All language subtitles for The Center Seat 55 Years of Star Trek S01E02 Saturday Morning Pinks 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DD+5 1 H 264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

At the dawn
of the '70s, Star Trek looked like a doomed mission.

Officially canceled,

Gene Roddenberry's
wagon train to the stars had come to a halt.

It was the beginning of years
out in the cold.

The only hope forStar Trek
lay in a mysterious, unknown parallel universe,

otherwise known as
Saturday mornings.

What are you talking about?

So beam aboard
and hold on tight

as we boldly go
into the depths ofStar Trek.

And you can see it all
from here inThe Center Seat.

These are the voyages
of the starshipEnterprise.

Its five year mission
to explore strange new worlds.

Yes, there was a Star Trek
animated series.

It was not a fever dream.

I don't understand.

It was, you know, like finding
a whole missing season of the original series.

I watched The Animated Series
religiously, when it came on.

I was very excited.

What was interesting is that
the darn thing won an Emmy.

The story of
how Kirk and his crew

went from three
to two dimensions

is the story of
Star Trek's greatest demotion.

The original series
was cancelled

in 1969 in the third season.

The ratings just weren't there
and NBC moved the show around so much.

Roddenberry
had been promised a primetime 8:00 p.m. slot.

ButStar Trek would sink
to the depths of late night, to die a quiet death.

So they gave Star Trek
ten o'clock on Friday night.

So Gene quit the show.

Star Trek had lost
its creator, its time slot and the backing of its network.

But even drifting
through the abyss,

the show still had the backing
of a loyal band.

The very first members
of a brand new species, "Trekkies."

You had the first convention,

theStar Trek convention
in New York City,

and it just became a phenomena
all of a sudden.

Away from prime-time,

NBC had inadvertently
scattered the seed of Star Trek through syndication

and it had taken root.

Star Trekwas growing
in popularity in syndication.

It had taken off.

People
who hadn't seen it originally got a chance to see it,

on kind of a daily basis,
after school or after work.

And a whole new audience
was born.

As soon as Star Trekhit
the after-school market,

you know, the audiences doubled.

Re-runs
had connectedStar Trek with a new legion of fans...

like this guy.

My name is Fred Bronson.

And when it came
to their favorite show,

Trekkies weren't going
to stand by and watch it die.

I marched on NBC to protest
the cancellation of Star Trek.

The fans refused
to let the show die

and they were determined
to bring it back on.

Their protests
were too late to spare the original series,

but they had caused ears
to perk up at NBC.

In early 1973,

Gene had a meeting with NBC
and they expressed interest

in wanting to bring
Star Trekback.

The question was how.

Because
they had destroyed the sets,

they had given away theEnterprise

to the Smithsonian Institute,

and the expense
was just too high.

They needed a cheaper
version ofStar Trek,

and it just so happened
that someone working in a little known studio

had thought of one
about four years earlier.

The animated series
came about in 1973,

but a lot of people don't know
that it was actually originally pitched in 1969.

The animation house
Filmation had conceived a kind of junior version of Star Trek

and took it to NBC.

It was going to be
a Starfleet Academy Show.

Each of the crew members
of theEnterprise

having basically
a cadet-in-training with them.

Spock was going to have
a Vulcan named Steve.

Sadly, Steve,
the Vulcan never came to be.

Gene Roddenberry
didn't seeStar Trek as just an educational tool.

But he was intrigued
by the possibilities of animation.

He liked animation because
his big thing was, you could animate lava.

He has always
wanted to do lava, apparently on the original series.

Go.

Of course,
Gene had a much bigger goal

than simply indulging
his love of molten rock.

His ultimate goal
was to getStar Trek back into production

and he felt that
The Animated Series,

if it did really well,
could bring that about.

But fans hungry for
more had no interest

in a smaller serving
ofStar Trek,

let alone one ordered
from the kid's menu.

And there was
a lot of resistance. The audience was very unhappy.

At conventions,
people were passing around petitions

to stop The Animated Series
from coming to television

because it wasn't "real"
Star Trek.

There were a lot of
people who thought that a cartoon show would be

the death of any kind of
Star Trekrevival, because it wasn't real life.

It wasn't live action.

And, you know, and then we'd say
to them,

- "Yeah, but you're getting
- more Star Trek. - Shut up!"

Gene had
his own concerns,

not wanting to see his
sophisticated sci-fi creation reduced to child's play.

Gene really just was not
interested in a kiddie-version of Star Trek.

But desperate to keep
the franchise alive,

he agreed
to an animated series.

The only thing
that convinced him

was the idea,
we will do real Star Trek as an animated series.

To guarantee that,
Gene brought in

one of the original series
most respected writers to run the show.

Dorothy Fontana came aboard
as the producer.

She was the guiding force.

She was the one that really
wanted this to be wonderful.

Dorothy
or D.C. Fontana was a very talented screenwriter,

but as a woman,
she could not yet afford to trade on her name.

In those days,
it wasn't common for a woman to be a scriptwriter.

Women were hiding behind
their initials V.N. McIntyre and C.L. Moore and D.C. Fontana

because there was this belief
that women couldn't write.

I was trying
and I had an agent.

But people they were saying,
"I don't think she can write our show."

"I don't know."
"But why not?"

"Well, she's a woman."
"Okay, fine."

So I wrote a Ben Casey
and I put D.C. Fontana on it.

They'll at least read it
without knowing I'm a woman.

That helped me get in that door.

But there were very few
actual, women writers doing action adventure.

She was
a great writer.

The stuff she wrote
was just so darn good.

Star Trek, she knew
what she was doing.

She was a fan.

That was her show.

Not only
was she a woman who was young and in charge of men,

she also had
the intimidating task

of marshaling
some of the foremost minds in science fiction.

Gene and Dorothy brought in
all these amazing talents of science fiction authors,

Harlan Ellison,
Theodore Sturgeon, Larry Niven.

Dorothy Fontana invited me
to write a Star Trekcartoon and that sounded like fun.

But Gene Roddenberry
kept a hand on the tiller.

He still had
the last word, much like anybody who's creative

has that need to
want to influence

whatever is going out,
if it's under your name.

Gene Roddenberry's
big breakthrough,

he used science fiction writers
instead of scriptwriters

and taught them
how to do the scripts.

But D.C. Fontana,
and Gene Roddenberry were united

by the same prime directive.

Gene said, "We're gonna do
Star Trekin a cartoon,

we're gonna do it
as Star Trek."

Dorothy, she brought in
Star Trekwriters

and she said,
write a Star Trekepisode.

And we can show things
that we could not do live action,

so you can be a little broader
in what you design.

The glory
of the animated show

is we could do
anything on any planet,

any kind of creature,
any sort of situation

that you could dream of,
that could be drawn, was there on the film.

So for years
after first floating the idea, Filmation was contracted

to create
a new animated universe for aStar Trek cartoon.

Filmation was
an animation company out of Reseda, California.

Which had grown
from humble beginnings

to become part of
the cartoon cartel.

Very humble beginnings.

They literally
had a mannequin dressed up

just so it looked like
there was somebody at the front desk.

They were doing
industrial films

and religious cartoons,
but, it just wasn't making it.

DC Comics came to them
when they were just about ready to shut down.

Look, up in the sky!

And oddly enough,
Filmation was saved by Superman.

We want you to do
this Superman cartoon.

They actually started
the first superhero cinematic universe on television.

Lou Scheimer
and Norm Prescott

made the decisions
and ran the company, and it was a well-oiled machine.

Dorothy Fontana's
first challenge was convincing

the original cast
of something that even most fans didn't believe

that an animatedStar Trek
was worth doing.

If you had somebody else
doing the voice

of Captain Kirk
or Mr. Spock, that just wouldn't have been right.

But even if
she could convince them, could she afford them?

Originally,
they did talk to everybody

and they realized
that the budget wasn't supporting it.

You had somebody
like Shatner and Nimoy,

the amount of salary
that they commanded,

it just became
a very expensive show.

The producer's
solution, theEnterprise key crew would return

but for two of the actors,
an honorable discharge.

Can you give us any more?

They, for cost savings,
were going to have Majel Barrett and James Doohan...

Aye.

...voice Nichelle Nichols role
and George Takei.

But NBC
had underestimated

the esprit de corps
of theEnterprise crew.

When Nimoy was in the studio,
Leonard realized that Nichelle Nichols

and George Takei,
two people of color,

were not going to be
in Star Trek.

Leonard didn't need
his Vulcan logic to realize this wasn't right.

Nimoy when he was there,
he said "Where's George?"

And they were like,
"What do you mean?"

"Well, why isn't George back?"

"Why isn't Nichelle back?"

And they told him,
"We don't have the money for it."

When he found that out, he said,
"I will not come back and do this show

unless you bring back
the entire original cast."

Yes, that's quite true.

Before a single frame
had been drawnStar Trek,

The Animated Series was already
in need of re-animating.

Captain, we're underway.

-Day one of
-The Animated Series

would prove
to be one of the few days

the whole cast
would gather in one studio.

Well, almost the whole cast.

The day they had

the first recording session

with William Shatner
and Leonard Nimoy,

DeForest Kelly, James Doohan,
but no Nichelle Nichols, no George Takei.

We came here looking
for some friends.

And Leonard was very upset.

George and Nichelle,
they represented diversity in Star Trek

and Leonard felt very strongly

that if you're gonna
continue to do Star Trek,

you need to have
their representation.

That pan Asian character,
the African American character on the bridge,

how powerful
those two roles were.

And so he made it known
to Filmation

that if the Nichelle and George
were not going to be part of this, neither was he.

The producers relented.

Well, obviously,
they did not want to lose Leonard Nimoy.

George Takei
and Nichelle Nichols were enlisted.

Standing by, sir.

I wrote the press release,

and my press release didn't say
that Leonard Nimoy was upset.

My press release said
Nichelle Nichols and George Takei

added to the cast ofStar Trek,
the animation series.

And really,
it's just as well.

Let me tell you something,

the Star Trekto me,
is the type of show where

you can close your eyes
and listen to it...

and it's beautiful.

Because you're dealing
with voices of people

who are trained
in whatever, you know,

a character they're doing,
but they're trained voices,

and so it's lovely
when they come together.

Well,
it would almost be lovely.

Nimoy had managed to get
most of the band back together,

but there was still
one player missing.

Lasers armed and ready, sir.

I wasn't going to be
in The Animated Series.

I didn't know that.

I found that out from a fan,
at a convention in LA.

Chekov was supposed to be

a part of The Animated Series.

They drew the character,
but they couldn't afford to bring everybody back.

It was a double blow
for the descendant of Russian immigrants,

who, perhaps more than
any of the original cast, needed the work.

After Star Trek
I didn't work at all,

you know,
I spent three or four years never having the phone ring,

resorting to writing
and actually writing for television.

So Roddenberry
threw Walter a bone.

He asked me if I'd like to
write one of the episodes of the animated Star Trek.

With all
the original cast now playing a hand

and Nimoy signed on,

Star Trek: The Animated Series
known simply asStar Trek,

was starting
to look likeStar Trek.

- Just like that, Captain?
- So it would appear Mr. Sulu.

Star Trekwas back.

Wonderful.

They handled
The Animated Serieslike they did the original series.

They got the same writers,
the same voice cast,

the animation department
used Matt Jefferies blueprints for the Enterprise.

So they made Star Trek.

Captain's log: Stardate 5554.4.

Make that
start date, 9-8-1973.

The animated series set out
to go where noStar Trek had gone before.

Where?

To Saturday morning
kids cartoons.

When we talk about
The Animated Series,

we always make a point
of saying animated.

We don't say
Saturday morning cartoons.

And yet
that's exactly where theEnterprise found itself.

Rubbing shoulders
with Saturday morning celebs,

likeThe Jetsons, The Bradys,
a pair of crime fighting dogs

and civic-minded superheroes.

The funny thing about
The Animated Series

was it was too good
for Saturday morning.

I've got to hangover to shame all previous hangovers.

With the nation's
most impressionable minds now in their care,

Star Trek producers
naturally played it safe.

By sticking with gentle,
easily understood materials suitable for kids,

like suicide.

All unsuccessful Orion missions
end in suicide.

That was not for kids.
It should not have been for kids.

It was
a subject matter rarely dealt with on network TV anywhere.

ButStar Trek had its own
hot-take for kids called "The Pirates of Orion."

Destroy the Enterprise,
and the only way to do that is to destroy ourselves too.

Suicide bombings,
to even think about that in those days...

- Your ship will be destroyed.
- But so would yours.

Having those stories be
that mature and fun to watch

from a story standpoint
was just splendid.

We are not going
to let you commit suicide.

Disarm the self-destruct system.

Dorothy Fontana
was determined to continue Star Trek's Mission

and that meant
an intrepid approach to subjects like death.

Murderer!
You've killed Spock.

Because they wanted
it to hit adults as well as children,

and also to honor
what Star Trekwas, was never to dumb it down.

But in just
the second episode,

Dorothy Fontana
went much further

with her own life lesson
for an unsuspecting audience.

"Yesteryear"
is by far everybody's favorite episode.

That is a brilliantly written
episode, one of the best.

It would be in the
top five episodes of all time, of any series.

A half hour cartoon
was putting the backbone

into the back story
ofStar Trek's most loved characters.

"Yesteryear," represented
everything that Gene and Dorothy wanted to do

with The Animated Series.

"Yesteryear" is kind of
a seminal history of the Spock character.

What Spock became, a lot of it
is due to that episode.

Writer
Dorothy Fontana

returned to her perennial
Star Trek theme...

Time.

We are in orbit
around the planet of the time vortex,

the focus of
all the timelines of our galaxy.

Dorothy was very excited
about the fact that there was a wide open canvas.

They could go back in time,
and tell the story about Spock's childhood.

What happened?

In "Yesteryear,"

theEnterprise crew
discover a rip in the fabric of space time.

They go back in time,
and when they return to our time,

nobody knows who Mr. Spock is.

- Who's he Jim?
- What do you mean, who is he?

When we were in the time vortex

something appears
to have changed the present as we know it.

His mission
is immediately obvious.

Spock has to go back
in time to fix things.

So they used
the Guardian of Forever

to send him back in time,
to basically save himself.

I wish to visit
the planet Vulcan. Thirty Vulcan years past.

Spock goes back in time
and sees himself as a child.

You could never
be a true Vulcan.

He helps himself
through a maturity test

in the Vulcan Forge,
their desert.

Personal ordeal
upon which I embarked was meant to determine

the course my life
would take.

This was the time
that he basically tried to prove himself

by doing the Kahs-wan.

A survival test traditional
for young male.

And the episode
even referenced some back story

that had been set up
in the original series.

No, I-Chaya.
This is my own test.

I have to do it alone.

They had mentioned
in the original series

in "Journey to Babel,"
that Spock had a childhood pet, a sehlat.

- Sehlat?
- It's sort of a fat teddy bear.

And McCoy goes, "Oh, really,
you had a teddy bear."

A teddy bear.

And so we finally got
to see Spock's Sehlat.

I-Chaya, what if I'm not
a true Vulcan, like they say?

The shaggy look
of Spock's previously unimagined pet

owed something
to the musings of fans.

The fanzine, Spockanalia
had a lot of fan-art.

Alicia Austin had speculated
on what a sehlat would look like,

and the illustrators
at Filmation

used that as the basis
for their design.

But this
fat teddy bear brought to life by fans,

was now to be sacrificed
on the altar of life's lessons.

Spock, he is attacked
by a mountain lion,

I-Chaya tries to prevent him
from being attacked

and unfortunately
is mortally wounded.

They try to save I-Chaya.

They go back to the city
and bring back a healer.

I can prolong his life,

but he will be in pain
or I can release him from life.

It tackled
the idea of euthanasia.

So Spock,
had to choose between letting his pet die

or having him to be alive,
in great pain.

And he made the decision...

Release him.

It is fitting.
He dies with peace and dignity.

And so
an adolescent, Spock

decides his pet
can't live long and prosper.

Dorothy was really concerned
that people might have a problem with this.

Somehow, Star Trek
had conspired to air

one of the most
controversial issues in American society

on children's television.

And NBC was
really worried about this,

showing a pet dying
on Saturday morning television

and NBC actually
got a flood of telephone calls thanking them

for tackling
such a difficult subject

on Saturday morning television
with their kids watching.

It really cemented
the character of Spock

and how he treats
his Vulcan and human side.

The theme
of sacrifice was something Spock

was destined to explore
to its logical conclusion.

Just logical.

The needs of
the many outweigh... - ...the needs of the few.

I give you credit, human,
you are not afraid to die.

But when it came
to embracing the big issues,

The Animated Series
had only just begun.

Star Trek:
The Animated Series

had shown a willingness
to slaughter the sacred cows

of Saturday morning cartoons...

and it was
just getting started.

"Slaver Weapon,"
is a real interesting episode.

First of all, the only time
any characters die

on The Animated Series.

I give you credit, human,
you are not afraid to die.

Characters die,

they end up being killed
by their actions, in the episode.

Don't blame
the writer.

If there was a rule about this,
no one told Larry.

To my knowledge,
I don't think they had barred

killing from children's shows.

Kids aren't used to seeing that,
Saturday morning.

A bold choice
of subject matter

was not all that
distinguished the series

because an animatedStar Trek
could do things

its predecessor
could only dream of.

Commander Bem!
What are you doing here?

We could
write a character that splits himself into parts.

In those days,
you couldn't do

those alien characters
live-action.

But you could do them
on the animated show.

So we've got a lot of
very interesting aliens.

An uncharted star system ahead, Captain.

For the first time,
the original series Star Trek cast was expanded

and new crew members
made an entrance.

I really liked
the alien character who was at the helm.

That would be
this guy.

You can have Lieutenant Arex or
Lieutenant M'Ress,

Lieutenant M'Ress, here.

And so
Star Trek fans

got to meet
a purring-communications officer...

And a Tripodal
lute-playing navigator.

M'Ress was cat-like.

I always thought of Arex
as kind of a camel.

Anybody keeping a trace
on the Captain and Mr. Spock?

What I was trying to do
with that character

was to make him humanoid
and make him

an appealing and accessible

looking character.

Hey, wait a minute.

He was a truly alien character
that you could not have seen

on the live-action
television series, and I loved that.

Ron Moore
wasn't the only one.

I always feel that
The Animated Seriesis like

if the original series
had an unlimited special effects budget,

and was renewed
for a fourth season.

I absolutely love it.

I know that
it has its detractors.

Their opinions
are absolutely valid.

But for me, I'm crazy about it.
I think it's great.

You could do
the M'Ress makeup if you want in live action

but it would be
three hours in the makeup chair

every day
that you want to use that character,

and it would be a budget thing.
So you don't want to do that.

I mean, Spock was spending
an hour in the chair getting his ears put on.

We weren't getting
Disney level of animation,

but we were getting to do
a much broader palette of Star Trek.

Well,
animation meant a world of new possibilities.

It was not without its limits.

It was all hand done.

Artists sitting there,

painting in the cells
and all that stuff.

The one big technological
advance we had was,

you could Xerox
the black and white cells

that were standard cells
for backgrounds or maybe facial expressions,

things like that.
You could Xerox those.

But they still had to be
painted in by hand by artists.

Animators were cutting corners
every way they could.

They gave it a low budget,

not thinking
it was going to be popular.

Director Bill Reed
became adept

at using a system
Filmation had perfected

to deliver
with a smaller budget.

The thing
that saved Filmation was the stock program.

The stock system
was a cornerstone of all of the Filmation products.

The main characters
each had a stock scene, a close-up,

a medium shot, a walk and a run,
and those were used over and over again.

And so Mr. Spock
became Mr. Stock.

Most logical.

Lending
the animated first officer

even more Vulcan serenity.

Spock is looking
into his viewer.

That's a stock scene.

You can spot a stock scene
because they use the same setup

over and over again.
It saved them a lot of money.

I love those scenes

of Spock and Kirk
running in the music

because it's the same

Kirk-Spock running
scene every time.

I just love it.

Oops.

Amazing.

The animation,
it may seem a little primitive,

but, back then, it might
have been a little cut below

some other animation,
but it wasn't that far off.

I think it was
a product of its time.

However clunky
Captain Kirk's groove may have seemed,

there was no denying
his 2D likeness

was a dead ringer
for the real thing.

This is Captain James T. Kirk
of the Starship Enterprise,

representing
the Federation of Planets.

Spock was spot on too

and Bones looked
like the real McCoy.

McCoy here.

It was all thanks
to the keen eye of one man.

Herb Hazelton was
really important to the show

in that he designed
all of the prime characters.

I mean, he was a fine artist.

He drew people
better than anyone.

He worked from photographs
to create these likenesses

just the way an artist
would draw from a model.

For
a little television show

with a quick turnaround
for all these episodes,

what they did was
pretty impressive.

It looked like Star Trek.

But something was changed.

The animated series

wasStar Trek
in all its true colors

except when it
came to true colors.

There are some
interesting color choices.

Most peculiar.

Producer
DC Fontana knew fandom did not like random.

This ain't
no other Saturday morning show.

People care about this.

We will be drowned in letters
if you put the wrong color here.

Sure enough.

There were quibbles
over tribbles.

Captain, these are
safe tribbles.

You know, you've
got pink tribbles.

So,
what was behind this kaleidoscope of color?

The tribbles
are pink in "More Tribbles, More Troubles"

because the man who chose
the colors was color blind.

Aren't you going
to sit down, sir?

I think I'll stand.

That would explain it
if the truth were that simple.

So color blindness
on The Animated Series

is one of those
fun urban legends.

Right.
Would a colorblind person paint like this?

Well, yes. The art director

did have some
color blindness issues.

That's
art director Don Christensen.

Don Christensen was color blind.

He wasn't the one
choosing the color palette.

That was Erv Kaplan

and that was his
color palette of choice.

He loved
to use those colors.

I disagreed with Herb

every time he painted
something pink or red

or that was just outrageous
for that character.

He did pick out
some pretty strange colors.

You're saying we can't escape?

Which made
some ofStar Trek's

more menacing villains,

were surprisingly
pretty in pink.

We are prepared
to go to war if we have to.

When you saw the purple,
pink Klingon uniforms,

the Kzinti
from "The Slaver Weapon"...

Identify yourself.

That was one
of the famous situations

where Erv Kaplan
decided they needed to have pink outfits,

and it was just
astonishing to me

that that was his solution.

Dorothy Fontana,
who had little control over art direction,

found she could only
apologize to the writers.

It was like,
"No, that can't be."

I thought that was just fine.

Larry was, like,
totally okay with it because

he's like, "Well, there's
orange and red vegetation

"on the Kzinti
homeworld anyway."

I'm not sure I can
take too much of this.

But on
at least one occasion,

it was the color yellow
that raised eyebrows in the screening room.

Ted Cortez and I would
go over to Filmation

to view the episodes.

You know, he did it
for broadcast standards.

I did it for publicity.

We'd sit there
in front of a Moviola,

crowded in,
watching the episode

and we're watching the one
called "Once Upon a Planet",

which was a sequel
to "Shore Leave"

from the original series.

There's a scene where Dr. McCoy

is out in the field,
like in a Southern plantation,

and I'm looking and I see

a yellow stream
coming out of him

hitting the ground,

and it goes on
and said, "Wait a minute."

I turned and I said,
"What did we just see?"

He said, "I don't know."

So we asked them
to roll it back.

And we look.
He's taking a piss.

I said, "You can't do that."

And they said, "We know,
we just put it in for you."

But an unpalatable
palette would prove to be

the least
of the producer's concerns.

It doesn't matter.
It's going to be seen

once on Saturday
morning cartoons. And who cares?

Because
whereThe Animated Series

was about to take
its young viewers,

was wholly uncharted territory.

I want to protect her,

hold her in my arms.

There are two things
that Gene Roddenberry

always had notes for,

for the writers
for Star Trekepisodes.

He wanted to have
more relationships.

Just like
it's live action sibling,

The Animated Series
wasn't afraid of live action...

- Love?
- Yes.

...nor
one other big thing.

The other one was God.

Excuse me. I'd just
like to ask a question.

What does God
need with a starship?

This was Jean's story.

Whenever the story
got bogged down

or he didn't know what to do,
he said, "Let them meet God."

Magic.

Larry Brody, who
wrote "The Magicks of Megas-tu",

knew that Jean
would love a God story,

so he pitched
the story with God in it.

But on network
television in the '70s,

God might find an audience
on Sunday morning,

but not Saturday
morning cartoons.

But NBC said, "No, no, no, no.
The crew is not meeting God.

"But you know what?
You can meet the devil instead."

It is not logical.

Which is crazy.

To the writers
ofStar Trek,

this was a temptation
too good to resist.

Ah, humans.

Lovely, primitive humans.

Can't you do anything right?

"The Magicks
of Megas-Tu"

is an episode that
the newest generation of fandom

just all kind of
like woke up to.

Call me Lucien, call me friend.

Oh, my God, it's Kirk,
Spock and the devil.

What? What?

The character
of Lucien certainly looked the part.

ButStar Trek's devil
was no traditional Satan.

Never could I abandon those
who come to rollick with me.

He was less devilish.

I knew eventually humans
would come searching for me.

More
devilishly charming.

Captain, good captain,

always so curious!

That must be why I've always
liked you Earthlings so much!

Eight-year-old kids
were watching this on Saturday morning.

Let us leave this vessel
and go where true delights lie.

Wait a minute.
You're glorifying the devil?

Not only did
Star Trek dare to give Satan

an acceptable,
even child friendly face,

it went to bed with them
on the big issues.

To isolate someone like Lucien,

that's the same
as sentencing him to death.

Kirk was defending the devil
in a courtroom, basically.

He's a living being,
an intelligent life form.

Would you defend him still,

if you knew he had
another name too? Lucifer!

And he's like, "Hey, no,
this is... He's a good guy."

And what better
thing to do with a good guy

than share a drink?

Why I love the episode
is because he's not the devil.

And if this
handsome devil wasn't enough,

how about a side of the occult?

Inhabitants
of Megas-Tu had hoofed feet, had horns.

They actually were
on Earth during the 1600s, and they could do magic.

That idea that Lucien
was something evil

was because humanity
made him that way.

When the aliens
put our crew on trial,

it looks like we're
in ancient Salem.

We are gathered here
today, good citizens, to see justice done.

The whole idea of Salem
and the witches,

it probably triggered
something in people

about Satanism or witchcraft.

The idea
of Satan on the bridge

proved a bridge too far
for some Southern viewers.

A lot of people,
especially in religious areas,

the Bible Belt,
took offense to it

and complained to NBC.

They mobilized. They called.
They hammered NBC.

They did not get a lot
of positive phone calls for this episode.

The funny thing is, is that
NBC was the one that said,

"Make it the devil.
That'll be okay."

Following
the outcry, NBC caved.

"Magicks of Megas-Tu" got pulled
because 40 rabid Baptists

wrote in letters of protest.

How can you make
the devil a nice guy?

They actually did
make some adjustments

from the time
it aired originally.

It's one of those things
that with a little hindsight

and a fresh filter,
you're thinking, "What?"

It was just a trippy episode.

But the trip
was just beginning.

Star Trek had other
children's television taboos in its sights.

These are the most beautiful
women in the galaxy.

Oh, sorry, sir.

Are you injured?

No. No, I'm, I'm fine.

Adult themes
were surprisingly interwoven

throughoutThe Animated Series

including the most
adult of them all.

My world,
there's a lot of females, not so many men.

Come we find a man
attractive, we say so.

I'm saying so.

Whether
it was Friday night or Saturday morning,

Captain Kirk would
still be a sex object.

Even in 2D.

You're more handsome than ever.

It goes back to that whole idea
of Kirk being that, you know,

ladies' man
from the original series.

How do you find me?

Hmm. Fascinating.

In "The Jihad"...

It definitely wouldn't
get that title today.

...Laura,
the expert hunter, brings sexual tension

where no sexual tension
had gone before.

You know, she's flirting
with him the whole episode.

But we're not here
on a pleasure trip, Laura.

All the more reason
to take what pleasure there might be in it.

It's hilarious, because again,
it's adult subject matter.

If we were together,
the trip would be easier.

You know, she says
something about,

"We can make green memories."

And if anything happened,

why, uh, we'd have
some green memories.

You know, she's talking about
making green memories, and Kirk's like...

I already have
a lot of green memories. - Oh.

In case
you're wondering about green memories, it's true.

Kirk had formed
a few over the years.

I can only imagine

a kid talking to Mom
and Dad and going,

"Mom, what's a green memory?"

It was on purpose,
but it wasn't like a plot.

Oh. We'll fix them.

I think they wanted
to tell great stories.

Goodbye, James Kirk. Too bad.

But telling
great stories meant having great scripts,

and Dorothy was about
to run out of those.

Star Trek:
The Animated Series,

wouldn't have
turned out the way it did

if there wasn't a writer
strike at the time.

But being
a writer herself,

Dorothy knew
a clever workaround.

The guild rule.
"You could not write live action television

"if there was a strike.

"But you could do
one animated episode."

Yes, that's right.

Dorothy exploited
this little known loophole

in union rules to keep
her writers working

and the show in production.

Dorothy
approached people

who had written
originalStar Trek and said,

"Hey, you can't write
anything right now,

"but you can do
this animated show."

As the animated
series was a unique gig,

it was a chance for pigeonholed
writers to flex their muscles.

It was enticing to somebody
like David Gerrold,

who was able to do
his Bem character.

This David Gerrold.

I always wanted to do Bem.

So with the animated show
I said, "You know, we can do Bem now."

Honorary
Commander Ari bn Bem.

Bem stood
for bug eyed monster.

Because we don't have
to build a costume,

it's easier to draw
this character.

This one must disassemble.

That was an idea
that came over

from the original series
into animation.

Also picked up
from the original series,

Star Trek's continuing
mission for diversity.

Gentlemen, we've just been
through one civil war.

Let's not start another.

Gene Roddenberry
didn't do an interview saying,

"Hey, we've got
a black woman on our bridge.

"Hey, we've got a Japanese
American on our bridge."

They just did it.

The
animated series did it too and did more.

Infinite diversity
in infinite combinations.

The characters
all got something to do.

They didn't have
to just be one liners.

All right, you lovelies,
hold together.

In this universe,
Star Trek's minorities could even take control.

Lieutenant Uhura place
the ship on yellow alert.

Aye, sir. Yellow alert.

Lieutenant Uhura
had a whole lot more to do

than she did
in the original series when you look at it.

Fire.

She actually finally got to take
control of the Enterprise.

What are you doing?

Taking command of this ship.

When she read these scripts,
she yelled out loud, "Finally!"

I am assuming command
of the Enterprise.

Uhura got to captain
the damn bridge.

It was so satisfying

and I loved it.

And while
the show was among the first on many fronts,

including Kirk's split
focused interracial kiss with Lieutenant Uhura,

there was one notable
and unexpected first

The Animated Series
could claim.

A legend of a winged serpent God

who came from the skies
bringing knowledge.

It was one of the first times
that they actually brought in

Native American culture
into Star Trek.

Writer Russell Bates
was invited to introduce

his own culture
into theStar Trek universe.

He was
a native American.

Dorothy wanted him
to write something towards his experiences.

Aye, sir. Warp factor two.

So that's how we
have Ensign Walking Bear...

Mr. Walking Bear...

...the first
Native American in Starfleet.

I am a Comanche, Captain.

Another one of those
groundbreaking moments for Star Trek.

On a Saturday
morning in the '70s,

the kind of ethnic culture
that American kids encountered

was usually no more
than Phooey.

♪ Hong Kong Phooey

♪ The number one super guy

Not the best portrayal of people
of color unfortunately.

We work only to create peace.

The humble
animated officer,

Ensign Walking Bear,
was light years beyond

earlier brushes
with Native American cultures.

Give him the medicine match.

The episode entitled,

"How Sharper
Than a Serpent's Tooth"...

Which is a quote
from King Lear...

"How sharper
than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."

...went on
to win an Emmy for...

Outstanding daytime
children's television series.

The Emmy ceremony
itself was also outstanding.

This was the first and last year

that the Emmys
were done on a boat.

They told me this is really the way to do a show.

Well, I suppose it is.
But what I wouldn't do for a cooling breeze.

- Yeah.
- Jeez.

Well, it was the '70s

and they simply
didn't know any better.

Lou Scheimer heard that
the winner was actually Captain Kangaroo.

Lou got drunk
and they announced that Star Trek has won the Emmy.

All those great, great people
who produced for us

and the art
of animation at Filmation those wonderful shows.

He is about ready to fall over.

Thank you very, very much.

The animated series at this day,
whatever you think about it,

it is the only Star Trek
to win an Emmy as a program.

Star Trek shows
have won twice for makeup,

but the animated
series stands alone for writing honors.

Despite the accolades,
this chapter was always

going to beStar Trek's
least watched.

We did get high praise
from television critics.

I think they saw that children
could appreciate the show.

Adults could
appreciate the show.

The stories had the quality
that the original series had.

-TheLA Times
-The Animated Series

"a Mercedes
in a soapbox derby."

I like the fact that
they said it was a Mercedes.

Nonetheless,
Saturday morning cartoons

was not a race this Mercedes
was destined to win.

-For a kid's show,
-The Animated Series

had achieved
something very grown up.

We'd won an Emmy
as best children's show

and there was nothing
children about it.

That was something

the original series never
managed in 79 episodes.

Nevertheless,
this upstart cartoon

would suffer the same fate
as its mother ship.

After 22 episodes,
over two seasons,

the show was retired.

The animated series
was not canceled

for bad ratings.

It just was a point
where we have enough episodes

and now we can
run these forever,

and it doesn't cost us
any more money.

The animated
adventures had found an audience

but it was the wrong audience.

Star Trek
might have actually continued if it didn't have

sort of this dual identity
of being a children's program

and original Star Trek
at the same time.

TheStar Trek
USS Enterprise gift set

with fiveStar Trek
action figures.

The advertiser didn't
quite know what to do with it.

Are you advertising to the dad

that's watching
the show with the kids

or are you advertising
to the kid that wants the toy?

Star Trek action
figure sold separately.

It's kind of charming
when you see some of the toys back in the day

that you know they have
a mustard yellow Kirk

and you're like,
"That's not really correct."

But you know,
what are you going to do?

Ah, stupid kids!
They don't care.

Well,
it certainly didn't stop them

from buying them.

Mego toys,
in the mid-'70s, becomes one of the best-selling toy lines.

They sold 12 million dollars
worth of toys the first year.

And while
it sold a lot of toys,

can an obscure kid's cartoon
that ran for just two seasons

legitimately be part
of theStar Trek legacy?

Today you often hear the refrain
of, "That's not Star Trek."

This debate
goes all the way back to the beginning.

That started in 1973
when they announced The Animated Series.

You had that loud
vocal minority saying,

"Don't do this
to my show that I love"

People took out newspaper ads

asking that they not put
Star Trek: The Animated Series

on the air because
it's a cartoon.

It's not real Star Trek.

There
was one true fan

who really was dedicated
to proving that idea wrong.

Someone special.

Dorothy, of course,
was fiercely protective ofStar Trek.

But in the male
dominated world of fast turnaround cartoons,

Dorothy Fontana was on her own.

No one is thinking they're
upholding the legacy

of some already
undervalued show.

And Dorothy just trying
to enforce Star Trekcontinuity

from the original series.

For the first several episodes,

she didn't see final cuts
of the shows and was totally blocked out of the process

and it was a real frustration
point for her.

She knows there's
a little controversy

about people seeing
these animated shows

as a consolation prize
"for revival."

So the last thing she wants
is any fans to be upset.

And so Dorothy made sure
it was Star Trek.

After all,
that's what it says on the can,

but, is it canon?

This whole debate about canon
for The Animated Series,

it's just amazing.

The Animated Series is canon.

A lot of us
took it as canon.

We just kind of, you know,
held our nose a couple of times

and kind of tried
to look the other way on a couple of areas.

Well, after all,
it was for kids.

Dorothy says it's canon.
She treated it as canon.

She felt that the animated
series was the unofficial

fourth season
of the original series.

Some might
see a cartoonTrek as a crime against canon.

But there's no denying
The Animated Series

checked a load of boxes.

Like original cast.

It's the voices.
It's those guys.

Nothing's changed.

Check. But not Chekov.

Mr. Chekov, join us
in the transporter room.

Walter Koenig didn't make
the cut for this show.

And while Walter
did get to add to the series

by writing an episode...

"The Infinite Vulcan"...

...after that,
Chekov checked out.

When I got done
with the animated show,

they offered me a second one.
I just turned that down.

For young Walter,

it was tough
to hear the criticism about the episode.

When I did hear the comments
about the episode,

the complaint was
a 50 foot Spock, you know...

It seemed
like fans just preferred

their favorite Vulcan
human sized,

and Walter couldn't help
but take it personally.

I said, "Well, I guess it was
a pretty lousy episode and I just left it at that."

And then I read this book...

The same book
that Aaron happens to be holding right here.

This very handsomely done
book about animated Star Trek.

Written
by a couple of great guys.

And Dorothy Fontana said
it was the show she liked best.

Can you imagine that?

I've been going along
all these years

thinking that it was
really a bad show

and she said
she really liked it.

Unfortunately,
Walter's work also had

someone else's
fingerprints all over it.

Explain it to me, sir.
Explain it to me.

Because
Gene Roddenberry wanted too many rewrites.

I got crazy with it.
Gene is the master rewriter.

Which is another
check on the canon checklist.

If it has Gene Roddenberry's
name on it, it's canon.

Check.

He put his name on it
and he collected his paycheck.

Another check.

It's canon.

Original writers.

It was written by the writers
that wrote the original stories.

And they weren't the only returnees.

You have a lot
of returning characters.

You have Sarek and Amanda.

You have Harry Mudd.

Captain Kirk.

You have Cyrano Jones.

What can I do for you?

You even have
fictional characters

like Alice in Wonderland
from the "Shore Leave" planet.

I beg your pardon,
but did you see a white rabbit?

There's just so many
returning bits and pieces.

Not to mention, sequels.

These tribbles don't reproduce.

They just get fat.

"More Tribbles, More Troubles",
that's a sequel.

"Once Upon a Planet"
is a sequel to "Shore Leave".

Some of them
were even prequels.

Without The Animated Series,

a huge chunk of what Spock is
would not have existed. -

The animated series is becoming
more canon because they're using stuff from it.

They have
taken the ideas shown inThe Animated Series.

Like the rec room holodeck.

Just imagine what it was like.
No engines, no computers.

There were a lot
of things that came out ofThe Animated Series

that became part
of the Star Trekuniverse.

Unbelievable.

Including
another animated series

that would join the fleet
46 years later.

WatchingLower Decks,
I was very excited to see that a species relative

of Lieutenant Arex appears.

This is no joke, sir.

And let's
not forget this little gem.

This is Captain
James Tiberius Kirk.

The animated series
is where we got on screen Tiberius.

James Tiberius Kirk.

Well, that convinces me.

So, these stories still hold up.

Each story has an idea.

There's a reason
why they're telling this story.

It's a Star Trekidea.
It continues the story.

What was important
about The Animated Series

is that it was a big
and very important stepping stone

to gettingStar Trek back.

- Captain.
- I appreciate the welcome.

Anyone
associated withStar Trek can hold their head up high

if they worked
onThe Animated Series.

It was a quality product
that won an Emmy

and won the hearts
of Star Trekfans.

My dear friend, Spock.

It's good to have
a friend like you.

The animated series
is Star Trek.

Exactly.

It was a smart show
where they had ideas about all kinds of things.

Life and death,
women's issues, diversity.

They were all
worked into the stories

and they were not
talking down to kids.

And that's one of the reasons

why 50 years later,
we're still interested,

talking and watching
The Animated Series.

But you know what?

There's a lot more
Star Trek to talk about.