# Star Trek: The Animated Series (from the 70s) - discuss **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 3, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457 "2003-10-03T22:55:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/21 "2003-10-04T18:53:40Z")
A number of the sounds effects and incidental music, I’d swear, were also used on the _SHAZAM!_ TV series that was running at around the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Atreyu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@Atreyu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atreyu)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/22 "2003-10-04T19:39:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*I have the Animated Series on laserdisc. > > The episodes are numbered 1-11 and 13-23. (Or maybe it was 13-24). Oddly, there is **no episode twelve**.\*\* Having a total lack of familiarity with the animated series, and not being enough of a Trek geek to know such trivia, could someone explain why there is no episode twevle? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/23 "2003-10-04T20:08:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Atreyu \* > \*\*Having a total lack of familiarity with the animated series, and not being enough of a Trek geek to know such trivia, could someone explain why there is no episode twevle? \*\* My guess is that it’s a production error. Originally, the show consisted of 16 episodes with six additional ordered afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/24 "2003-10-05T02:18:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Sorry to get off topic for a second, but you have piqued my interest. > What was the original ending for “Arena”? The original story i quite different altogether. It’s been heavily anthologized (The Bst of Fredric Brown, Science Fiction Terror Tales, Th Science Fiction Hall of Fame, etc.) I highly recommend it. It’ arguably one of the bst SF storis ever. Spoilers. In the original story, our Hero is in a one-man craft fightin against the Outsiders, also in one-man craft. No one has ever seen one. One encounter, out in Deep Space, s interrupted by superior be8ings, and the human Hero finds himself in a circular area covered by a dome. Inside the dome, it’s uncomfortably hot and dry, filled with red sand, a ew plants, rocks, and talking blue izards. He finds that he’d naked, and there’ a large furry orange ball under the Dome. That’s the Outsier. A voice in his head tells him that this uperior Being (none of his “Metrons” stuff) sees the two races fightin a war that will ultimately destroy one race, and mortally cripple the other. In order to give one rce a chance to succeed, the Superior Being will allow one epresentative of each race to fight it out under the dome. Winner take all, the loser’s race will be wiped out. The Orange ball starts rolling toward him then suddenly stops. There’s a force field between them, and they can’t get through. Neither can touch the other. They explore the barrier. It goes across the dome from one sie o the other. It goes p as high s he can reach. He digs into the sand – it goes dow as fa as he a go. A lizard comes by. He tries to catch it, idly. It runs away. The Ousider catches one (with arms that retract into folds in its skin, and pluck off its feet lik a daisy. The Heroi is appalled at its cruelty. The utsider tosses th lizard toward he barrier. It goes through! Hero runs toward the Outsidere, and right into the barrier, which is still there. He knocks himself out. He waks up with a pain in his leg. The Outsider has started throwing rocks. Hero throws rocks at Outsider, and hits him, but doesn’t hurt him. They ach withdraw out of range. Hero takes ushes,breaks off a piece, fins that th tick goes through the barrier, untl his fingers reach it, then it stops. He onstructs a spear, using branches and a rock that he chips to form a barbed head. Using tendrils from the bushes, he plaits a long rope. He figures that if the Outsider ever gets close, he can harpoon it, drag it cloe o the barrier, then tab t to death. They’re there a lonbg time. w long, he can’t tell. Every time he checks, the brrier is still there. The wound on his leg starts to fester – blood poisoning. But he can’t wash it – no water. He goes to sleep, and is awakened by a rock falling nearby. The Outsider has built a catapult, and is launching rocks. Hero kindles a fire, maes fire bombs from dried twigs, and lobs them at the catapult. It catches fire and burns. Outsier starts building a new one. Hero in bad shape. Blood poisoning is sapping wht ittle strength remains. No Food or Water, and it’s very hot. He figures he’ll be dead before the Outsider finishes the new catapult. The lizard coms back, and _talks_ to him. It asks him to come and kill. He follows the lizad, and sees that he other lizard, with the torn-off limbs, is still live. The other lizard is asking him to perform a mercy killing. He does so. Then he realizes that the lizard had crossed the barier _alive_. He had figured that the barrier stopped any living tissue, since rocks and dead lizards could cross it – but this lizard had been alive, only unconscious. The barrier is a barrier to conscious beings. He rawls back to the barrier, stands on the mound he made when he dug down looking or the bottom f the barrier, and hits himself on the head with a big rock. Unconscious, he tumbles into the other side. He wakes up as the Outsider s about to attack him, and throws his spear. He drag the harpooned alien cloe, and kills it. He waks up aboard his craft. Al the alien ships hav inexplicably blown up. Our Hero tried several times to communicate with the Outsider, even using telepathy. It becomes clear tha there is absolutely no common ground, and the wo races are incompatible. In the story, the Sperior Bein evidently obliterated the Outsiders. I suspect this didn’t sit well with Roddenbery. The pacifistic ending has his fingerprints on it. The story was rewritten in other ways, as well, the furry ball Alien becoming the t.Rex-like Gorn. Translators are provided to each side. The action gets more physical, and the denouement revolves around uilding a gun rather than deducing the nature of the barrier. All this makes it easier to film, and visually exciting. But the big change is having Kirk refuse to kill the alien, a clear 180 from the original story. It’s suggsted that tis is just All a Big Misunderstanding. With CGI techniques, and some good scripting, think you could film the story faithfully today, complete with the original ending, and you could do it without the last-resort techniques of voice-overs. ---
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/25 "2003-10-05T03:14:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\* …talking blue izards… \*\* Was his name Eddie? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/26 "2003-10-05T14:01:42Z")
Big-Time M’Ress fan, here. There’s a Yahoo Group, Space Furries, that includes a lot of M’Ress fan art, not all of it porn. (joke, for the humor impaired). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/27 "2003-10-05T14:05:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aesiron \* > \*\*M’Ress is a character in the New Frontier novels, written by Peter David. Hilarious books… totally irreverant. I recommend them highly. > \*\* Which one (ones?) have M’Ress in them? I wanna get 'em used on Amazon, but I don’t wanna try them all. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/28 "2003-10-05T18:52:39Z")
The last couple, starting with the Gateway series (a different set of books). Just be warned… all dozen or so books encompass one storyline so you might be a little lost if you only read the ones with M’Ress in them. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/29 "2003-10-05T19:48:02Z")
Well, since I saw an episode with the Kzin in it, I really didn’t see it as a Star Trek show. I considered it more of a Larry Niven show. At least, that’s my impression. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/30 "2003-10-07T04:32:07Z")
Who would like to see the voice tracks of this series (TOS Trek actors!) used with all new CGI animation and music tracks? \:D ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/31 "2003-10-07T14:02:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Atreyu \* > \*\*Having a total lack of familiarity with the animated series, and not being enough of a Trek geek to know such trivia, could someone explain why there is no episode twevle? \*\* I seem to remember reading somewhere that the writing staff had blocked out an episode which was given production #12 but the script never came together and was scrapped. I enjoyed the show. I vaguely remember watching what were probably reruns of it when I was a kid; I now own the set and I think it’s a fun show. While Paramount’s stance is that it isn’t canon, it might be. Later incarnations of Star Trek make a few references to it – not only the stuff from “Yestserday,” but also the Slaver empire, which might be the early galactic empire which built The Last Outpost (from the eponymous TNG episode and mentioned a couple times thereafter, including in a DS9 ep.). –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/32 "2003-10-07T17:48:32Z")
Do I recall correctly that one episode was a rejected script for TOS? ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/33 "2003-10-07T18:36:47Z")
After many attempts, I finally obtained a copy of “The Slaver Weapon” to watch, since I’m a huge Larry Niven fan and I thought “The Soft Weapon” was a great story. And “The Slaver Weapon” was a decently faithful recreation of the story … but criminy, it was hilariously goofy. Kzinti are supposed to be fierce and scary, but that’s kind of a hard image to maintain when their voices are a cross between Lisa Simpson and Urkel. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/34 "2003-10-08T02:10:47Z")
Well … at least the Kzinti didn’t have the voice of Henrietta Pussycat. “M-meow-m-diruptors!” ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/35 "2003-10-08T05:19:38Z")
**CalMeacham** : You seem very knowledgable on this topic, but boy, you need to clean out that keyboard of yours! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/36 "2003-10-08T11:23:39Z")
> [@](#): > > CalMeacham: You seem very knowledgable on this topic, but boy, you need to clean out that keyboard of yours! Whhy dooo you smayk tyhat?/ ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/37 "2003-10-08T13:58:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*A number of the sounds effects and incidental music, I’d swear, were also used on the _SHAZAM!_ TV series that was running at around the same time. \*\* Filmation re-used music and effects all the time. It saved money and helped give a distinctive stamp to their cartoons. Frankly, I miss those sound effects. It’s been years since a cartoon included a nice ‘muh-Woook-uhm’ sound. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/38 "2003-10-08T14:10:21Z")
I ran across a bunch of episodes fairly recently and enjoyed them. They were certainly better than I was expecting. Anybody who can enjoy Adult Swim probably won’t have too much of a problem with the shoddy animation. 😉 Besides that the writing struck me as being roughly on par with TOS (although I only watched a few), or at least close enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/39 "2003-10-08T14:30:29Z")
The YESTERYEAR episode was a great Spock story and added a lot to his development, and it was always great hearing Mark Lenard, possessor of The Most Beautiful Voice in the Universe. Majel Barrett tried with Jane Wyatt’s patrician lockjaw accent as Amanda but ended up sounding like Kathleen Turner 😉 JIHAD was pretty good; MORE TRIBBLES, MORE TROUBLES was a hoot like THE PRACTICAL JOKER, and THE LORELEI SIGNAL was nice for us women. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457/40 "2003-10-08T19:58:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aesiron \* > The last couple, starting with the Gateway series (a different set of books). Just be warned… all dozen or so books encompass one storyline so you might be a little lost if you only read the ones with M’Ress in them. Well, you could start from **Cold Wars** (the New Frontier/Gateway crossover), then read **Excalibur: Restoration** (New Frontier #11) and continue on down. **Restoration** is not a perfect jumping-on point for new readers of the _New Frontier_ series, but it’s not hopeless for newbies, either. And it should be noted that M’Ress was not the only animated _Trek_ character that’s now in the _NF_ books – Peter David also grabbed Lt. Arex, the three-limbed alien, and has made him a security chief. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-animated-series-from-the-70s-discuss/205457.md?page=3)