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Star Trek: The Animated Series

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Template:Infobox Television Star Trek: The Animated Series — The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek is an Emmy Award winning animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe, and a continuation of Star Trek: The Original Series. The series was aired under the name Star Trek, but it has become widely known under this longer name (or abbreviated as ST:TAS or TAS) to differentiate it from the original live action Star Trek. It is also sometimes referred to as "The Animated Adventures."

Production[edit]

The series was produced by Filmation and ran for two seasons, 1973 and 1974, airing a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. It featured most of the original cast performing the voices for their characters, except for Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), who was omitted because the show's budget could not afford the complete cast. He was replaced by two animated characters who made semi-regular appearances: Lieutenant Arex, whose Edosian species had three arms and three legs; and Lt. M'Ress, a female Caitian. James Doohan, and Majel Barrett, besides performing their characters Montgomery Scott and Christine Chapel, performed the voices of Arex and M'Ress, respectively.

Initially, Filmation was only going to use the voices of Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan and Majel Barrett. Doohan and Barrett would also perform the voices of Sulu and Uhura. Leonard Nimoy refused to sign up to lend his voice to the series unless Nichelle Nichols and George Takei were added to the cast - claiming that Sulu and Uhura were of importance as they were proof of the ethnic diversity of the 23rd century and should not be recast.[1]

Koenig was not forgotten and later wrote an episode of the series, becoming the first Star Trek actor to write a Star Trek story. Koenig wrote "The Infinite Vulcan," which had plot elements of the original Star Trek episode "Space Seed" blended into it.

As is usual for animation, the voice actors did not perform together but recorded their parts separately to avoid clashing with other commitments. For instance, William Shatner, who was touring in a play at the time, would record his lines in whatever city he happened to be in and have the tapes shipped to the studio. Doohan and Barrett, besides providing the voices of their Original Series characters and newcomers Arex and M'Ress, performed virtually all of the "guest star" characters in the series, except for a few notable exceptions such as Sarek, Cyrano Jones and Harcourt Fenton Mudd, who were performed by their original actors from The Original Series. Occasional other guest voice actors were also used, such as Ed Bishop (Commander Straker on UFO) who voiced the Megan Prosecutor in "Magicks of Megas-Tu", and Ted Knight (Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) who voiced Carter Winston in "The Survivor".

While the freedom of animation afforded large alien landscapes and believable non-humanoid aliens, budget constraints were a major concern and the animation quality was generally fair, with very liberal use of stock shots. There were also occasional mistakes, such as characters appearing on screen who were elsewhere, or a character supposed to appear on the bridge main screen appears in front, indicating bad ordering of animation plates. These were typically one-off errors however. Occasionally, though, parts of episodes would be animated at a near-theatrical quality level.

Episodes[edit]

Main article: List of Star Trek: The Animated Series episodes


File:ST-The AS.jpg
The characters of TAS

The 22 episodes of TAS were spread out over two brief seasons, with copious reruns of each episode. Most are directed by Hal Sutherland.

All the episodes of this series were novelized by Alan Dean Foster and released in 10 volumes under the Star Trek Logs banner. Initially, Foster adapted three episodes per book, but later editions saw the half-hour scripts expanded into full novel-length stories.

The writing in the series benefited from a Writers Guild of America strike in 1973, which did not apply to animation.[2] A few episodes are especially notable due to contributions from well-known science fiction authors:

  • "More Tribbles, More Troubles" was written by David Gerrold as a sequel to his famous episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" from the original series. Here the infamous Cyrano Jones is rescued from the Klingons, bringing with him a genetically-altered breed of Tribbles which do not reproduce but do grow extremely large. (It is later discovered that these are really clusters of tribbles who function as a single tribble, and it is decided that the large numbers of smaller tribbles are preferable to the larger ones.) The Klingons, due to their hatred of Tribbles, are eager to get Cyrano Jones back because he stole a creature they created: a predator that feeds on tribbles. This episode was originally written with the intention of being an episode of the live-action original series, but this was vetoed by one of the producers who had never liked the "The Trouble With Tribbles".
  • Larry Niven's "The Slaver Weapon", adapted from his own short story "The Soft Weapon". It includes some elements from his Known Space mythos such as the Kzinti and the Slavers. This is the only Kirk era TV or movie story in which Kirk didn't appear because of scheduling conflicts which precluded Shatner's participation in the episode. This episode also has the distinction of being the only animated episode where anyone dies or is killed onscreen.
  • "The Magicks of Megas-tu", by Larry Brody, sends the Enterprise to the center of the galaxy. Its crew find themselves befriended by a devil-like alien named Lucien, whom they must defend against accusations that he has brought evil to the world of Megas-tu.

Canon issues[edit]

Template:Original research Around 1987, with the start of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the animated series was "decanonised" by Gene Roddenberry's office, and writers of Star Trek spin-off fiction such as novels and comics were prohibited from using concepts from the animated series in their works.[3] The Star Trek Chronology by production staffers Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda does not include the animated series, but does include certain events from "Yesteryear".[4] The timeline in Voyages of the Imagination dates the events of the series to 2269-2270, assuming the events of the show represented the final part of Kirk's five-year mission.

Since Roddenberry's death in 1991 and the consequent firing of Richard H. Arnold, there have been various references to the animated series into one of the live-action series. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Once More Unto the Breach", Kor referred to his ship, the Klothos, which was first named in the TAS episode "The Time Trap". Other DS9 episodes to reference the animated series include "Broken Link", where Elim Garak mentions Edosian orchids (Arex is an Edosian) and "Tears of the Prophets" where a Miranda class starship is called the USS ShiKahr after the city from "Yesteryear".

More DS9 references to the animated series include the episode "Prophet Motive" where the title of healer is resurrected from "Yesteryear" as well. Vulcan's Forge is also mentioned in "Change of Heart", where Worf wants himself and Jadzia Dax to honeymoon there.

Most recently, the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes "The Catwalk" and "The Forge" included references to "Yesteryear", the latter featuring a CGI rendition of a wild sehlat.

In more recent years references to the Animated Series have also cropped up in books. M'Ress and Arex, characters from the animated series, appear in the Star Trek: New Frontier novels, and the Nasat, a race introduced in the episode "The Jihad" and represented by M3 Green, provide a regular character, P8 Blue, for the Starfleet Corps of Engineers e-book novellas.

Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc. has — as part of its license for the Star Fleet Universe series of games — incorporated many aspects of the Animated Series into its works, not least being the inclusion of the Kzinti, although in a modified form. In addition FASA used elements from the animated series in its sourcebooks and modules for its Star Trek role-playing game.

Trivia[edit]

Template:toomuchtrivia

  • The writers of the animated series used the same writers' guide that was used for the live-action Star Trek: The Original Series.
  • An early Filmation proposal for this series had children assigned to each of the senior officers as cadets, including a young Vulcan for Mr. Spock. According to interviews with Norm Prescott, Paramount offered Roddenberry a substantial sum of money to abandon creative control of the project and let Filmation proceed with their "kiddy space cadet" idea. Roddenberry indignantly refused. Filmation later developed the idea into its own original program, Space Academy.
  • The U.S.S. Enterprise in this series, while supposedly the same ship as from the original series, had a holodeck very similar to the one introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was set approximately 80 years later. It only appeared once, in Chuck Menville's "The Practical Joker" and was known as the Rec Room. This feature was originally proposed for the original series (see, e.g., Gerrold, The World of Star Trek) but was never used.
  • A personal force field technology known as the life support belt was seen only in The Animated Series. In addition to supplying the wearer with the appropriate atmosphere and environmental protection it permitted the cartoonists to simply draw the belt and yellow glow around the existing characters, instead of having to redraw them with an environmental suit. The life support belt could support a mechanical load and at one point saved Scotty from being crushed.
  • The episode "The Infinite Vulcan" written by Walter Koenig is one of only two occurrences where Captain Kirk comes close to actually saying, "Beam me up, Scotty" (long believed to be a Trek catchphrase), when he commands "Beam us up, Scotty." Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home comes closer to it by having Kirk say "Scotty, beam me up".
  • The episode "The Lorelei Signal" provides a rare instance in early Star Trek in which a female took (temporary) command of a starship. Due to the incapacitation of the male members of the crew, Uhura assumes command of the U.S.S. Enterprise from Scotty. Other instances occurred on the very first and very last adventures ever filmed of the original series:
    • "The Cage", in which Number One took command after the abduction of Captain Christopher Pike, and
    • "Turnabout Intruder", in which Dr. Janice Lester took over the body of Captain Kirk and assumed command.
  • The animated series was, according to the Nielsen ratings, not popular with young children (According to series' producers it was intended to be enjoyed by the entire family). Although the accuracy of the ratings system conducted by the A. C. Nielsen company has been vehemently disputed by its supporters and detractors since their first implementation, these results have been cited by fans and critics as justification for the show's brief run of only 22 episodes. However, those same critics noted that the series did receive both critical acclaim and at least one Daytime Emmy award, the first such award for the franchise. According to both Roddenberry and an NBC press release, this was the justification for six additional episodes being ordered by the network for the series' second season.
  • A few facts introduced in the animated series have been referenced in the live-action productions:
    • Kirk's middle name, Tiberius (established later in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).
    • Amanda's maiden name, Grayson.
    • A second exit for the bridge, referenced in Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual.
    • The kas'wahn ritual Spock endures in "Yesteryear."
    • Klingon commander Kor's command of the battlecruiser Klothos.
    • Doctor Phlox uses Edosian slugs in his medical bay. They come from the same planet as Lieutenant Arex.
    • The Vulcan city, ShirKahr, has been referenced in multiple series, and can be seen in an episode of Enterprise. A Vulcan city which looks very similar to ShirKahr was shown in the new establishing shots used in the special edition of "Amok Time".
    • Some of the worlds and aliens in the series were included in the 1989 book called Star Trek: The Worlds of the Federation.
  • Filmation later went on to produce the hit He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-85), which occasionally used modified character and set designs from ST:TAS, mostly as background material. It also shared many of the stock sound effects from both TAS and TOS. (MOTU also had several Trek-similar stories, most notably "The Arena", which is very similar to TOS's first season episode, "Arena"). Filmation also recycled some of the background music for TAS in their later 1970s animated shows Tarzan and the Super 7 and Lassie's Rescue Rangers.

Video release[edit]

  • The complete series was first released on 11 volumes of VHS tapes in the 1980s.
  • A boxed set of the complete series on laserdisc, was released for ST:TAS in 1997.
  • A DVD box set of the show was released on November 21, 2006. It was the last series of Paramount's Star Trek television franchise to be released to DVD.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ George Takei. To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Pocket Books.
  2. ↑ D.C. Fontana (1991). Introduction to Star Trek: The Classic Episodes, Volume 1.
  3. ↑ Ayers, Jeff (2006). Voyages of the Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion, Pocket Books. ISBN 1416503498.
  4. ↑ Okuda, Mike; Okuda, Denise (1996). Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future, Pocket Books. ISBN 0671536109.

External links[edit]

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