Props Re-used

[Cakes488]

There was a device that Spock supposedly designed... can't remember the name of it. I think it might be called the Trident Scanner. You saw it in a few episodes, like in Metamorphosis (Spock was using it on the aft section of the shuttlecraft) or during a few scenes in the main engine room in several episodes, like The Ultimate Computer and The Doomsday Machine.

Anyway, this device was reused in a manner of speaking. The 3 "prongs" of the device were cannibalized and used for some sonic disruptor weapons in A Taste of Armageddon.

WELL!!!!!!! This "device" looks like a lot of fun!! Does it vibrate? LOL

 

[Harry]

I'm loving this stuff. And, like other's say, I can't watch TOS now without noticing props and backgrounds

So, what's Scotty looking through here: http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_239.JPG

And the computer/scanner(?) lying next to the hatch on the floor is the same thing used by Kirk in the same episode: http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_258.JPG

What is the "toaster" in the center of the table in this image. Looks like some customized existing metal thing instead of a custom prop.

 

[Doug Otte]

There's nothing that just screams crazy out-of-control wanton revelry like Space Checkers!

It's interesting that, in the I, Mudd & DS9 shots above, they assembled the squares at odd, almost random, angles to the base.

Doug

 

[GSchnitzer]

Yeah, I think that it probably looks more interesting artistically to have a bunch of non-right angles. And I'm sure they never envisioned that people would be scrutinizing the placement of the smaller boards forty years later.

For what it's worth, you can see that the boards seem to be at funny angles in "The Trouble with Tribbles" and in "Return to Tomorrow," too.

There's nothing that just screams crazy out-of-control wanton revelry like Space Checkers!

It's interesting that, in the I, Mudd & DS9 shots above, they assembled the squares at odd, almost random, angles to the base.

Doug

 

[TIN_MAN]

What's that bagpipe-like instrument the background android is playing in the "I Mudd" caps above?

 

[Terengo]

What's that bagpipe-like instrument the background android is playing in the "I Mudd" caps above?

It looks like a version of an Indian wind instrument called a pungi: http://shalin-india.com/Pungi-India-Been-Wind-Instrument-Snake/M/B0013PINNC.htm

 

[Shatmandu]

Scotty: "There'll be Hell to pay when I find out who put human shite in the Engineering breakroom microwave and cooked it for three hours."

 

[Cakes488]

What's that bagpipe-like instrument the background android is playing in the "I Mudd" caps above?

That is CLEARLY a bong !

 

[GSchnitzer]

What's that bagpipe-like instrument the background android is playing in the "I Mudd" caps above?

Whatever this strange instrument is in the excised scene from "I, Mudd," we do finally see the instrument in the final edit of an episode. It shows up in the tavern in the opening teaser for "Wolf in the Fold:"

 

[Linnear]

Certainly, at least, we see Anton Karidian's costume again.

In "Whom Gods Destroy," Garth of Izar wore the "smoking jacket" that Anton Karidian wore in "The Conscience of the King." It's a light green/dark green sort of paisley pattern with fur at the cuffs. Garth always wore one arm in the sleeve but the other side was simply draped over his shoulder like a cape. It made him look a bit "off balance." For Garth, the inside of this coat/cape/frock thing was lined with gold lame.

We can't see if the lame was present when Karidian wore it. Here's Karidian:

Garth wore this cape/coat/frock thing over the jacket that was worn by Commisioner Ferris in "The Galileo Seven." Ferris also wore some kind of cravate around his neck that Garth didn't wear; Garth just had an open collar.

Ferris' coat also crops up in "Journey to Babel:"

And, of course, Garth had boots of two mismatched colors (his left boot was gold and his right boot was metallic blue)--to reinforce the "off balance" look. Here he is in all his off-kilter, "How Not to Dress" splendor: left arm in the sleeve, right side worn like a cape and mismatched boots:

Greg Schnitzer
Star Trek Phase II

I recently acquired this costume, which is basically my Holy Grail, as I am a huge fan of Garth of Izar. Any help with sourcing of the items that adorned this tunic would be greatly appreciated!

Alec Peters

 

[M'Sharak]

Just noticing that the space checkers isn't the only thing in this shot we've seen before. Doesn't the cocktail waitress' costume look a lot like the one worn by Ruth in the previous Mudd episode?

 

[GSchnitzer]

Just noticing that the space checkers isn't the only thing in this shot we've seen before. Doesn't the cocktail waitress' costume look a lot like the one worn by Ruth in the previous Mudd episode?

Well, this is the "reused props" thread, not the "reused costumes" thread. Nevertheless....

Yes, Ruth Bonaventure's costume from "Mudd's Women" was reused in "I, Mudd." Perhaps a better shot comes at the end of the episode as the Enterprise crew bids farewell to Mudd and leaves him with 500 android copies of his wife. In the scene, you can see that a couple of the android women have the dress worn by Ruth Bonaventure. (More than one copy was made of important costumes, in case of an emergency):

As the camera pans around, you also see two (different from each other) reddish costumes. (They are flanking the two "Alice" androids.)

These were worn by two of the women in the tavern on Argelius in "Wolf in the Fold." (One woman is reclining, the other is standing up in back.)

As the camera pans around further, you see two android women wearing the costume worn by Eve McHuron in "Mudd's Women:"

 

[26138]

What's up with the woman behind Mudd's left arm? Did she just get caught in a bad screencap? Her eyes look all funky!

 

[GSchnitzer]

(Reposted from the Star Trek Phase II forum.)

A prop that was seen notably in the earlier episodes was a coffee carafe. The smooth, stainless steel, slightly tapered carafe was first seen in "The Corbomite Maneuver." (It's used to give a sense of how long the Enterprise was being held captive by Balok's warning buoy, as the crew met to strategize their next actions.)

As a side note, you can see that the coffee carafe is part of a set--which also includes a matching creamer and a sugar bowl.

Janice Rand brings the carafe up to the bridge after famously heating up the coffee with a hand phaser when the "power was out in the galley:"

The ubiquitous coffee carafe makes additional appearances, too, of course--including "The Naked Time," "Charlie X," "Court Martial," "Space Seed," in the shuttlecraft in "Metamorphosis," and planetside in "Devil In the Dark:"

At any rate, here are pictures of my vintage early '60s coffee carafe. (Unfortunately, I only have the carafe--not the accompanying creamer and sugar bowl. The very old coffee carafe is hard enough to find by itself; but maybe the creamer and sugar bowl will show up at a yard sale someday.)

Also, I tried to imagine exactly when it might be in the future that people stop drinking decaffinated coffee or exactly what event might transpire that would make people stop drinking decaffinated coffee. But I'm hard-pressed to imagine a time or scenario when people will stop wanting to have decaffinated coffee as a coffee option.

So just for the heck of it, I got a second carafe and painted the handle orange. (Well, it wasn't really paint; I simply wrapped the handle in very thin orange vinyl tape.) Folks may or may not know that restaraunts generally have their decaffinated coffee in carafes with orange handles. The orange color can be traced back to the first decaffinated coffee product sold in the United States: Sanka--marketed by General Foods. Even today, the packaging for Sanka, which is an abbreviation of sorts for the French sans caféine ("without caffeine"), is orange and orange just seems to have been adopted generally as the color representing decaffinated coffee.

So, here's my "new" Trek decaffinated coffee carafe with an orange handle--right alongside my old regular Trek coffee carafe:

 

[Neroon]

I'm curious Greg, as to who you approach your work on identifying / reproducing props from Star Trek. Do you have an idea of something in mind and then go looking for it throughout footage, or do you take a different tact by going through various episodes and cataloguing everything that might even remotely look like it would be needed?

 

[Harry]

Those are some funky not-quite-Burke-chairs on this screengrab.

Nice job on the coffee decanter They sure did like their coffees. Rand serving coffee on the bridge during downtime always brought this touch of home to the show that was very nice.

 

[GSchnitzer]

I'm curious Greg, as to who you approach your work on identifying / reproducing props from Star Trek. Do you have an idea of something in mind and then go looking for it throughout footage, or do you take a different tact by going through various episodes and cataloguing everything that might even remotely look like it would be needed?

Well, I wish I were more methodical. I was going to go through each episode one at a time and catalog everything I could see or imagine I might want to know about. I did the first episode and that was it; I gave up on that project. So now it's usually just one item at a time: I go through every episode looking for prop x. When it comes time to do prop y, I have to go through every episode again. So I do it in what is probably the really stupid way.

Fortunately, I know the episodes pretty well. If I want to find every episode where a "trident scanner" is used, I don't need to watch the scenes with Kirok on the Indian planet. I know I'm not going to see it there. So it's not like I need to review every scene of every episode.

And as I look for props in some episodes, I'll notice some other second prop, of course. So I jot down a note to myself for when I get around to researching that second prop. And, of course, there are a lot of props I haven't researched yet.

So, the short answer is: I usually have something in mind--and then I go on a hunt to find every instance of that thing.

 

[GSchnitzer]

In the Star Trek universe, in order to constantly remind the viewer that the show takes place in The Future, even the everyday items had to look somewhat odd and otherworldly. A typical example is the barware and glassware.

There is a bottle first seen in "Charlie X" in the Recreation Room as Janice Rand is playing cards and Lieutenant Uhura sings. It is seen on a serving tray with a couple of martini glasses and a bottle of Saurian brandy:

The bottle is somewhat squat looking but what makes it look particularly odd is that it appears to be a bit crooked and melted-looking. It's a bit hard to see, but the same bottle gets another appearance in "Dagger of the Mind." Dr. Tristan Adams pours a glass of--something--Aldebaran whisky?--for himself, Captain Kirk, and Dr. Helen Noel. He pours it from this same crooked, melted-looking bottle:

We see the bottle briefly again in "Journey to Babel." You can see it at the reception for all the ambassadors and diplomats; it's way over at screen-right:

The bottle shows up a fourth time—in Mr. Scott’s quarters in "By Any Other Name." Mr. Scott attempts to get Tomar the Kelvan drunk--and the two of them partake from this same bottle. This is probably the best look we get at the bottle:

The bottle shows up a fifth time--in the quarters of The Romulan Commander in "The Enterprise Incident:"

Lastly, it shows up again in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." Captain Kirk, Mister Spock, and Commissioner Bele are enjoying some drinks. You can see the bottle over on the credenza--along with some serving trays and a Saurian brandy bottle:

These are known as "Kluk Kluk" decanters (in Danish) or "Cluck Cluck" in English. The name of the bottle comes from the sound these odd-shaped bottles make when you pour from them. It's sort of like a "glug glug" sound from a jug, but higher pitched.

The original, classic version of this bottle is made by Holmesgaard glass company in Denmark; it was designed by the glass artist Per Lutken. (Over the years, other companies have made knock-off versions.)

Here are a couple of shots of my vintage 1960’s-era "Kluk Kluk" decanter filled with Aldebaran whisky or whatever it was.

Not much of a story here. Just a really cool exotic-looking bottle.

Slideshow at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157606505912349/show/

 

[GSchnitzer]

This next prop is a fairly well-known prop--which is interesting because it actually appeared in only four Original Series episodes. The first time we see this silver Easter-egg thing with a clear tapered pointer is in "Charlie X." As I mentioned in my post regarding the "Phynburg Oscillating Framizam/Anabolic Protoplaser," this device is handed to the character "Crewman 1" and is identified in the "Charlie X" script (somewhat jokingly) as an "Irvingoscope"--named after Star Trek prop master Irving Feinberg. We can see it in "Crewman 1's" left hand in this screen shot:

Some obvious (and not so obvious) things to notice about the prop are its silver-blue color, its slightly pointy egg shape, some elongated red ovals cut into the body of the device, a stepped aluminum collimator, a transparent (not translucent/frosted) segmented emitter tube (with six segments), and a black button about three quarters of the way back on the device.

This egg-shaped device shows up again in "The Squire of Gothos"--except now it has the function of a "laser beacon." Mister Spock gives it to Lieutenant DeSalle--who later uses it to try and signal the Enterprise in orbit when the communicators don't work:

Between this scene in "Charlie X" and the scene of DeSalle using it in "The Squire of Gothos," you can make out the small black button fairly well:

This device has two more appearances in Star Trek. It shows up in "The Galileo Seven." There are a number of tools and pieces of equipment lying on the shuttlecraft's "wing" as Mister Spock is making repairs and you can see it among the tools:

Lastly, Captain Kirk uses this device as some kind of welding or soldering tool as he works to try and get the viewscreen operating in the auxillary control room on board the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine:"

Actually, there is one last picture of this prop. A black and white publicity photo of the prop appears in the book The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry. Interestingly enough, for some reason, Whitfield identifies this device as an "offensive/defensive ray gun--emits a light beam." (Indeed, the clear emitter tube on the prop does indeed light up. But an "offensive/defensive ray gun?")

It's a little hard to tell, but by putting all these pictures together, looking at the prop end-on from the tail end, what you have is an "egg" shape with red, oval cut-outs at the three of the four ninety degree points--but at the fourth one, there's a black button instead. Here's a diagram:

At any rate, here are some shots of my two Irvingoscopes/Laser Beacons/Welding Torches/Ray Guns. Please disregard the cat as she attempts to activate this potentially lethal device.

The beam emitters do light up:

It's also interesting to know that the same clear six-segment emitter tubes from this prop are also used as the pivoting sensor device over the beds in the Sickbay Ward Room; they have a small light bulb behind them and are lit from behind. (Although these emitters are clear on the Laser Beacon prop, they are translucent/frosted for the overbed set decoration. People sometimes get these two mixed up and, when making these Laser Beacon props, mistakenly use frosted beam emitter tubes. For shame!)

Here is just an extra (frosted, not clear) emitter, ready for installation over our Sickbay Ward Room bed on our Phase II Sickbay set:

 

[Shatmandu]

Mudd: "Eh. Can't win 'em all ..."