For Us Really Old Trekkers
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My current avatar photo is what I looked like when Star Trek was wrapping up. I vaguely recall seeing it once late on what I presume was a Friday night when I was 5, so I assume it was on NBC (maybe a summer rerun). I don't have super-clear memories of when I first watched it watched it, but I was very aware of it by 1971, because I remember cutting out a picture of the Enterprise from a TV Guide type magazine. I also drew the Enterprise inside on the inside cover of my copy of the book Dinosaurs and More Dinosaurs, which I still have around here someplace.
When I was in 3rd grade some of us used to play Star Trek during recess. We used Hot Wheels as Phaser 1s. I used one called the "Peeping Bomb" which had a shifter you could pull to turn the headlights on, which was how I "fired" it. I remember playing as Chekov.
When I was in 3rd grade some of us used to play Star Trek during recess. We used Hot Wheels as Phaser 1s. I used one called the "Peeping Bomb" which had a shifter you could pull to turn the headlights on, which was how I "fired" it. I remember playing as Chekov.
A 1967 Chicago blizzard baby here. Any show you might have only seen in reruns will surprise you as to how much gets cut out over the years, as I found out when I started buying MASH on DVD.
@Maurice, to follow your lead and to honor this thread and this site, I changed my avatar to a photo of me as I looked in the fall of 1966, age 7. Enjoy people for a short time before I revert back into my globe...
We didn't get color until the moon landing.Seeing what the TV's were like, I felt sorry for them anyway.
One Saturday morning during September 1969...
I remember because a Hanna-Barbera action cartoon, "Shazzan" (not to be confused with "Shazam") featuring a genie (summoned by touching two halves of an enchanted ring together) appeared on the screen as it slowly illuminated for the very first time. Hmm, if Wikipedia is to be trusted, it had to be September 6 as that was the last Saturday it aired before it was dropped for the new season of cartoons.
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Forget 1982. I remember when all we had was the original 79 eps rerunning endlessly in syndication. In college, my friends and I used to play "Name that Episode" by turning on a rerun at random. This was a game measured in heartbeats; we usually only needed an opening shot before somebody would shout out "Return of the Archons!" or whatever.
Before that, I dimly recall watching Star Trek on its original run on NBC with my dad, who would sometimes let me stay up past my bedtime to watch it with him. And, of course, nobody called it TOS back then, just Star Trek.
Before that, I dimly recall watching Star Trek on its original run on NBC with my dad, who would sometimes let me stay up past my bedtime to watch it with him. And, of course, nobody called it TOS back then, just Star Trek.
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...which was transmitted in black and white....
I think it's more that my mother finally convinced my father to get a new TV in '69.
The loss of the original HD color digital recordings were tragic. I heard that NASA overwrote the disks for a later mission to save money. The live images we saw were from a black and white TV camera shooting at a monitor at mission control.
I remember the original run of TOS. I think we had one of those TVs with the big cabinet and the little screen. I was interested in how the Enterprize swooshed in, apparently coming from a star, in the opening credits.
I also watched TOS in the Seventies, and The Motion Picture in 1979.
I really did not become a fan until I went to college. Trek was on every night at 11 PM and there were always people to watch it with, always. That’s when the switch clicked in my head and I became a fan. I was taping the show when it aired on channel 11.
By TNG, and DS9 I was taping and watching trek and working two jobs. It was a source of comfort.
I’ve recently done a rewatch of most of the canon with my wife. She watched TNG while in the army. Now she’s learning how to be a fan. I have to explain the whole canon thing and what the Kelvin universe is, and why Nemesis is so terreble.
We love Discovery. It’s even better than The Walking Dead. Will I be attacked for saying that?
I also watched TOS in the Seventies, and The Motion Picture in 1979.
I really did not become a fan until I went to college. Trek was on every night at 11 PM and there were always people to watch it with, always. That’s when the switch clicked in my head and I became a fan. I was taping the show when it aired on channel 11.
By TNG, and DS9 I was taping and watching trek and working two jobs. It was a source of comfort.
I’ve recently done a rewatch of most of the canon with my wife. She watched TNG while in the army. Now she’s learning how to be a fan. I have to explain the whole canon thing and what the Kelvin universe is, and why Nemesis is so terreble.
We love Discovery. It’s even better than The Walking Dead. Will I be attacked for saying that?
As for me, my mother's womb was blocking my view of the set.
I was born in '61 like several of us in this thread. My parents didn't get a TV in the house until the '70s - they thought it was better for kids to grow up without a TV, and I think they were right -- I did a lot of reading and radio listening. But when we visited my grandma, we would watch TV and I can remember seeing some first-run episodes.
After we got a TV in the '70s I watched the syndicated reruns religiously. My father took me to the first Star Trek convention in NY. I think the height of my fandom was buying the Franz Joseph blueprints. I geeked out over those for years. I too am nostalgic for that irresistible feeling of intrigue and mystery, being shown a small corner of a whole future universe, and that small corner was so suggestive and evocative.
After we got a TV in the '70s I watched the syndicated reruns religiously. My father took me to the first Star Trek convention in NY. I think the height of my fandom was buying the Franz Joseph blueprints. I geeked out over those for years. I too am nostalgic for that irresistible feeling of intrigue and mystery, being shown a small corner of a whole future universe, and that small corner was so suggestive and evocative.
Another First Generation Trekkie here. Born in 1960, I was 6 1/2 when Trek premiered. I have vague memories (more like memories of memories) of watching the first episode on a B&W TV. I was something of a fan, but I probably liked "Batman" better at the time. I had the first generation AMT models of the Enterprise and the Klingon warship, both with lights. Built, played with, eventually "Doomsday-Machined" with a Bic lighter, and put in a box that went to my dad's cabin in the mountains of Idaho. I assume they were thrown out when the cabin was sold.
By the time I was in junior high, I was watching the re-runs after school 5 days a week, and my Trekkiehood bloomed from there. Since I lived in Boise, I had no access to fanzines, or other fannish activities (even though D.T. Steiner, author of the infamous fanzine "Spock Enslaved!" lived across town from me, I had no way of knowing anything like that even existed until later.)
I was a voracious reader from a very early age, ordering as many books from Scholastic as my parents would pay for, but oddly never dipped into the Blish adaptations until later. (Scholastic had done editions of Star Trek in '67 and Star Trek 3 in '69 -- why did they skip Star Trek 2?)
I spotted Star Trek 6 on the paperback rack of a grocery store and managed to convince my skeptical dad ("But you've seen all these episodes a dozen times!") to buy it for me. And so it began...
By the time I was in junior high, I was watching the re-runs after school 5 days a week, and my Trekkiehood bloomed from there. Since I lived in Boise, I had no access to fanzines, or other fannish activities (even though D.T. Steiner, author of the infamous fanzine "Spock Enslaved!" lived across town from me, I had no way of knowing anything like that even existed until later.)
I was a voracious reader from a very early age, ordering as many books from Scholastic as my parents would pay for, but oddly never dipped into the Blish adaptations until later. (Scholastic had done editions of Star Trek in '67 and Star Trek 3 in '69 -- why did they skip Star Trek 2?)
I spotted Star Trek 6 on the paperback rack of a grocery store and managed to convince my skeptical dad ("But you've seen all these episodes a dozen times!") to buy it for me. And so it began...
I think it is a little funny that the thread is titled "For Us Really Old Trekkers" but as far as I can remember the earliest birthday mentioned was in 1958, making them turn 61 this year.
I believe that the oldest surviving TOS cast members are in their 90s, being born between 1919 and 1929, and I see no reason why there couldn't be fans of TOS in their 90s still alive.
As I remember the first US fantasy/horror genre magazine was Weird Tales in 1924 and the first US science fiction magazine was Amazing Stories in 1926, which started the genre of magazine science fiction. Someone could have become a fan of science fiction 40 years before the first Star Trek episode aired - and thousands did. So a young enough science fiction fan from the early days who lived long enough could still be alive today, and might have also become a fan of TOS along the way.
Someone who was only ten when Amazing Stories started in 1926 could still be alive today aged "only" 103. A twenty to thirty year old science fiction fan who also became a Star Trek fan in 1966 could be alive today aged 73 to 83.
So I wonder if there are any "really old" Trekkers who are Trek BBS members.
I believe that the oldest surviving TOS cast members are in their 90s, being born between 1919 and 1929, and I see no reason why there couldn't be fans of TOS in their 90s still alive.
As I remember the first US fantasy/horror genre magazine was Weird Tales in 1924 and the first US science fiction magazine was Amazing Stories in 1926, which started the genre of magazine science fiction. Someone could have become a fan of science fiction 40 years before the first Star Trek episode aired - and thousands did. So a young enough science fiction fan from the early days who lived long enough could still be alive today, and might have also become a fan of TOS along the way.
Someone who was only ten when Amazing Stories started in 1926 could still be alive today aged "only" 103. A twenty to thirty year old science fiction fan who also became a Star Trek fan in 1966 could be alive today aged 73 to 83.
So I wonder if there are any "really old" Trekkers who are Trek BBS members.
@Mutai Sho-Rin is in his 70's, I believe.
@T'Bonz is so old, when she was young, the Dead Sea was just sick.
@Mutai Sho-Rin is in his 70's, I believe.
@T'Bonz is so old, when she was young, the Dead Sea was just sick.
Heck, if we're counting Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, science fiction predates Amazing by a long shot.
Not that I'm claiming to have read Princess of Mars or The War of the Worlds when they were first published or anything . . .
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The ancient and wise Sho-Rin will be 73 a month from today. I used to think that was really old.@Mutai Sho-Rin is in his 70's, I believe.
@T'Bonz is so old, when she was young, the Dead Sea was just sick.
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