Aliens stealing Spock's brain. How has this not been mentioned already? 
What the most campy thing ever done on "TOS"?
- Thread starter Jayson
- Start date
Nothing in TOS was intentionally campy. It may have been occasionally poorly-written, poorly-acted, or just poorly-executed, but it wasn't camp.
"Camp" means that you intentionally wrote something intending to make fun of itself. This was never done in Star Trek, in any incarnation.
In hindsight, something from mid-1960s TV may play as camp to modern audiences. It wasn't intended that way. Batman was camp. Star Trek was serious drama that only looks like camp when viewed through a prism of half a century's worth of pop culture.
All that said, the Space Hippies from "Way To Eden" were poorly-executed and started to look camp long before any other part of the series. It's the same reason late-60s Dragnet looks camp -- but in both cases, it was a serious attempt to address a then-modern political movement. Only in retrospect is it clear that the writers and producers had no connection to that movement.
Dakota Smith
"Camp" means that you intentionally wrote something intending to make fun of itself. This was never done in Star Trek, in any incarnation.
In hindsight, something from mid-1960s TV may play as camp to modern audiences. It wasn't intended that way. Batman was camp. Star Trek was serious drama that only looks like camp when viewed through a prism of half a century's worth of pop culture.
All that said, the Space Hippies from "Way To Eden" were poorly-executed and started to look camp long before any other part of the series. It's the same reason late-60s Dragnet looks camp -- but in both cases, it was a serious attempt to address a then-modern political movement. Only in retrospect is it clear that the writers and producers had no connection to that movement.
Dakota Smith
When Tallulah Bankhead signed on for "Batman", as Black Widow, the producers tried to explain the performance style the show was seeking. She supposedly said, "Don't tell me about camp, darling, I invented it."
I reckon "I Mudd" (building on a few scenes from "Mudd's Women") and "Spock's Brain" rank as camp.
It can also mean it was written to be performed straight, but played for laughs.
The Gorn costume is so bad it makes Godzilla from that period look like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.
Except that "A Piece of the Action" predates Happy Days by a decade or so.
Yes, that's right folks, you read it here first. Henry Winkler stole from William Shatner. Without William Shatner, there would be no signature Fonz moves!
Of course, in-universe, Happy Days takes place in the 50's and Star Trek in the 23rd Century, so we could also say that in-universe, Captain Kirk stole from Fonzie.
It's a temporal paradox, to be sure.
Right. Or it can be both written and performed to be taken seriously, but fail to be taken that way by the audience. That's actually what Susan Sontag considered "naive, or pure Camp".
when they dance around and play-act to make the robots explode
Everything in TOS was written "straight" and intended to be played "straight." Even comedic episodes like, "A Piece Of the Action" and "The Trouble With Tribbles" were intended to be played "straight." Part of the humor of those episodes is seeing our heros acting "straight" in an amusing situation.
For that matter, all humor is best when played straight, no matter how strange it is. Leslie Nielson was funny in Airplane! because he played every line straight. He wasn't nearly as funny in the Police Squad! movies because he kept trying to play it for laughs.
The Gorn costume wasn't camp or anything else: it was state-of-the-art TV effects in 1966. It's only in hindsight, judged against modern TV effects, that it seems anything other than perfectly straight. Look at the costume from the backdrop of its own time and place, and you'll see that it was entirely serious. That's how it played until the early 1980s, too.
The Space Hippies was a serious (if badly-fumbled) attempt to connect to a movement that the writers and producers simply didn't comprehend. It fumbles only in that regard: that those producing it knew nothing of the real-life movement it was attempting to parallel. Consequently it comes off as silly, but only from the perspective of someone who has a historical knowledge of the peace movement in the late 1960s.
It's also one of the first TOS stories to really falter, early and badly -- precisely because it became clear within just a couple of years that it didn't parallel the peace movement very well.
In 1968-69, if you knew about the peace movement based on what you saw on the nightly news, the Space Hippies appear no less nutty than the real ones. It's looking back at the entire movement from 50 years in the future that it's clear just how badly the episode mis-stepped.
Again, I suggest catching episodes of Dragnet from the late-1960s for a comparison. That show also dealt with some aspects of the peace movement -- and it's also quite clear that those producing the show had conception whatsoever of the real peace movement.
One must imagine a world in which the entire movement was brand new, marked with protests, riots, and marches -- very little of which made the slightest sense to anyone over 30. To them, the Space Hippies and Jack Webb's portrayal of the movement seemed at least as sane as the real thing. They were both bizarrely inexplicable.
Star Trek never poked fun at itself -- and that's what camp really is. If one assumes that TOS ever poked fun at itself, then one is making a massive mis-assumption.
Again, one needs to consider context. I guarantee that fifty years hence, in the context of the 2060s, modern Trek will appear hopelessly dated and campy.
Dakota Smith
For that matter, all humor is best when played straight, no matter how strange it is. Leslie Nielson was funny in Airplane! because he played every line straight. He wasn't nearly as funny in the Police Squad! movies because he kept trying to play it for laughs.
The Gorn costume wasn't camp or anything else: it was state-of-the-art TV effects in 1966. It's only in hindsight, judged against modern TV effects, that it seems anything other than perfectly straight. Look at the costume from the backdrop of its own time and place, and you'll see that it was entirely serious. That's how it played until the early 1980s, too.
The Space Hippies was a serious (if badly-fumbled) attempt to connect to a movement that the writers and producers simply didn't comprehend. It fumbles only in that regard: that those producing it knew nothing of the real-life movement it was attempting to parallel. Consequently it comes off as silly, but only from the perspective of someone who has a historical knowledge of the peace movement in the late 1960s.
It's also one of the first TOS stories to really falter, early and badly -- precisely because it became clear within just a couple of years that it didn't parallel the peace movement very well.
In 1968-69, if you knew about the peace movement based on what you saw on the nightly news, the Space Hippies appear no less nutty than the real ones. It's looking back at the entire movement from 50 years in the future that it's clear just how badly the episode mis-stepped.
Again, I suggest catching episodes of Dragnet from the late-1960s for a comparison. That show also dealt with some aspects of the peace movement -- and it's also quite clear that those producing the show had conception whatsoever of the real peace movement.
One must imagine a world in which the entire movement was brand new, marked with protests, riots, and marches -- very little of which made the slightest sense to anyone over 30. To them, the Space Hippies and Jack Webb's portrayal of the movement seemed at least as sane as the real thing. They were both bizarrely inexplicable.
Star Trek never poked fun at itself -- and that's what camp really is. If one assumes that TOS ever poked fun at itself, then one is making a massive mis-assumption.
Again, one needs to consider context. I guarantee that fifty years hence, in the context of the 2060s, modern Trek will appear hopelessly dated and campy.
Dakota Smith
Right. Wah Chang went out of his way to keep the design as serious as could be achieved under the circumstances. That's why we got the insectoid, segmented eyes. Either Chang or someone behind the scenes realized trying to create conventional reptilian eyes might fail to look convincing. So, they opted to cover the original lenses with glittering "beads". It also helped drive home this was an "alien" lifeform, not just an "uplifted" crocodilian.
In other words, don't "diss" the Gorn!
Sincerely,
Bill
Exactly. It was the mid-1960s, and that Gorn costume was absolutely the best that could be achieved with TV budget and time constraints. It wasn't until later -- Planet Of the Apes and 2001 -- that even movies could do better effects.
1966's Gorn was straight. It was the best they could do. When compared against visual effects and costumes of the time period (see Lost In Space, The Invaders, even slightly earlier Twilight Zone), it holds up magnificently well.
When compared against the CGI possible in Enterprise, it looks dated. So does the Andorian makeup from TOS -- also state-of-the-art in 1967.
In half a century, ENT's Gorn is going to look ridiculously CGI compared to what's possible with ca. 2060 technology.
Dakota Smith
Well, it's been "booed" already by several fans for taking liberties with Chang's design. OK, I can understand sneaking in a digitigrade stance (after all, that's what fans would want if we ever get a Caitian depicted in one medium or another), but going for a generic raptor skull with conventional reptilian eyes instead of the iconic "bug" eyes irked some fans.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
number6
Vice Admiral
I don't think there was anything campy about the Gorn. Whom Gods Destroy basically has our bad guys chewing the scenery for 45 minutes. That could be described as campy, if not for the fact that these inmates are supposed to be insane and over the top. The Way To Eden is a characature of counter culture. It could have been approached a little more seriously and menacing, even with the crazy Laugh-In reject costumes, but instead we had goofy hippies jamming on bicycle wheels.
To reiterate (since I'm the one who brought up the Gorn costume), I made the division between concept and costume, that is, I believe the concept of the Gorn was NOT camp, just the costume. We may disagree about camp and the Gorn, but I had to clarify my post about concept vs. costume.
Dakota also makes an important distinction in an earlier post, but I think it gets muddled up in later posts: there's a difference between intentional and unintentional camp. But even then, I'd still argue (like before) that the Gorn suit was unintentional camp.
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