59 Fun Facts About Star Trek: the Original Series

In Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles", what makes the furry creatures such a menace?

They multiply out of control because, as Dr McCoy works out, they are born pregnant; but the pests prove useful in the end, when dead tribbles reveal that a grain shipment has been poisoned.

What made the cancelled Star Trek a 1970s hit?

Syndicated reruns found the show a bigger audience than it ever had on NBC, turning a series dropped for low ratings into a phenomenon that Paramount revived for the cinema ten years after the cancellation.

Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to the networks as what?

Wagon Train to the stars dressed science fiction as a Western, then a television staple: like that chart-topping series about a wagon convoy heading west, each episode would be a self-contained adventure within one long journey.

Desilu, Star Trek's first studio, was founded to make which 1950s sitcom?

I Love Lucy made its stars, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the owners of a major studio; by Star Trek's day she had bought him out and ran Desilu alone, the only woman then heading a major Hollywood production company.

What was the title of the first Star Trek pilot, rejected by NBC as "too cerebral"?

The Cage was not shown on television in its own right until 1988: its footage had been cut into a later episode, and for years fans knew the original only from prints screened at conventions.

Which actor played Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek's first pilot?

Jeffrey Hunter declined to return for the second pilot, preferring to concentrate on movies, so the captain's chair went to William Shatner as James T. Kirk.

What was the title of Star Trek's second pilot, the one NBC accepted?

Where No Man Has Gone Before introduced Kirk, Scotty and Sulu, who was the ship's physicist in the pilot before the series moved him to the helm.

Which Star Trek episode launched the series on US television on September 8, 1966?

The Man Trap was picked to lead off ahead of other finished episodes because its monster plot was judged the most straightforward science fiction of the bunch.

Star Trek fans nicknamed the shape-shifting monster of the first broadcast episode what, after its craving?

The salt vampire, the last native of planet M-113, posed as McCoy's old flame Nancy Crater and killed crewmen to feed on the salt in their bodies.

Which actor joined Star Trek in season two as Ensign Pavel Chekov?

Walter Koenig was cast largely for his resemblance to Davy Jones of the Monkees, and wore a mop-top wig in his first episodes to complete the look.

George Takei missed half of season two because he was filming which John Wayne movie?

The Green Berets cast Takei as a South Vietnamese army captain, and when filming overran, many of Sulu's lines went to the newly arrived Chekov.

NBC airbrushed Spock's pointed ears out of early publicity photos because executives feared he looked like what?

A demon was the worry: NBC feared a "demonic" look would offend station buyers in the conservative South, though Roddenberry had given Spock a slight look of the devil on purpose.

Which fan led the 1967-68 letter-writing campaign that won Star Trek a third season?

Bjo Trimble and her husband John organised the mail drive that buried NBC in letters; she later led another that got NASA's first space shuttle named Enterprise.

Students from which university marched on NBC's Burbank studios in January 1968 with "Draft Spock" signs?

Caltech sent more than 200 students on a torchlit march through Burbank to NBC's gates, and weeks later the network took the rare step of announcing the renewal on air.

For its third season NBC moved Star Trek to what notoriously bad time slot?

10 pm Friday was the only slot left after NBC went back on its promise of Mondays at 7:30, because the producer of top-rated Laugh-In refused to move his show.

Who replaced Gene Roddenberry as producer for Star Trek's third and final season?

Fred Freiberger had been approached to produce the show before its first season but went on a planned holiday instead; he later ran the second season of Space: 1999.

Which art director designed the Enterprise and is honoured by the name of its equipment shafts?

Matt Jefferies kept the hull smooth and put the ship's workings inside so that nobody would have to spacewalk to make repairs; the crawlways the crew use became Jefferies tubes.

Which Star Trek prop, designed by Wah Chang, is often credited with inspiring the flip phone?

The communicator and the tricorder were Wah Chang's work, though the phaser often credited to him was not; clamshell mobile phones followed his flip-top design some thirty years later.

Before Gene Roddenberry settled on Enterprise, what name had he intended for Star Trek's starship?

Yorktown was the ship's name in Roddenberry's 1964 pitch; he switched to Enterprise because he had always been proud of the wartime aircraft carrier and wanted to use its name.

Since 1974, who has owned the original 11-foot filming model of Star Trek's Enterprise?

The Smithsonian Institution was given the model by Paramount and now displays the fictional starship in its National Air and Space Museum, in a hall of real aircraft and spacecraft.

Which composer lost half his Star Trek theme royalties after Gene Roddenberry added lyrics the show never used?

Alexander Courage called the move legal but unethical: the lyrics were never meant for the show, yet they let Roddenberry claim half the royalties as co-writer.

Which show twice beat Star Trek to the best drama Emmy?

Mission: Impossible, made by the same studio and launched the same autumn, won in 1967 and 1968, and Star Trek ended its run without a single Emmy.

In 1968, Star Trek episodes took all five nominations for which science-fiction award's drama category?

The Hugo shortlist for drama that year was five Star Trek episodes and nothing else, so the series could only lose to itself; "The City on the Edge of Forever" won.

Which science-fiction author wrote the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"?

Harlan Ellison so disliked the rewrites that he asked to be credited as Cordwainer Bird, his protest pseudonym; his original draft still won a Writers Guild award.

In "The City on the Edge of Forever", which actress played Edith Keeler, the soup-kitchen worker Kirk loves?

Joan Collins, later Alexis in Dynasty, plays a pacifist whom Kirk must let die, because her peace movement would keep America out of the war long enough for Hitler to win.

Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles" was the first professional script by which writer?

David Gerrold's tribbles so resembled the flat cats in Robert Heinlein's novel The Rolling Stones that the producers phoned Heinlein, who agreed to waive any claim.

Which Star Trek series digitally inserted its cast into 'The Trouble with Tribbles' for the 30th anniversary?

Deep Space Nine used Forrest Gump-style effects to put its crew aboard Kirk's Enterprise; asked why the old Klingons look so different, Worf says only, "We do not discuss it with outsiders."

In Star Trek's "Space Seed", what was the name of the derelict ship carrying Khan and his followers?

SS Botany Bay is named after the Australian bay famous for transported convicts, a nod to an early draft in which Khan's people were criminals exiled into space.

"Amok Time", the only episode with scenes on Spock's home planet, introduced which concept?

Pon farr, the mating cycle, forces Spock home to take a mate or die; the episode also introduced the Vulcan salute and the words "Live long and prosper".

The actor who played Spock based the Vulcan salute on a blessing he saw as a boy in what setting?

An Orthodox synagogue was where the boy peeked, though worshippers are meant to look away, as the kohanim gave the priestly blessing with fingers split into the Hebrew letter shin.

In Star Trek's "Mirror, Mirror", what distinguishes the parallel-universe Spock?

A moustache and goatee told viewers which Spock they were watching, and a goatee on a familiar face has been parodied ever since as shorthand for an evil double.

Star Trek's "Balance of Terror" introduced the cloaking device and which alien species?

The Romulans turn out to look just like Spock, which sets a crewman against him; their commander was played by Mark Lenard, who returned a season later as Spock's father.

Which Star Trek episode marked the first appearance of the Klingons?

Errand of Mercy ends with Kirk and the Klingon commander Kor both protesting when the meek-seeming Organians, really beings of pure energy, simply stop their war.

In Star Trek's "Arena", Kirk is forced by the Metrons to fight the reptilian captain of which species?

The Gorn is felled when Kirk builds a makeshift cannon from bamboo and raw gunpowder ingredients, then refuses to finish him off, which the watching Metrons say they hardly expected.

In Star Trek's "The Devil in the Dark", the silicon-based Horta scratches which message into the rock?

NO KILL I could be a plea or a promise, and Kirk bets on a plea: the monster is a mother guarding her eggs, which the miners had been smashing as worthless rock.

Which actress played Spock's human mother, Amanda, in Star Trek's "Journey to Babel"?

Jane Wyatt, the mother in the sitcom Father Knows Best, plays Amanda, who slaps Spock when he refuses to leave his post and give his dying father blood.

In Star Trek's "A Piece of the Action", the Iotians model their society on a book about what?

Chicago mobs of the 1920s became the Iotians' bible after an Earth ship left the book behind a century earlier; Kirk bluffs the gangsters with an invented card game, Fizzbin.

Which episode, often called Star Trek's worst, opened the third season?

Spock's Brain has aliens steal the first officer's brain to run their underground city, and a later guidebook named its award for each series' worst episode after it.

Star Trek's "Plato's Stepchildren" is remembered for a kiss between Kirk and which crew member?

Uhura and Kirk are forced to kiss by telekinetic aliens; NBC wanted a take without it, but Nichelle Nichols recalled that she and Shatner fluffed every such take on purpose.

Which actor, a villain in the 1960s Batman series, played the half-black, half-white alien Bele in Star Trek?

Frank Gorshin, Batman's Riddler, plays Bele, who has hunted Lokai for 50,000 years; the crew cannot see what divides them until Bele points out which side of each face is black.

Star Trek's "The Doomsday Machine" features the wreck of which sister ship of the Enterprise?

USS Constellation's Commodore Decker has lost his whole crew to the planet-killer, and ends by flying a stolen shuttlecraft straight down its throat.

Which future star played Roberta Lincoln opposite Robert Lansing in Star Trek's "Assignment: Earth"?

Teri Garr was in effect auditioning for another show: the episode doubled as the pilot for a series about the interstellar agent Gary Seven, which no network picked up.

Which was the last episode of Star Trek's original run to air on NBC, in June 1969?

Turnabout Intruder, in which a vengeful ex-lover swaps bodies with Kirk, was due to air in March but was bumped by news coverage of President Eisenhower's death.

Which was the only two-part story in the original Star Trek series?

The Menagerie wrapped a new court-martial story around footage from the unaired first pilot, giving the struggling production two episodes for about one week's filming.

Nichelle Nichols nearly quit Star Trek after season one but was persuaded to stay by whom?

Martin Luther King Jr. told her he was her greatest fan, and that Star Trek was the only show he and his wife let their children stay up to watch.

James Doohan, who played Scotty, was wounded during which World War II event?

The D-Day landings put Doohan ashore at Juno Beach with the Canadian artillery; gunfire, apparently from a nervous sentry on his own side, cost him the middle finger of his right hand, which he hid on screen.

Which cast member married Gene Roddenberry in 1969 and became known as "the First Lady of Star Trek"?

Majel Barrett played Number One in the first pilot; when NBC's objections cost her that part, she came back in a blonde wig as Nurse Chapel and later voiced Starfleet's computers.

George Takei spent part of his childhood in what kind of place?

A Japanese-American internment camp held Takei from the age of five, first at Rohwer in Arkansas and then at Tule Lake in California; his 2012 musical Allegiance drew on those years.

Which cast member was the only actor nominated for an Emmy for the original Star Trek?

Leonard Nimoy was nominated in each of the show's three seasons and never won; he later called one memoir I Am Not Spock and, twenty years on, another I Am Spock.

Which country first saw Star Trek on July 12, 1969, four days before Apollo 11 lifted off?

Britain's BBC began its run that Saturday, and for decades withheld four episodes that it said dealt "most unpleasantly" with madness, torture, sadism and disease.

Which Canadian network aired Star Trek on September 6, 1966, two days before NBC?

CTV ran it first because Canadian networks often showed American programmes ahead of the US airing, so they would not lose viewers to the border stations carrying the American broadcast.

Which third-season Star Trek episode was the only one shot largely outdoors after budget cuts?

The Paradise Syndrome took the crew for three days to a reservoir above Los Angeles, the same lake that serves as the fishing hole in the opening titles of The Andy Griffith Show.

Which shirt colour marked the Enterprise security guards so often killed on landing parties?

Red shirts died so reliably beside the stars that "redshirt" became slang for any expendable character, and gave John Scalzi the title of a novel about crewmen who work out their odds.

Which rock formation north of Los Angeles played alien planets in "Arena" and three other Star Trek episodes?

Vasquez Rocks, once an outlaw's hideout, kept turning up in later Star Trek series and films, and in 2020 Star Trek: Picard finally let the park play itself.

In 1973 most of the original Star Trek cast reunited to make what kind of revival?

An animated series ran for two seasons and won Star Trek its first Emmy; the budget had no room for Chekov, so his actor was hired to write an episode instead.

Which costume designer created the original 1960s Starfleet uniforms and the Klingons' first costumes?

Bill Theiss gave his name to the Theiss Titillation Theory: an outfit is as sexy as the chance that a vital piece of it might fall off, a rule he applied to many guest costumes.

Which character, played by Grace Lee Whitney, left Star Trek midway through its first season?

Yeoman Janice Rand was written out, officially because she limited Captain Kirk's romantic possibilities; Whitney came back as Rand in several of the films.

Which planned 1970s Star Trek TV series did Paramount turn into The Motion Picture instead?

Phase II had sets under construction and a two-hour pilot script when Paramount, with Star Wars filling cinemas, decided the pilot should be a feature film.

Leonard Nimoy hosted the "Star Trek Memories" TV special to promote which film, the first he directed?

The Search for Spock was previewed in the special; asked by Paramount whether he would play Spock again, Nimoy had answered, "You're damned right, I want to direct that picture!"