All the ways you saw Star Trek

The syndicated runs in the 70s and 80s, home recorded audio (r2r and cassette) and VHS videotapes, DVDs with original f/x rented from Netflix, and currently streaming TOS-R on Netflix. I caught a few of the TOS-R 'first-runs' in the mid 2000s, WJAR-10 would play them at some weird times, like 2 or 3AM.

I also have some screencaps that I made during the early syndication days with a 35mm camera, f8 at 1/30 second used to work pretty well.

 

I agree, streaming services like Netflix should have been on the list. My oversights are mounting up.

And since I counted homemade audio tapes as a way of watching the show (in your head), I should have included the View Master reels. I still have mine.

And if we go down that road, I'm counting my James Blish books!

 

And continuing down that road, there were also toy filmstrip viewers. And, there were also 8mm film versions of some episodes sold, seriously cut down I think because of the length of the reels. But I saw a couple at a swap meet about 30 years ago, reels in square cardboard boxes printed with photos from the show.

 

I remember watching on WPIX in NYC in the 70s / early 80s, guess those were 16 mm films then. I distinctly recall the scene with Sulu in sickbay in "Mirror, Mirror", when he is saying "regrettable, but it will leave me in command of the Enterprise" just before it cuts to a commercial...that 15 seconds or so of film always looked noticeably washed out / faded compared to the rest of the episode.

I recall circa 1983-84 that WPIX would show Star Trek right after the Honeymooners, around 11:00PM or so. I would record the episodes on my VCR, pausing the tape during commercials to edit them out (and in "EP" mode, to jam as many as I could on a single tape). In my sophomore year in college (1985-86), I remember WPIX took Trek off and started re-running Space:1999 around the same time. The tapes I made are long gone; would be interesting to see again how the show looked back on broadcast TV back in those days.

ON EDIT: Found this; guess Trek was on at midnight, not 11 (memory is a funny thing):

 

Original NBC broadcasts (1968-69 only, right after The Name of the Game season 1)

1970s syndication on 16 mm film (butchered, of course, on both New York and Philadelphia independent stations)

Public showing of a 16 mm film print (Star Trek convention at Americana Hotel, NYC, January 1975: "Mirror, Mirror"; also a Gene Roddenberry appearance that concluded with showing of B&W print of "The Cage," 1986, College of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN)

Your homemade audio tapes (Ha! Never heard of anyone else who did this, before I had a VCR)

Pre-recorded VHS, 1 episode per tape (I own two)

2006 syndication with CGI fx

Network broadcast with CGI fx (MeTV or others)

View-Master reels, adaptation of "The Omega Glory" wherein "women's intuition" is the reason the girl gives Spock the communicator during the Kirk/Tracy fight

Star Trek Fotonovels published by Bantam with notably good color reproductions, late 1970s

 

1970s syndication, primarily. Every day after school for at least 3 years

Then, later network broadcasts, occasional showings of 16 mm film at cons, then much later DVDs from the library and even later the Blu Rays at home, set to original effects except a few times as an experiment.
I skipped the VHS and most of the DVD eras altogether.

 

2) 1970s syndication on 16 mm film
Yep, pretty much how I was introduced to it when I was a young lad of, like, 4 years old in 1972.


3) Your own copy of a 16 mm film print
"Bread and Ciscuses." So great to have that. I wish I could transfer it to DVD.

5) Your homemade audio tapes
I had a ton of them back in the late 70's into the 80's. That's why I am so mental about the sound mix on the DVDs and Blu-Rays being wrong.

7) Pre-recorded VHS, 2 episodes per tape
8) Pre-recorded VHS, 1 episode per tape
Yes to both. In fact, I still have a complete set of box the Columbia House tapes and the black cover single-episodes tapes.

9) 1985 syndication, re-mastered and sent to TV stations on video tape
Played on WPIX and WVIA Channel 44. Channel 44 was a PBS station in PA that Long Island Cablevision broadcast. They ran Star Trek every Saturday night starting at 11:30 and ran three episodes a night. WONDERFUL! Sadly, they switched to the 45 minute pre-edited versions of the episodes after a time. For a while, they were uncut.

10) Your homemade video tapes from TV broadcasts
Yeah, from WPIX and WVIA.

11) Other network broadcasts of original fx (BBC, The Sci-Fi Channel...)
Very infrequently after I had the pre-recorded uncut VHS tape.

13) Laser Disc
I have the entire set and still watch them. Probably more than the Hi-Def discs.

14) DVD with original fx
Yeah, for years, until the sound mix drove me batty.

15) 2006 syndication with CGI fx
Yeah, for a time, until the cuts got too frustrating.

16) Theatrical showing of a remastered episode (this was done from disc, not film)
The Menagerie. That was a thrill.

17) DVD with CGI fx
Yup.

19) HD DVD (discontinued format)
Yup. Still have that set.

20) Blu-ray
On the individual season sets, the complete series single box AND the 50th anniversary. Because I'm a f'n lunatic.

 

I'm impressed with your pre-recorded collection! The complete LD set is where you've got me at max envy, without question. They aren't making any more of them, they have original sound mixes, and unlike VHS, the optical disc format is sufficiently stable and durable to be "heirloom" material.

Most people would say I'm in deep, and all I have are:

- a handful of 1-ep VHS tapes (Doomsday Machine, Menagerie, Mirror Mirror, Requiem for Methuselah, Where No Man, and the all-color version of The Cage; those were my must-haves when money was absurdly tight)

- a single volume of the original DVD run (Requiem for Methuselah / The Way to Eden, bought for the music in both eps, when money was still quite an issue and VHS wasn't dead for me),

- all three TOS-R DVD season sets, with such good picture quality, which would have been it for me, but for the lack of original fx

- and quite recently the Blu-ray box set, my new thing and I believe the last run of TOS I'll ever need.

 

I forgot about the James blish novels and the viewmaster of The Omega glory to add to my resume!
JB

 

Great discussion.

 

Thank you Gottacook for mentioning the Star Trek Fotonovels! They were great, weren't they? I sincerely wish Bantam had made a fotonovel for each of the 79 episodes, but I have all the ones they did produce (at least I think I do, as they're in storage at the moment).

As for how I've viewed Star Trek over years, first on television reruns in the early 70s (I think Trek came on at 4:00 p.m., so I always watched it after school), then in 1979 STTMP came out in theaters, so it was the first time fans got to see the TOS crew on the big screen.

Around 1980-81 my high school biology teacher ordered "City on the Edge of Forever" on 16 mm film by accident. I have no idea what she thought a film with this title was about that would relate to biology (and clearly she wasn't a Trekkie), but we got to enjoy it in class anyway! A friend received a laser disc player sometime between 80 and 82, and I recall us watching STTMP on it. Since then I've seen TOS on VHS tapes, Internet sites, DVD and now Blu Ray.

 

I had a few of those Fotonovels and would have got more but they stopped making them after ten or twelve I believe! Wonder why they didn't continue?
JB

 

I don't recall the years the fotonovels were produced, but I suspect it was well before production of STTMP was announced. If so, they probably figured Star Trek and the interest in it were things of the past and as such there would be little profit to be made by continuing to produce the fotonovels. How wrong could they be?

 

There were Photonovels for TMP, which was in color and a great book and The Wrath of Khan, which was sadly in black and white. That was the last gasp for the Photonovels as far as I was concerned. The format for really popular for awhile. I have the Battlestar Galactica "photostory" and used to have one for "The Incredible Hulk," and my sister had one for the Robby Benson movie "Ice Castles" of all things.

My guess is the home video boom just made them redundant and so they fell out of favor.

 

Wow, didn't know about the photonovels for TMP or TWOK! Wonder why on earth the latter would have been produced in b/w? Weird.

 

I think Paramount/Pocket Books was thought to have gone overboard with TMP, investing in a pretty big range of tie-in books but not making a lot of money on them, so things were scaled back considerably for TWOK.

 

As I've noted on some other thread, The TMP Fotonovel omits the transporter accident scene, and ever since first reading it in 1981 or so, I've been convinced that the movie would have been better off without it. (Yes, I've seen all the counterarguments about the deeper meaning of the scene and its aftermath.)

 

I wonder what the Fotonovels were sourced from. Did they take a 16mm syndication print and cut it into hundreds of pieces to get the frames?

I'm pretty sure the Star Trek Giant Poster Book got its photos from Lincoln Enterprises, simply by mail-ordering a lot of those work print film strips. But they needed significantly fewer pictures than the Fotonovels did.

 

Well, let's see.... First run B&W, first run new color TV.
Syndication in the 70s.
Possibly saw a 16mm episode viewing at a con.
Got some of the film frame trims from Lincoln Enterprises.
A couple of the Photonovels.
Definitely recorded some on audio cassette.
Probably recorded it on Betamax, can't remember.
A Betamax tape or two when they were released.
All the VHS tapes when they were released.
Maybe a Laserdisc or two, can't remember.
The whole first DVD double-disk release.
And the remastered Blu-Ray with the new effects.
And of course I watch it on H&I and BBCA now and then.

 

They arrived over here in 1978 as I recall and I always made a trip to the book shop to read them! Book shop? I wonder what that was?
JB