(Sources: Paramount, Star Trek Wiki, Imdb)
Star Trek: The Animated Series, originally and formally titled Star Trek and The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, was a continuation of the voyages of the USS Enterprise, previously featured in Star Trek: The Original Series.
Former Original Series writer D.C. Fontana reported in the fanzine Star-Borne of 22 June 1972 that, "Paramount... [is] enormously impressed by the quantity (and quality) of fan mail they continue to receive. The possibility seems to be slowly developing of a Star Trek feature movie for theatrical release, aimed at becoming the new Star Trek television pilot… on the network front, NBC still expresses great interest in doing Star Trek in some form. Both NBC and Paramount continue to receive a great deal of mail and have had to assign secretaries for the sole job of answering it."
NBC's surprising complete turnaround (as it were they who had canceled the live-action precursor in 1969, purportedly for poor ratings performance) not only stemmed from the spectacular resurgence of the Original Series in syndication, but also from its own accounting department. Shortly before Fontana's report, NBC had replaced its old Nielsen rating system with a new and updated one. When they ran the original Original Series figures through their new system they found out much to their surprise that it had not only reached full penetration into their most coveted target audience, the male population between 18 and 45, but also that the series had been one of the most successful series the network had ever aired. The sickening realization hit upon the dismayed network executives that they had slaughtered the proverbial goose that laid the golden eggs, something that every Star Trek fan at the time could have told them. Hurriedly approaching Roddenberry to see if the series could be revitalized, it turned out to be unfeasible, as Paramount had only a few months earlier cleared out their warehouses from the vast majority of the remaining Star Trek production assets, they either being scrapped, given away or simply stolen. Recreating them, calculated at US$750,000, was deemed far too cost-prohibitive. It did however lead NBC to commission the creation of The Animated Series.
According to the book "Creating the Filmation Generation", Filmation was interested in producing an animated Star Trek series as early as 1969, just after the cancellation of the original series. However, the concept for this series was quite different, being aimed at a younger audience, The Enterprise crew would mentor a new training ship called the Excalibur and would train a group of teenagers. Each of the main Trek characters would have a young protégé, with names such as Steve, Bob, Stick, Chris, Tun-Tun, Stormy and Ploof. Filmation would subsequently use the rejected concept to develop the live action children's series Space Academy.
This was the first Saturday morning animated series by Filmation broadcast by NBC. The network had always refused to buy any cartoons by Filmation previously, but when Star Trek premiered Filmation finally had different shows on all three major networks on at the same time.
On the television network NBC, 22 episodes of The Animated Series were aired between September 1973 and October 1974. Reruns continued on NBC through 1975. The series was produced by the experienced animation house Filmation and the episodes were scripted by professional science fiction and Star Trek writers, including Larry Niven, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and Samuel A. Peeples.
Some of the stories were sequels to episodes from the original series, such as "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (the follow-up to "The Trouble with Tribbles"), "Once Upon a Planet" (a sequel to "Shore Leave"), and "Mudd's Passion" (the follow-up to "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd").
With the exception of Ensign Chekov, all of the regular characters from the original series continued to appear, voiced by the original actors from that series (Chekov was absent to cut down on costs of hiring the voice actors, although Walter Koenig penned an episode of the series,"The Infinite Vulcan"). Dr. McCoy is a full commander, and Nurse Chapel is a full lieutenant. New characters, such as Arex and M'Ress, were also featured. The show was the most expensive animated show on the air at the time, primarily because six "name" actors from Star Trek: The Original Series provided the voices for their characters. Nearly all the aliens and guest characters were voiced by James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett, although some actors reprised their roles from the original series. Leonard Nimoy (Spock) is the only actor to voice his character in every episode of TAS. James Doohan, however, voiced different characters in every episode of the series, but missed only one episode as Montgomery Scott, the episode being "The Slaver Weapon".
Among the returning guest actors (and characters) were Mark Lenard (as Sarek), Roger C. Carmel (as Harry Mudd), and Stanley Adams (as Cyrano Jones). Although the characters Amanda Grayson, Bob Wesley, Kyle, Kor, Koloth and Korax returned in The Animated Series, their voices were provided by the aforementioned voice talents of Majel Barrett and James Doohan.
The show featured a handful of new technologies like the recreation room (later the idea was reused in TNG, where it was known as a holodeck) and the aqua-shuttle. It also features many non-humanoid alien species (and even some alien officers aboard the Enterprise) who could not have been featured within the original series' budget.
With the release of The Animated Series DVD, the studio appears to have changed its stance, and is leaning towards the animated series being part of established Star Trek canon. Previously, The Animated Series was not considered part of established Star Trek canon by Paramount Pictures. References from the series have gradually become more accepted in other Star Trek series, most notably on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise. Gene Roddenberry said that if he had known there would be more live-action Star Trek in the future, the animated series would have been far more logical and "canonable," or he might not have produced the animated series at all.
The series, which lasted two years, could be viewed as the completion of the Enterprise's five-year mission. D.C. Fontana personally views all 22 episodes as year four. StarTrek.com considers the seasons collectively to represent the fifth and final year of the mission.
Gene Roddenberry decided that this animated series was not "canon" (as the live-action series movies are) because he did the series for the money, and he would not have let the writers do some of things they did if he knew Star Trek would return in live-action. However, some of the writers of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) strongly disagree with Roddenberry's opinion in this matter, and in Drawn to the Final Frontier (2006) they state that they regard this series as a legitimate continuation of the original Star Trek (1966) series. They point out, in those interviews, how they incorporated Trek Universe details from Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973) into the Enterprise prequel.
The first recording session for the series took place at Filmation's studios in Reseda, California, and featured the entire cast together. This was the first time the cast had been reunited since the end of the original Star Trek (1966) series. The cast recorded three episodes (Star Trek: The Animated Series: Beyond the Farthest Star (1973), Star Trek: The Animated Series: Yesteryear (1973), Star Trek: The Animated Series: More Tribbles, More Troubles (1973)). After that, the cast would record their lines separately whenever their schedules permitted.
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In 1975, the animated series of Star Trek won a Daytime Emmy Award in the area of "Best Children's Series" for the 1974-1975 television season. Although Star Trek's original series had repeatedly been nominated for Emmys, this was the first such award that the franchise actually won. ("Drawn to the Final Frontier – The Making of Star Trek: The Animated Series", TAS DVD; Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before, p. 57, et al.) This was also the only best-series Emmy ever won by Star Trek. It beat out Captain Kangaroo and The Pink Panther.
Filmation rotoscoped three live action U.S.S. Enterprise shots from the original Star Trek (1966) series to use as stock animation. The shots rotoscoped were the ones where the Enterprise is coming toward camera in orbit (used in most of the original series), the shot where the camera zooms in on the top of the Enterprise (where the bridge is) seen in full on Star Trek: The Cage (1986) and a shot of the Enterprise zooming toward camera which also came from The Cage (1966) and was used rarely as stock footage.
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I once bought a set of the series for my animation fan friend Michelle Klein-Haas. She was astonished at the quality of the series. What's more, I consider this the first Filmation series done with any quality. You ever see the cheesy Archie series? Their animated Fantastic Voyage? Their Batman? Or Will The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down - possibly their worst?
ReplyDeleteWith this one, they had a genuine composer produce the music, instead of the pathetic tinny band they hired from some wedding hall for their other scores. Their animation was also better than the previous Filmation series. What they learned here, they applied later on to their successful syndicated series like the original He-Man and She-Ra. I once did a phone interview with Norm Prescott, who said that the series saved Mattel's Masters of the Universe toy line, because they gave the toy characters personalities and character.
And the descendent of that series, Star Trek Lower Decks, is also exceptional. In its first season it also used actors and characters from ST:TNG. It gently mocked everything that was mockable about Trek, but with respect. And from the mouth of its main character, Beckett Mariner, came the greatest character line in any Trek series or movie anywhere. "Next time, I'm gonna let somebody kill you! I'm going to dance in your blood!"