60 Fun Facts About Star Trek: the Original Series

Who created Star Trek, drafting the first treatment for it in March 1964?

His original protagonist was a Captain Robert April of the S.S. Yorktown.

How many episodes of the original series were made before it was cancelled?

Most shows needed four seasons to be syndicated; three seasons proved just enough to make it a rerun juggernaut.

Which television production company, run by Lucille Ball, made the first two seasons?

Ball was instrumental in getting the pilot made even though she did not really understand the project.

What was the title of the rejected first pilot, filmed in late 1964?

The network called it too cerebral but took the rare step of ordering a second pilot.

Which actor played Captain Christopher Pike in the first pilot?

His footage was later recycled into the two-part episode The Menagerie when his contract was not renewed.

Which actress played Number One in the rejected pilot and later voiced the ship's computer?

She returned to the series as Nurse Christine Chapel and later married the show's creator.

Which actor turned down a starring role in Star Trek, saying he had no desire to work in science fiction?

He liked Roddenberry personally; his sons Beau and Jeff went on to bigger screens.

Which show did CBS cite as the reason it passed on Star Trek in 1964?

Desilu had a first-look deal with CBS, so they had to pitch there before going elsewhere.

What was the first regular episode broadcast, on September 8, 1966?

It was chosen to go first because of its horror plot about a shapeshifting creature.

The creature in the first broadcast episode drains what from its victims' bodies?

Fans nicknamed it the 'salt vampire'; the suit was redesigned for the 2009 film but went unused.

Who plays Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy?

He was not in either pilot; Paul Fix played a Dr. Mark Piper in the second one.

Which NBC West Coast programming head commissioned the first pilot in May 1964?

Tinker later co-founded MTM Enterprises with Mary Tyler Moore and ran NBC in the 1980s.

Which Desilu executive is credited with adding the 'stardate' concept to the show?

He also talked Lucille Ball out of dropping the show in early 1966.

Which character was added in season two, partly to appeal to teenage girls, and played by Walter Koenig?

A story that Pravda complained about the lack of Russians is doubted, since the show never aired in the USSR.

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

When he came back, he and Koenig had to share a dressing room.

Which former Monkee has been claimed as the visual model for the mop-topped Ensign Chekov?

Desilu paperwork suggests the real aim was a character with more sex appeal for teenage viewers.

Nichelle Nichols' Lt. Uhura held which post aboard the ship?

Her first name, Nyota, was never spoken on screen in the series or the original-cast films.

Which crew member, played by Grace Lee Whitney, left partway through the first season?

She returned decades later in the films and in Voyager's Flashback.

Which art director designed the starship's bridge and lends his name to its equipment shafts?

A WWII airman, he used his knowledge of aircraft cockpits to make the bridge layout ergonomic.

Which former Disney sculptor designed the flip-open communicator and the tricorder?

The flip-open design is often credited with influencing the shape of the flip phone.

Which costume designer created the Starfleet uniforms and the Klingon and Vulcan looks?

He later reunited with Roddenberry to design the first season of The Next Generation.

Roughly how many letters did the network admit receiving in the 1967-68 fan campaign to save the show?

One executive said the real total topped a million pieces of mail; the network only disclosed the smaller figure.

Which fan, secretly funded by Roddenberry, organised the 1967-68 letter-writing campaign?

She and her husband John used a 4,000-name convention mailing list and asked each fan to recruit ten more.

Students from which university marched on the network's Burbank studio with 'Draft Spock' signs?

More than 200 of them turned out; Berkeley and MIT students staged similar protests.

For its third season the show was moved to what unpopular time slot?

Roddenberry said 'If the network wants to kill us, it couldn't make a better move,' and stepped back from daily production.

Which hit comedy show's producer refused to let Star Trek take a Monday slot for season three?

Producer George Schlatter angrily demanded his show not be rescheduled.

Who replaced Roddenberry as day-to-day producer for the third season?

The per-episode budget was cut to $175,000 that year, down from $190,000 in season one.

Which episode is the season three premiere and is widely regarded as the worst of the series?

Gene L. Coon wrote it under the pseudonym Lee Cronin.

Which was the last original episode to air, on June 3, 1969, in which a woman swaps bodies with Kirk?

It was pre-empted in March by coverage of Eisenhower's death and finally aired on a Tuesday night.

In The Trouble with Tribbles, which interstellar trader brings the furry creatures aboard station K7?

He gives the first one to Uhura; they coo at humans but screech around Klingons.

Who wrote The Trouble with Tribbles?

Producers sought a waiver from Robert Heinlein because of similarities to his novel The Rolling Stones.

Which 1996 Deep Space Nine episode digitally inserted its cast into The Trouble with Tribbles?

It marked the franchise's 30th anniversary.

Which season two premiere introduced the Vulcan salute and the mating cycle known as pon farr?

It is the only episode of the series with scenes set on the planet Vulcan.

Leonard Nimoy based the Vulcan salute on a priestly hand gesture from which religion?

The hand shape represents the Hebrew letter shin.

Which acclaimed episode, written by Harlan Ellison, sends Kirk and Spock to Depression-era New York?

It won a Hugo and a Writers Guild award, though Ellison's prize was for his original draft, not the aired script.

Which British actress plays Edith Keeler, the soup-kitchen worker Kirk falls for in 1930?

Kirk has to let her die in a traffic accident to restore history.

What is the name of the sentient time portal in that episode?

McCoy jumps through it high on cordrazine and accidentally erases the Federation.

Which reptilian alien captain does Kirk fight one-on-one on a barren asteroid in Arena?

The Metrons stage the duel; Kirk wins by building a makeshift cannon and then spares his opponent.

Ricardo Montalbán first played Khan Noonien Singh in which first-season episode?

He was found aboard the sleeper ship Botany Bay; the 1982 film picks up the story.

Khan and his followers were the product of what?

They conquered a third of Earth during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s before fleeing in suspended animation.

Balance of Terror introduced which alien species along with the cloaking device?

Mark Lenard played their commander before becoming Spock's father Sarek the following season.

In Mirror, Mirror, how can viewers instantly tell the alternate-universe Spock apart?

The evil-twin goatee became a pop-culture shorthand thanks to this episode.

Which episode is the first to feature McCoy's catchphrase 'I'm a doctor, not a...'?

The episode's monster, the Horta, turns out to be a silicon-based mother protecting her eggs.

Which 1968 episode is famous, though inaccurately, as US TV's first scripted interracial kiss, between Kirk and Uhura?

The kiss was mimed, obscured by the back of a character's head, and portrayed as forced by telekinetic aliens.

Who composed the show's famous theme tune?

Roddenberry wrote never-used lyrics so he could claim half the performance royalties, which Courage considered unethical.

How many Emmy Awards did the original series win during its run?

It was nominated 13 times, including three nods for Nimoy as Best Supporting Actor.

Which science-fiction honour did the show win in 1967 and 1968?

In 1968 every nominee in the dramatic category was a Star Trek episode.

What term, from the fate of anonymous security crewmen, means a character who exists only to die?

The device showed the danger to the main characters without risking anyone in the credits.

Which toy company made the 8-inch Star Trek action figures from 1974 to 1976?

Its Gorn figure reused a brown Marvel Lizard head on a body in a Klingon outfit.

Which company published the first Star Trek comics from 1967 to 1978?

Its Italian artist had never seen the show and drew Scotty wrong because he lacked a photo of James Doohan.

How many fans attended the first Star Trek convention, held in New York City in January 1972?

By then the reruns were airing in more than 100 US cities and 60 other countries.

The first regular episode won its time slot with what share, before ratings slid?

It was up against reruns that week; against new programming it fell to second.

Which Canadian network aired the show on September 6, 1966, two days before its US debut?

Britain did not see it until July 1969, timed with the Apollo 11 landing.

Which 1979 film brought the original crew to the big screen after the aborted Phase II series?

Phase II was scrapped after Star Wars and Close Encounters proved sci-fi could be huge in cinemas.

Roddenberry pitched the series to networks as what, in his first draft?

Like the Western, each episode was meant to be a self-contained adventure inside a continuing voyage.

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

Associate producer Bob Justman said the slashed budget kept the crew from location work, so nearly everything else was shot on stages.

Which company bought Star Trek syndication rights for its big-city stations during the first season?

Kaiser's strong rerun ratings persuaded stations like WPIX in New York to buy the episodes too, launching the show's second life in syndication.

To what per-episode figure did NBC cut Star Trek's budget for its third season?

The cut followed a drop in the per-minute commercial price from $39,000 to $36,000; season one had been budgeted at $190,000 an episode.

Which cable network ran a 90-minute 'Special Edition' of every episode, hosted by Shatner, in 1998?

Leonard Nimoy hosted a second run starting that December, but it was cancelled before all the episodes aired.

The huge opening of which 1977 film led Paramount to scrap the Phase II TV revival for a movie?

Columbia's late-December hit convinced Paramount that a Star Trek feature film was the better bet, and The Motion Picture followed in 1979.