Cross over with los tin space?

[Christopher]

Since it's the tone of LIS that is at question here. How about instead of TOS, have a cross over with Star Trek: The Animated Series, that was more "juvenile" friendly.

That's a common miconception. In fact, ST:TAS was intended and overtly promoted as the first Saturday morning animated series aimed at adults. From Lou Scheimer: Creating the Filmation Generation by Scheimer with Andy Mangels, p. 96-97:

In June 1973, Norm [Prescott, TAS co-producer] was interviewed for a Newspaper Enterprise Association story about Star Trek, in which he said, "This is the first attempt to do an adult show in animation. Never before has an adult audience been challenged to watch a Saturday morning show. We feel it is a bold experiment." [TAS director] Hal Sutherland added, "The problem is that kids have not had a choice on Saturday morning. We're going to find out if they'll go for more sophistication."

So, yes, still accessible for kids, but challenging them to rise to a higher level, and offering adults something suitable for them as well. Note that TOS itself, though intended as adult science fiction, always had a strong following among children. So TAS essentially had the same target audience as TOS and was written to the same level, aside from toning down the sex and violence for the time slot. While other cartoon adaptations of live-action shows shifted the focus to teen sidekicks or added cute animal mascots or changed the shows to have more fanciful formats, TAS strove to be as authentic a continuation of TOS as possible, just with less kissing and killing and more exotic aliens and settings. (And bigger roles for Sulu and Uhura.)

 

[FormerLurker]

It's interesting that TAS was promoted that way, as animated shows had been in primetime for over a decade by then. The Flintstones, The Barkleys, Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, etc. And the season after TOS went off the air, Hanna-Barbera began producing the first of their shows that had been developed for primetime, yet never pitched for it; Scooby Doo, Where Are You? Indeed, Jonny Quest had been developed for primetime, but the network said no, it had to be on Saturday morning, changing how they wrote it.

 

[Christopher]

^Good point. But I think those were all comedies other than Jonny Quest. The standards for accepting adult comedies in animation seem to be different than those for drama/adventure series. Note that we've had The Simpsons and other animated sitcoms in prime time for decades now, but attempts to do animated action/dramatic shows in prime time have all fizzled out.

I'm not surprised that Filmation's head people would tend to gloss over the existence of Hanna-Barbera in their promotional talk. But even if TAS wasn't really the first of its kind, it's still wrong to claim that it was geared to a juvenile audience.

 

[Poltargyst]

The only Star Trek crossover I've ever thought much about is with Battlestar Galactica 1978. A mysterious unknown force, possibly Q, would hurl a Starfleet ship into the BSG universe. But I'm not sure how the story would go.

I feel like the Enterprise would be too much for the Cylons.

 

[CrazyMatt]

Kirk kicks Cylon ass!

 

[telerites]

Kirk kicks Cylon ass!

Kirk would hook up with a cylon babe even a robotic version. If ST can cross over with the X Men, these scifi to scifi TV show crossovers seem tame.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Cross over with lost in space?

Would a lost in space .star trek cross over had worked?

No. Lost in Space was a juvenile mess completely incompatible with Star Trek. Trying to cross over TOS with LiS would only hurt TOS--it would be like a cross over of The Bridge on the River Kwai with the Bill Murray film army spoof, Stripes.

 

[Drone]

I may have a fond partiality to LIS, but I really don't see the point in even attempting such a venture. There basically doesn't seem to be any degree of relevance between the two. Maybe not as extreme an example, but how well would Time Tunnel and Sliders have fared jointly?