I just watched the wedding episode of I Dream of Jeannie from December 2nd 1969, and as an excuse for Jeannie destroying cameras (because genies don’t show up on film) they blame an “anti-photo phaser”. While it doesn’t mention Star Trek directly it is obvious a reference to it. So what are other very early examples of references to Trek showing up in popular culture?
‘68, in BEWITCHED: li’l Tabitha makes a toy spaceship fly around, and gets told she’s better at it than Spock…
“Better than Dr. Spock”!
Right, because it’s Aunt Clara, who gets stuff not quite right. But AFAICT, the idea is, the line wouldn’t click at all if the audience doesn’t get the ‘Star Trek’ reference to Spock — and, from there, you can make it more entertaining by having her flub the Doctor/Mister bit — but you need that cake before you can put the icing on it.
True. Clearly it was expected that the audience would know what the right answer was.
Note Elizabeth Montgomery when playing her near-identical cousin Serena was credited as Pandora Spocks.
It’s not what the thread is really looking for, but my first notice of Star Trek was in famous Monsters of Filmland #27 (March 1964). The cover article “New Fears” reported on an upcoming new TV show to be called “Star Trek”. No further details were given.
The show premiered on September 8, 1966, two and a half years later. Although there were images from the show publicizing it months earlier.
And those damn early promo photos were everywhere! The face images of Kirk and Spock seen here were used by lazy layout people for decades.
here is an Estes Rockets ad from 1975, ten years later, and K&S are still in their WNMHGB unis.
PS don’t you just love the rocket exhaust in the promo poster, especially coming out of the shuttlecraft bay!
Yep. The rocket exhaust from the nacelles was just as bad. The poster was obviously made by people who either didn’t understand the series, or else thought that people needed to see flames shooting out the back or they wouldn’t know it was supposed to be a space ship.
On the other hand, you almost NEVER see rocket flames shooting out of a flying saucer! Give people credit for SOME intelligence!
Would rocket exhaust out of a flying saucer look like this?
At least in the Estes rocket image the ships just have “speed lines”.
Of course, the Estes ones really would have flames coming out of the back somewhere. I wonder where they put the engine, and how they balanced it. I don’t think it’d be possible, on a cheap toy rocket, to put multiple engines side-by-side in anything resembling a controlled manner.
Pandora Spocks was a pun on “Pandora’s Box” and was first used by Elizabeth Montgomery in an episode in January 1966. Star Trek didn’t premiere until September 1966.
They never put it in the pictures, but there was a “carrier rocket” for the Enterprise, the Klingon, the X-wing, the TIE fighter. Basically, the TV/movie ship was a payload. The central tube through the lower saucer section is the “impulse engine” 
I do think, though, R2D2 flew on his own. He’s almost aerodynamic and inherently balanced.