Alter the credits?

[MauiPortageeSon]

put Dee's name in those first season credits. Does the actors union have some say so in this, so it cant happen?

Actors' salaries and place in the credits are established in their contracts.

This is true and yet over the years in syndication these contracts never prevented the airing station from monkeying with them to make room for more commercials. Most notably the use of time compression but I recall times stations would cut the opening theme and the credits out altogether. Not to mention the black market in cutting cells from the circulating prints and the damages to credits that would entail.

Also, I doubt those 1960 contracts would hold any sway over credits as they appear on DVDs as they didn't exist back then and weren't covered.

No matter how the industry butchers the word "remastered" to make it apply to these new works of art its not even clear Paramount is avoiding new contracts in creating them.

Walter Koenig is often quoted as saying he made more money from TRIALS AND TRIBBLE-ATIONS than he ever did from the original THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES episode whose footage was used to create his performances in the DS9 episode a la THE MENAGERIE.

 

[Maurice]

Walter Koenig is often quoted as saying he made more money from TRIALS AND TRIBBLE-ATIONS than he ever did from the original THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES episode whose footage was used to create his performances in the DS9 episode a la THE MENAGERIE.

And that's why SAG renegotiates its contracts. Back in the 60s there was no idea that shows would be re-run for-flipping-ever, and the actors only got residuals for a couple of repeats.

 

[Christopher]

This is true and yet over the years in syndication these contracts never prevented the airing station from monkeying with them to make room for more commercials. Most notably the use of time compression but I recall times stations would cut the opening theme and the credits out altogether.

But simply not showing the credits is not the same as altering their content. Also, I think that when TV stations fail to show the credits (legibly or otherwise), that's technically a violation of their responsibilities. I can't cite a source for that belief, though.

Also, I doubt those 1960 contracts would hold any sway over credits as they appear on DVDs as they didn't exist back then and weren't covered.

I think that logic is skewed in a number of ways, but I'm not certain how.

Besides, what would be the point? Kelley wasn't actually a regular in the first season. He appeared in most first-season episodes, but he wasn't in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" or "Errand of Mercy" (or "Where No Man," of course). In the first season, Kelley was a recurring player who just happened to recur an awful lot. That is the truth, and the existing credits reflect that truth. It would be dishonest to alter them.

No matter how the industry butchers the word "remastered" to make it apply to these new works of art its not even clear Paramount is avoiding new contracts in creating them.

The industry doesn't butcher the word; fandom does. The term was applied quite accurately; a remastered release is one that is printed from the original master copy of the film for maximum quality. Specifically, this release was digitally remastered, which means making digital scans of the original color negatives (I believe) and digitally recompositing them for maximum image clarity and authenticity of color reproduction. In addition to the digital remastering that gave TOS Remastered its name, it had its visual effects replaced with newly created CGI. Because of this, bizarrely, fandom somehow started misusing the word "remastering" to mean "updating the effects," even though it's been a standard term of the industry for decades and everyone should already be familiar with it.

And "avoiding new contracts" has nothing to do with anything. I'm pretty sure that DVD residuals are something that's negotiated separately anyway, considering that raising them was a big sticking point in the negotiations that led to the recent WGA strike and nearly a SAG strike. So if you're proposing that retroactively adding Kelley's name to the first-season main titles would bring his estate more residuals on first-season DVD sales, I think you're wrong that there'd be any connection between the two.

 

[JoeD80]

Was De signed as a regular during the first season? There were a couple of first season episodes that he wasn't in, so McCoy may have just been a recurring part that recurred far more often than was initially planned, resulting in De getting signed as a regular the following season. And that would have a big influence on his screen credit, or lack thereof.

^Well, yeah; by definition, if he'd been contracted as a regular cast member, he would've been listed in the opening titles.

In the 1960s you could have a contract as a regular and be in the ending credits. DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, and George Takei all *did* have contracts as regulars and appeared in the end credits (I think the shortest contract was 7 out of 13 episodes). Same with Hayden Rorke and Bill Daily on I Dream of Jeannie. Every paid regular being in the opening credits came up later, somewhere around the beginning of the 70s IIRC.

 

[Christopher]

^A contract for X out of 13 where X < 13 isn't a contract as a regular, it's a contract as a semi-regular. A regular is someone contracted to appear in every episode. Kelley was left out of two first-season episodes, as I said. Series-wide, Doohan was in only 64 episodes, Takei in only 51. You list them as "regulars," but they both appeared in fewer episodes than Nichols (65 episodes), whom you don't call a "regular."

 

[JoeD80]

^A contract for X out of 13 where X < 13 isn't a contract as a regular, it's a contract as a semi-regular. A regular is someone contracted to appear in every episode.

Calling it "regular" or "semi-regular" wasn't my point. The whole point was De had a guarantee of X out of Y episodes, and that this kind of contract has guaranteed you a spot in the opening credits since the early 1970s. In the I Dream of Jeannie example I cited, Hayden Rorke did have a contract for and was in *every single episode* past the pilot, but he was in the ending credits. In M*A*S*H, which started in 1972, everyone who had contracts was in the opening credits, but they weren't all guaranteed the full seasons run of episodes, or we wouldn't have episodes like "The Bus" that only feature three or four cast members. Jamie Farr and William Christopher were both there from early in the first season but they didn't sign contracts until they showed up in the opening credits.

Kelley was left out of two first-season episodes, as I said. Series-wide, Doohan was in only 64 episodes, Takei in only 51. You list them as "regulars," but they both appeared in fewer episodes than Nichols (65 episodes), whom you don't call a "regular."

Nichols didn't have a contract (at least in the first season IIRC). They only paid her as a hired hand on the days she showed up to work. Someone without a contract can still show up in a lot of episodes -- the difference is they get to re-negotiate their price every single time, like with Farr and Christopher for the first three years of M*A*S*H, or Colm Meaney on The Next Generation. Justman and Solow talk about the specifics of Nichelle's hiring situation in their book.

So starting from the 70s, anyone in the opening credits had a contract for X out of Y; anyone in the closing credits didn't. This wasn't so clear-cut in the 60s where some with contracts would still be in the ending credits. (Sometimes they'd get really big title cards in the ending credits to distinguish them from the others).

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, thanks for clearing that up. I still don't see that as any reason to redo the credits four decades after the fact, though. If that was the way it worked, that was the way it worked, and Kelley wasn't cheated out of anything that he'd somehow get back if the credits were altered. It would just be gratuitous revisionism out of some obsessive-compulsive urge to make all three seasons' credits uniform.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

They should, however, insert an end card crediting the CBS Digital people - that's pretty standard for these kinds of remastering or "special edition" things when they're released theatrically. As is you've got a bunch of people doing effects work for the shows without credit.

 

[Therin of Andor]

They were often from other eps, with a few rare exceptions, which I always found odd.

For a series that can be played in (almost) any order, like an SF anthology series, the end credits provided teasers and tasters for episodes not yet seen by individual viewers.

I remember being excited by a still of elderly Uhura (from "And the Children Shall Leave") at the end of one episode because all images of her in that makeup in the actual episode had been cut by the censors here in Australia - too scary for kids?

Also love the prototype Tellarite makeup test in one episode's end credits, made as Fred Phillips prepared to tackle "Journey to Babel".

 

[Therin of Andor]

As is you've got a bunch of people doing effects work for the shows without credit.

That's why they added themselves as extras and walk-ons in numerous new FX shots, eg patting baby hortas in "The Devil in the Dark".

 

[Christopher]

Also love the prototype Tellarite makeup test in one episode's end credits, made as Fred Phillips prepared to tackle "Journey to Babel".

I thought that was actually a closeup on the dead Tellarite in the background at Memory Alpha in "The Lights of Zetar."

 

[Maurice]

As is you've got a bunch of people doing effects work for the shows without credit.

That's why they added themselves as extras and walk-ons in numerous new FX shots, eg patting baby hortas in "The Devil in the Dark".

I have yet to see proof that there are "baby hortas". Heck here's a cap from the HD version and there are two guys working on some equipment.
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x25hd/thedevilinthedarkhd709.jpg
This is the is only scene at the mining colony that takes place after Kirk and company depart after saving mama from the miners. No baby hortas.

 

[Pauln6]

Only Shatner and Nimoy were contracted to appear in every episode in season 1. De and Grace were effectively the second tier characters and McCoy just happened to appear in almost every episode after the pilot. Grace appeared in 8 out of 12 because (according to Grace) they took a decision to re-write Dagger of the Mind without her as they didn't want to keep labouring on Kirk and Rand's attraction too much. So McCoy would have appeared in 11/12 and Rand 9/12 and that may have carried on if they hadn't taken the decision to axe Rand. The other actors playing third tier characters were free to take on other work in between appearances and Majel Barrett was a guest star in the first half of season 1 before becoming a third tier regular in the second half of the season. I recall that Sulu was absent for several later episodes and replaced by Chekov because Takei wasn't available.

 

[Christopher]

^Right. In much of the second season, Takei was away filming The Green Berets and had his parts rewritten for Chekov.

 

[Elder Knight]

Changing history is always a bad idea. Future generations will be interested in how the players were classified.

For a time, TV syndicators slapped generic credits on shows with long histories when they were in reruns. Lately, the tendancy is to play them as they were. (I am not referring to the abominable practice of squeezing, speeding up and talking over the end credits.)

It's been conjectured that if Arthur Conan Doyle had a better proofreader, the little inconsistencies in the Sherlock Holmes canon would not be there. The large base of devotees might not have existed without these minor details to debate for over a century.

I'd guess that Trek's following owes a lot to continuity errors and the attempts to resolve them. The middle initial in "James R. Kirk" may be worth an order of magnitude.