Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

[Maurice]

As stated, they are played by the same actor. So it would have to be either a split screen or a rotoscope/matte shot

I left few words out of my post. It was supposed to read: It would be a split. Unless the characters played by the same actor cross each other, there’s no need for a matte.

 

[Christopher]

I left few words out of my post. It was supposed to read: It would be a split. Unless the characters played by the same actor cross each other, there’s no need for a matte.

Generally I'd agree, but as I said, it would have to be an exceptionally good split screen by 1960s sitcom standards to be that seamless. And there is a faint white outline around "Johann"'s back that's consistent with a matte. Generalized assumptions are never as good as examining the actual evidence in a specific case, since exceptions do happen. So I remain noncommittal. It could have been done either way.

 

[Forbin]

The Patty Duke Show, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched have entered the chat.
They were pretty good at split screens in '66.

 

[FormerLurker]

And then there's "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

 

[Maurice]

I just watched the two scenes with Johann and Herman in shot, played by Gwynn, both on Roku and YouTube. There's no faint "white outline" that I can see, just some compression noise on the latter. It looks like a bog standard split screen as used since the silent era, and, since there's no "crossing" in either shot, there'd be zip reason to go to the higher cost and trouble of a matte. The Patty Duke Show routinely did it as well and better than this.

 

[Christopher]

As I have said, I agree a split screen is more likely. I just think there's a small chance it might have been something else, though obviously I could be wrong about that. In the absence of further evidence, there's no way to settle it definitively and no point in debating it further. I did a brief search to see if I could find an article or interview discussing how the shot was actually done, but I had no luck.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Just spotted Shatner

Spoiler: Never meet your heroes on a made for USA Network show

as the bad guy. My, he got heavy in the '00s

on an episode of 'psych'.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

The Patty Duke Show, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched have entered the chat.
They were pretty good at split screens in '66.

The Twilight Zone used split screen for the fourth season episode "In His Image" in 1963.

 

[Maurice]

I just think there's a small chance it might have been something else, though obviously I could be wrong about that.

A next to zero chance. It's so obviously a split screen, it'd be a waste of time to explain why it isn't anything else, so two words will suffice:

1. budget
2. complexity