a television budget and delivered on time for broadcast. Whenever the production team strayed from any of those borders, Robertson pounced.
The production team grew to resent Robertson's inflexibility, but (I assume) from his perspective, he was just trying to get them to deliver what they promised to do.
They may have fixed that error, but I still think it's weird that the "Books By" section on the Jacobs Brown Press website lists a bunch of books that are actually (a) self-published or (b) from other publishers. The only one that I can see that actually is a Jacobs Brown Press product is These Are The Voyages.
It seems clear to me that the whole thing is a slapdash front for Cushman to self-publish TATV under the auspices of an imaginary publisher, but I can't for the life of me understand why the whole website is so sloppy (even after things like the "console" error were reported here, and fixed).
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