What Hooked You On TOS?

[2takesfrakes]

Much of what motivated me to be a fan was that me mum hated STAR TREK. Anything that annoyed the parents was valid, just for that. The colourful pyjamas, the moth-eaten, gorilla-suited aliens, the fake-looking planets, the atrocious acting, the hammyness, the cheesiness, the corniness of it all ... it was so much play! As I grew, I learned to associate the show as being quite similar to a Live Theatre Experience. STAR TREK invited the audience to participate, as a stage play would ... with the actors' words and your imagination ... the story unfolds. And, due to that participation, the series means more than it might. For example, we're expected to believe that the sports team mascot-looking Mugato is a serious threat to our heroes. "Come play with us," so we can entertain you. That's its message ...

 

[Nerys Myk]

For all of the great reasons already listed here, plus it was on TV every day after school and a few times on the weekend.

We had it on two channels at times because we received TV signals from two broadcast markets.

 

[Nerys Myk]

he colourful pyjamas, the moth-eaten, gorilla-suited aliens, the fake-looking planets, the atrocious acting, the hammyness, the cheesiness, the corniness of it all ... it was so much play

I think you watched a different show.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I know I can be somewhat brash and brazen posting such on a fan site ... from time to time. But I assure you, it was with the best of intentions.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I know I can be somewhat brash and brazen posting such on a fan site ... from time to time. But I assure you, it was with the best of intentions.

Brash and brazen? Not even close. (In that post : )
Everyone's memories of the show will be different. Moth-eaten gorilla-suit aliens, pyjamas and hammy and/or atrocious acting aren't part of mine. No cheese or corn either. I'll give you fake planets though.

 

[Masao]

The first episode I remember watching was Amok Time back in 1967, when I was 7 years old. But I didn't start becoming a big fan until about 2 years later when I saw reruns, read The Making of Star Trek, got model kits, and played outside with my friends as Trek characters (this guy kept saying "Help me, Spock!" from the Savage Curtain. I thought that was hilarious.).

Do kids still play like this today?

 

[Poltargyst]

I was a boy. I liked monsters. And battles.

 

[Jacob Bos]

I was watching TV in my Grandparent's guestroom, while playing with some action figures. A Star Trek re-run came on, which I really had no taste for, but I started to watch as a giant white rabbit crossed Bones' path, and a knight on horse back, swung his lance. I believe the episode is called Shore Leave and from then on, I made it my personal mission to watch all the episodes. A few months later, TNG premiered, and the rest is history.

 

[Gojira]

I was 12 in 1975 when we got cable TV and I found the show. I don't know why I gravitated towards science-fiction at a young age. I was already into Superman and Godzilla at this age so when I saw Star Trek it was such a natural fit for me. I was hooked. I loved the stories, I loved the logical mind of Spock and a glimpse of what the future may hold.

 

[UnknownSample]

The scale of the stories, the SF ideas, the dry adult tone that let you know they weren't just pulling these concepts out of their waste orifices for entertainment. Everyone else is giving entertainment reasons, liking the characters, adventure... but my 9 year old head was being stretched and rewired and remade by this. The extraordinary was POSSIBLE, not just something whipped up for TV, Trek got across to me. It made me a science fiction oriented person.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Brash and brazen? Not even close. (In that post : )

"In that post" ... Hahaha!!!

 

[1001001]

I don't know if I can put my finger on one thing exactly.

I first caught TOS in reruns in the 70's. I just thought it was...fascinating.

 

[Krustee_Sok]

Honestly, I didn't get into Star Trek until a little over a year ago. I finished TOS and I'm now onto TNG, but what really hooked me on it was the sense of exploration and discovering other cultures (I grew up to be an anthropologist). I seriously regret not starting my Star Trek journey sooner.

 

[J.T.B.]

I was born right at the end of 1969, the moon landing year, and astronauts and rockets and space exploration themes were all around in my early years and really grabbed my imagination. So when I was watching cartoons on Saturday morning and, after Bugs Bunny and the Pink Panther and such, I saw a nifty spaceship cruising through space visiting colorful planets with far-out aliens, well, that was for me! I couldn't get enough. Of course the toy commercials connected soon after and before too long I realized there was a "real" TV show by the same name that came on at other times.

ETA:
Also, my friends and I called it "Star Track" for a while.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I don't know exactly what it was specifically that hooked me. All I know is that I've been watching Star Trek since I was two-years old. My mother says that I'd rush into the living room if I heard Trek (the original) playing on the TV. I'd demand that my parents not change the channel and that I'd be transfixed in front of television set.

TOS has been and will always be my Trek.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I failed to mention this before, but it's worth mentioning: the stage lighting was particularly effective at drawing my attention. I loved how the actors would move past these walls that were awash in pools of light - sometimes with curiously odd shapes that didn't belong there - without it "spilling" onto the people. I always wondered how they did that, as a kid.

To see Bones in sickbay and the wall, for no reason, has this odd, purple blob of light on it, sometimes reddish, broken up with a window-frame pattern was very distinctive. That STAR TREK abandoned this approach in later outings, in favour of greater "realism" was a mistake. It should've been a signature style of the franchise ...

 

[johnnybear]

I seem to recall that it was the in-thing back in 1970 here in England but the first episode I ever saw was Court Martial which didn't do much for me to be honest as a six year old and I'm not sure what the next episode I watched was...
JB

 

[Redfern]

...played outside with my friends as Trek characters...

Do kids still play like this today?

Actually, that's why I got into it. I started watching so I'd know how to play the roles. In 1972 my father and I had just moved into an expansive apartment complex, "Willow Bend" in Homewood, Alabama. He urged me to meet some kids about my age, not quite 10, he saw "around the corner". When I did, one of the pair, Kyle, asked if I watched "Star Trek". He liked playing Kirk and thought I might make a decent Spock. I hardly knew of the show as anything beyond "it has the guy with 'the ears'," so I started watching to familiarize myself with the premise and characters. What began as "study" soon became genuine enjoyment and I identified with Spock as the "outsider", wishing I could control my temper as he did (most of the time).

So, in effect, I got into Trek to help secure a budding childhood friendship.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

My mom was a fan during the NBC run and when she had me the year after TOS was cancelled, she used to watch the reruns on our local station and I got used to hearing it. She used to tell me that when I was a year old and she'd turn on the reruns, I used to stop whatever I was doing and sit on the floor and watch the show, and I would not move until it was over

Mum nudged me to like the show too.

In the 80s there didn't seem to be much sci-fi on the TV that I was able to watch, but plenty of 60s TV shows it seems. Out of them all, Mum mentioned she watched Star Trek as a kid, so I caught more of it and got to like it more and more.

Mum's a bit of a Trekkie too. She cried when Spock died and I remember when I had a cold and slept through a S1 ep of TNG, she picked me up a copy of the TNG comic to make up for it

 

[johnnybear]

To be honest it was also a very scary show! Something that later Treks weren't able to repeat in their adventures! Some of their stories were unsettling to say the least! The Salt Vampire, Woman with no face, Mitchell's eyes, The Gorn, the woman on Memory Alpha etc...
JB