Star Trek

- Where are we, sir? - At another place in time, I think.

Open hailing frequencies, Lieutenant.

- Message coming in, sir. - Put it on the view screen.

I've always felt it was part of Star Trek.

And a very important part that has been long overlooked.

Oh, I thought... Yeah, I thought it would make a terrific show

for youngsters and for oldsters.

Wouldn't make any difference because you could do the same kind of stories.

It was really different and it was a pleasure to work on,

but frightening at the same time because you didn't wanna

do a lesser job than the public might expect.

Working.

One of the best things about The Animated Series

is it's like buried treasure.

It's like, you know, every fan of the original series

knows that there are those 77 episodes or however you want to count them out.

And it's as if somebody said,

"Hey, we just found this other episode that no one's ever seen before."

I think that Star Trek: The Animated Series

was really important because it kept Star Trek alive.

It gave it to a whole new generation of viewers.

It was the last iteration.

The last opportunity to play out that,

what can we do with Kirk, Spock and McCoy and the others

in an episodic sense before we went on to do the movies,

where the movies all eventually ended up in this kind of long story arc.

And at the time, you know, it was real Star Trek.

Cartoon, no cartoon.

With Shatner and Nimoy in it,

as far as I was concerned, it was real Star Trek.

None of us ever said, "Cartoon." Never.

So we were going to do Star Trek in animation.

Star Trek was produced by the company that

I was founder of, one of the founders of.

We did The Archies,

we did the first Superman show for animation, for television, we did.

We did the Batman and we did...

If it flew and had a cape

and it was painted red, white or blue, we probably did it.

I find this scientifically fascinating.

The way we became involved with Star Trek: The Series,

was actually it came right from NBC.

We got a call one day from Joe Taritero

who was Vice President of children's programme there

and they'd been negotiating with Gene Roddenberry.

And they made the choice that they wanted Filmation

to produce this show, which was quite an honour,

and scared the devil out of me a little bit.

I cannot tell you how impressed I am by your splendid spirit of cooperation.

And then I got in touch with Roddenberry

who was easy to talk to, and actually he'd liked the idea,

but he said he can't do it.

He said, you know, “Paramount owns it, I own it.

"I can't do anything without them. They can't do anything without me."

I said, "Why don't you two guys talk?"

"I mean, you know, sit down in a room, make a deal.

"Then we could do this thing.” He said, "You know, that's a good idea.”

- That seems logical. - Thank you.

Filmation, it was just a hoot.

Lou Scheimer was... I don't know how to describe Lou.

He was so enthused about focusing on,

"Let's just do fun, exciting television for Saturday morning,"

but he was also willing to do shows.

He understood better than some places

that a lot of your Saturday morning audience is not kids,

it's grownups or teenagers or you know.

People are laying around Saturday, "What's on TV?"

Was introduced to us by Roddenberry

and he wanted her to do the story idea because he felt very, very comfortable.

She was an assistant of his in the live-action shows.

She was terrific.

And we all just wanted to do Star Trek, still.

We had it in our bones and... No pun, but...

I mean, in 1969 when it went off the air, we felt unfinished.

We hadn't had a chance to complete the next voyages we had in mind.

And this was one way to do it, even though we didn't get the fifth year.

I mean, that's... And then we ended up doing a show

that basically was the same as the nighttime show,

same writers in many cases, same actors obviously,

and the same audience, too.

- Bones, any opinion? - There's some resemblance.

I am inclined to agree with the Doctor, Captain.

The problem was the audience was all in their 20s and 30s

and our normal audience was like eight to ten.

They're all teenagers and children.

The way I got involved in Star Trek: The Animated Series

on a show called The Sixth Sense and one day...

In the middle of a writers' strike, I was a young starving writer in my early 20s,

she called and said, "Do you wanna write an episode of Star Trek?"

Well, that was a lucky or unlucky stroke of fortune.

The Writers Guild happened to be on strike in 1973.

During those early months, I think we went for about a three-month strike.

And that meant none of the writers could write,

you know, live-action dramas or comedies, whatever they were writing,

but it did mean that we could hire them to write at least one script

for animation without their becoming a member of that union.

And so we turned to all our... Not all, but many of our Star Trek regulars

and said, "Do you wanna do this?"

Our first script was by Sam Peeples.

He had done the very first episode for the live show.

It's a starship like nothing I've ever seen.

There were these two or three ideas

I'd had for the original series that we had never done.

And so now I could do them in The Animated Series.

And one of course was the “More Tribles, More Troubles,”

and the other was "Bem."

We got David Gerrold to do two.

We got Margaret Armen to do two, and several other people who

had wanted to write Star Trek but hadn't gotten a chance

on the original series, came in and did something.

Joyce Perry was one.

Larry Brody, who was just starting out, was another.

Meeting Gene Roddenberry was an experience all in itself

because I'd been in the business just long enough

to have encountered a lot of people who really crapped on writers.

And I'm in the office of a guy who to me is a legend,

who is the most gracious, warm, friendly, sweet guy I've ever met,

who respects everything that every writer does,

listens closely to every word I say.

And I did mostly just sat behind his shoulder

and looked at what he was doing and listened to what he was saying

and he'd make changes, changes, changes,

and then he'd make some more changes.

I don't like it at all, sir.

Nor do I, Mr Scott, but we've got to do it.

Roddenberry was... He was great.

It was the only time that I can remember that we sold a show to a network

and the network didn't have any right to make any changes in the scripts.

And that was heaven.

Everything went past Gene, he saw it all,

but he wasn't there every day.

When he had comments, he put them in.

Otherwise, he just said, "It's fine, go for it."

And we all did the show.

I do remember one day, it was getting pretty frightening.

Lou and I talked and he says,

"Hey, if we don't get started pretty soon, you know, we're dead in the water."

And I said, "Well, I'll just see if I can tell that to Gene," you know.

So it happened, I think, the next day

and when we were going over things and I said, "Gene, I have to talk to you."

I says, "If we don't start this production this week, in the next couple of days",

"we've only got six-week-window here,"

"we're not gonna make the first deadline."

He says, "That's it."

He stood up and he says, “I'm not gonna bother you anymore.”

He was happy and he walked out the door and he left me.

Thrilling to work with somebody like that.

Wait a minute. There is a method to this madness.

Please elaborate, Captain.

So the first approach was, "How are we going to tell these stories?"

"What form are we going to use?"

And the second one was, "Who are we going to use?"

And they opted to hire almost everybody

except for poor Walter Koenig,

but who did get a chance to write a script,

which was the beginning of his writing career.

So, you know, it wasn't all that bad.

We could barely use all the characters they had to use in the shows.

I mean, just the set characters.

Anyway, you couldn't have fit into the damn little room we were recording in.

Nice to be back aboard, sir, and fitting the room again.

The glorious thing was getting them all together for the first recording session.

I know that's of interest to the fans.

And I think it's the first time they'd all been together,

at one time, in the same room, and it was a joyous occasion.

You don't know how good it is to have you back on the Bridge,

alive and well.

We're as happy about it as you are, Jim.

I'll just tell you, I get chills up my spine any time Leonard would do Spock

because he'd just get all serious and do that Spock voice,

you know, and, "Fascinating, Captain."

Fascinating.

And he'd do that and then, of course, Shatner is just, he's very playful.

You will remind me to report my conduct to the Federation,

- won't you, Mr Spock? - Of course, Captain.

Shatner had one thing that was immensely important to him

and that was to be true to the original show.

To make sure that we didn't do anything in our show that would...

Not really work with the bible.

It is our responsibility to take care of our own,

just as it is your responsibility to take care of yours.

He's one of the hardest working actors I've ever seen

in front of a microphone or in front of a camera.

But, you know, he'd say, "All right, we need a take,"

and he would just, "bam," just like that, first time, right up.

You know, "That was perfect, Bill, one more." And he'd do it again.

Well done, Jim.

There were some actors who did multiple roles.

Majel Barrett did.

She did a lot of the female voices.

Well, I can't find anything wrong with these instruments, Doctor.

I am Theela, the Head Female.

Hostile behaviour doesn't fit its programme.

Lieutenant M'Ress, I want a printout of the guidance computer's last orders.

Jimmy Doohan did a lot of voices that were...

Other than his own, obviously, as Scotty.

He was very good on other characters' voices

that we would have had to bring in different voice actors.

And Jimmy could do a wide range of not only types of voices

but types of accents.