The only bit I disagree with is the section I bolded. In the '70s, all the cool kids were into Trek. It was only in the '80s, that that Trekkies/Trekkers started being thought of as nerdy.
Fandom in the 70s... The Star Trek Dream TV Special..
- Thread starter MANT!
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The only bit I disagree with is the section I bolded. In the '70s, all the cool kids were into Trek. It was only in the '80s, that that Trekkies/Trekkers started being thought of as nerdy.
I find a lot of this discussion both amusing and enlightening. I was 20 when Trek premiered in 1966 so my childhood was Trek-free. As a fairly well read Science Fiction buff by then, I found TOS to be mildly entertaining on average with some great highs and a few cavernous lows. Mostly, I could hardly watch Shatner in most eps, an opinion that only began to change with the movies.
Many of you who are such ardent and knowledgeable fans evidently had your enthusiasms forged in your youth. I understand that as my childhood interests in science, mechanics, aeronautics and space have stuck with me all these years. Once a nerd, always a nerd - and proud of it too.
TOS is my fourth favorite series after TNG, ENT and DS9. My PC wallpaper is the NX-01 rising above Earth and is seen by hundreds of people each year as I use this computer in my Electronic Security technical training work. I wear my Trek enthusiasm in a very visible way and it serves as a bonding agent with many of my students. When it comes to "Live long and prosper", I've done the first part and still working on the second. I plan to keep on Trekkin' until I croak.
Many of you who are such ardent and knowledgeable fans evidently had your enthusiasms forged in your youth. I understand that as my childhood interests in science, mechanics, aeronautics and space have stuck with me all these years. Once a nerd, always a nerd - and proud of it too.
TOS is my fourth favorite series after TNG, ENT and DS9. My PC wallpaper is the NX-01 rising above Earth and is seen by hundreds of people each year as I use this computer in my Electronic Security technical training work. I wear my Trek enthusiasm in a very visible way and it serves as a bonding agent with many of my students. When it comes to "Live long and prosper", I've done the first part and still working on the second. I plan to keep on Trekkin' until I croak.
Mmmm. As a kid in the 60s, I was into "Batman", but I knew other kids who collected "Star Trek" gum cards, from a show my parents and grandparents obviously didn't watch. So it was definitely a show deemed worthy by kids of my age. Here in Australia, "Star Trek" wasn't repeated ad infinitum, only selected episodes when colour TV arrived (1975), and TAS in b/w and then repeats in colour.
I'm intrigued by Warped9's comment that "I think a lot of us were having too much fun to really care what others thought".
I have never let "what others thought" stop me from enjoying a TV show I liked. And "what is cool today" is cyclic. (I noticed the other day, a whole heap of teens and young adults wearing their caps backwards. Haven't seen that in about a decade, but obviously it's "cool" again - and maybe soon they'll hitch up their pants again, so we can't see what brand of underpants they wear. Just let them ridicule me for liking "Star Trek"!)
Not where I lived. What ever the "cool kids" were into it wasn't Star Trek..
The only bit I disagree with is the section I bolded. In the '70s, all the cool kids were into Trek. It was only in the '80s, that that Trekkies/Trekkers started being thought of as nerdy.
Sure, but they were supposed to be able to tell you where and when ST conventions were being held. I was visiting the USA in December 1983/January 1984, and dutifully sent off my SASE and itinerary, and got a lovely letter back that there were no conventions being held in the US during that six-week period.
Imagine my surprise, when staying in New York, to see a late-night TV commercial for a Star Trek Creation Con being held just a few blocks away the very next day! Guests were Walter Koenig, ST III publicist Eddie Egan (with a set of sneak preview slides of scenes from the new movie), Marv Wolfman (DC ST comic) and ST novelist and TAS writer, Howard Weinstein. I bought a set of ST III call sheets in the auction; these were filled with secrets about the movie. It was an amazing day!
So... yes, I was grateful for the Welcommittee's work over many decades, but they seemingly had an anti-Creation bias. At that time, Creation had conventions happening all over the US every few weeks.
Still, there shouldn't be any infighting. That's all a bunch of BS. It would be great if fans had some other common ground with fans, instead of clashing over issues and disputes that don't need to be clashed over.
All that aside, the Seventies were an interesting time as far as Star Trek and science fiction fandom were concerned. The AMT models, the Mego Figures, the bridge and transporter set, and other Star Trek related toys were fun to collect. Even the photonovels, the original novels, the animated series novelizations, and calendars were worth the spending dough.
It was an interesting time...
Well, that's when someone quotes IDIC: "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations". Of course ST fans should have enough common ground to be of one mind, but we are flawed 20th/21st humans aspiring to follow 23rd century values.
And where, oh where, was that magical land where all the cool kids were into Star Trek and hardcore Trekkies like myself did not suffer the persecution so many of us remember as clearly as if it was yesterday?
Persecution? Nah.
I discovered Trek when I was 13. My friends pretty much liked it too, and the new friends I made a few years later in high school also liked it.
It's not like I wore Trek shirts or walked around saying "Live long and prosper," so other than my pals, no one knew I liked Trek. I didn't care anyhow. People either liked me, or didn't, and whether I liked Star Trek or not was not going to change their minds one way or the other.
Of course, I was a female fan, so perhaps we didn't catch the crap that males might have. But a few of my male friends liked Trek. They were nothing like the "Get a life" fans on the Shatner skit though. Everyone I knew back then who liked Trek were normal, non-weird people.
That's pretty much true today, when I go to conventions. For every really weird fan (and I did finally meet some at conventions), there are ten normal people.
I discovered Trek when I was 13. My friends pretty much liked it too, and the new friends I made a few years later in high school also liked it.
It's not like I wore Trek shirts or walked around saying "Live long and prosper," so other than my pals, no one knew I liked Trek. I didn't care anyhow. People either liked me, or didn't, and whether I liked Star Trek or not was not going to change their minds one way or the other.
Of course, I was a female fan, so perhaps we didn't catch the crap that males might have. But a few of my male friends liked Trek. They were nothing like the "Get a life" fans on the Shatner skit though. Everyone I knew back then who liked Trek were normal, non-weird people.
That's pretty much true today, when I go to conventions. For every really weird fan (and I did finally meet some at conventions), there are ten normal people.
How did the bullies even know you were into Star Trek, unless you told them, or were wearing your pointed ears to school?
Persecution?
Well, that's when someone quotes IDIC: "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations". Of course ST fans should have enough common ground to be of one mind, but we are flawed 20th/21st humans aspiring to follow 23rd century values.
Regretfully, that is the case.
Humans have a streak of barbarism in them. Appalling, but there, nonetheless. I'm still surprised how little improvement there has been in human evolution. While there has been technical advancement, there has been little in man himself concerning change.
To quote a starship captain, "Time and space are less complex than the human equation."
Same here Captain Matt! I remember Starlog, TV specials--no Internet! A time long ago and far away.
Getting back to the Exploration Set model kit, as screen INaccurate as it was, it was magnitudes better than what we had earlier. I'm sure I've related this anecdote elsewhere in this forum, but please forgive me for repeating it here.
Before that kit was released, by buddy Kyle and I had to make do with some interesting subtitutes. Since I played Spock, I nabbed a binocular case along with its strap to serve as my tricorder. As it was black, it worked well enough. Less successful were our phasers and communicators. For the sidearms, we tried various items ranging from "Flair" brand felt markers to oddball assemblies from my Tog'les brand building blocks (I didn't have Legos as a kid). Most awkward were our comm's. Kyle retrieved a couple of his mother's used and discarded make-up "compacts". He kept a rectangular black one for himself, but I had to make do with a circular case molded in pink! Needless to say, I was reluctant to "call the ship" when we played outdoors!
So I was particularly thrilled when the kit arrived. At least I'd only be teased for playing "space-man" rather than being stamped a "sissy"!
Sincerely,
Bill
Before that kit was released, by buddy Kyle and I had to make do with some interesting subtitutes. Since I played Spock, I nabbed a binocular case along with its strap to serve as my tricorder. As it was black, it worked well enough. Less successful were our phasers and communicators. For the sidearms, we tried various items ranging from "Flair" brand felt markers to oddball assemblies from my Tog'les brand building blocks (I didn't have Legos as a kid). Most awkward were our comm's. Kyle retrieved a couple of his mother's used and discarded make-up "compacts". He kept a rectangular black one for himself, but I had to make do with a circular case molded in pink! Needless to say, I was reluctant to "call the ship" when we played outdoors!
So I was particularly thrilled when the kit arrived. At least I'd only be teased for playing "space-man" rather than being stamped a "sissy"!
Sincerely,
Bill
Before I got an AMT Enterprise and Klingon ship I made cardboard cutout models of them. I still did that of ships there weren't models of even after I got the AMT kits. I also made cardboard and plastic replicas of the command chair and helm/nav console. I used reams of paper ceaselessly drawing starships and other spacecraft. 
Those were fun times!
Those were fun times!
I remember using the Leif Ericson/Interplanetary UFO model as a "never before seen" alien vessel encountering the Enterprise. How many other people did that? For a truly HUGE ship, Kyle and I used a styrofoam "body board" that was about 4 feet long. Scale-wise, that would have made it roughly 3000 feet compared to the Enterprise.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
Who among us had any idea that craft was designed by Matt Jefferies, at least at that time, during the 70s? I knew that ship never appeared in the series, so I found it interesting it was packaged similarly to the Trek kits and its picture often appeared on the side of the Trek boxes. But since its scale seemed "close enough", Kyle and I reasoned, "Eh, why not?"
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
Despite issues I've had with TOS-R it would have been kinda cool if the Lief Erikson design, or something like it, had been retconned into TOS.
Oh, who among us got suckered into purchasing the Remco phaser pistol with "electronic" sound? Like several other phaser toys of the mid seventies (including the Exploration Kit), its shape was based upon what was depicted in the animated series, but to house the 70s era electronis, it was over-scaled. Well, the overall length was close to what Franz Joseph depicted in the Technical Manual, but each section was considerably more bulky. It had a flashlight type reflector in the barrel and one could place cut-out slides of the Enterprise or a Klingon ship (in three-quarter view). The light would pass through the cut-out elements to project an illuminated shape upon a wall or other surface.
But the sound... Ugh! The sound! No warbling "shriek" (originally created for the 1963 version of "War of the Worlds". Oh, no, no, no! Instead, it played a "chirp, chirp, chirp..." like a slowly opening comm' unit! Actually, I'd heard that sound effect used for electronic "bird cages", toys with a plastic bird in a cage and the base held the diodes and speaker to play the sound. D*mn! I felt so cheated!!! But there was no way to know what this thing sounded like until I bought it! (I was so glad when PlayMates started releasing its Trek "hardware", one could "sample" the audio and have some idea what one was getting.)
Someone mentioned the comm' units Mego released, basically short range walkie-talkies housed in oversized communicator shaped casings. I didn't have a pair, but my childhood buddy Kyle did. (Hey, I have an old Polaroid Swinger snapshot of Kyle speaking into one. Better not post the image without his permission, though.)
Sincerely,
Bill
But the sound... Ugh! The sound! No warbling "shriek" (originally created for the 1963 version of "War of the Worlds". Oh, no, no, no! Instead, it played a "chirp, chirp, chirp..." like a slowly opening comm' unit! Actually, I'd heard that sound effect used for electronic "bird cages", toys with a plastic bird in a cage and the base held the diodes and speaker to play the sound. D*mn! I felt so cheated!!! But there was no way to know what this thing sounded like until I bought it! (I was so glad when PlayMates started releasing its Trek "hardware", one could "sample" the audio and have some idea what one was getting.)
Someone mentioned the comm' units Mego released, basically short range walkie-talkies housed in oversized communicator shaped casings. I didn't have a pair, but my childhood buddy Kyle did. (Hey, I have an old Polaroid Swinger snapshot of Kyle speaking into one. Better not post the image without his permission, though.)
Sincerely,
Bill
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