It's true, the Animated Star Trek doesn't get enough credit for its cast playing it straight (sorry), having real decently written scripts, and world-building that arguably rivaled what passed for live action Star Trek sets. It has earned being official canon.
I'm sorry, no wait, I'm not sorry! But I feel that the Animated series IS officially canon. It starred the original cast ( minus Chekov), or at least their voices, and it was created by the creator of the original series, Gene Roddenberry. Plus references from the animated series have since been made canon in live action Star Trek series.
There was a lovely Star Trek Novel "Final Frontier" with Robert April as a prequel to Pike and Kirk by Diane Carey put out in 1988. Absolutely loved it. For myself I do think of this animated series as Star Trek canon and the fourth season as others have put it.
I absolutely adore FINAL FRONTIER. Fun fact: Diane Carey lived and worked in the Flint area, which is where I'm from, so I've gotten to meet her a few times. Wonder what she's up to? Thanks for watching!
That's awesome about Diana Carey. Also, love your handle - 2nd or 9th Dr. reference?@@emperordalek Speaking of great writers I still think of DC Fontana and the canceled Star Trek Game she had penned the story for - Vulcan's Fury or something like that - lines had even been recorded by the original cast which sadly has been lost. :(
@@JoelEverettComposer whenever I think there should’ve been a Star Trek animated series that should’ve been made in the 2000s I think it should’ve been made by Steve Marmel (the former developer of Danny Phantom) i’m saying it should’ve been made by the same guys that did Danny Phantom.
If I was the person to determine what Star Trek is canon, I would count the Animated series as the fourth season of the original series, and Star Trek Continues as the 5th and final season of the original series.
My buddies and I considered this series a real homerun back when it came out but unfortunately they never showed it in reruns in our neck of the woods, so we only had shot at each episode, other than if they did a winter or summer rerun that same year. We never doubted it was canon. It was the 4th or 5th year of the 5 year mission as far as we were concerned. The records and Dell comics (and later DC) were more iffy. But only in as much as it either was an alternate universe tale or not, but definitely was "real".
Always loved this from Day 1. While they cheaped out on the animation, it has the original actors doing the voices and they have a bag full of new stories! The stories make it so worth putting up with cheap animation. And some of the line delivery is just hilarious.
I was in my teens when I read and loved Larry Niven's Ring World, and when The Slaver Weapon first aired I freaked out. I didn't as a teenager notice it was the same author. But Kinzinti and Slaver weapons WOW. It was a mashup of two of my best loved science fiction storylines.
As the co-author and designer of the official guide to the animated series… It is canon. TAS was never not canon. There were times when Paramount didn’t want writers to use TAS characters because Filmation was dissolving and Larry Niven Was discussing doing an RPG with his known space characters, the ones that he used for The Slaver Weapon”-They preferred to not end up having to settle rights issues in court, even though they would win. Gene also had his lawyer whispering in his ear that no one would take him seriously if he was connected with a cartoon. Ironic since that lawyer also got paid about $1,500 1973 dollars per episode. But Gene could even say Spock wasn’t cannon and it really wouldn’t matter because he wasn’t who decided what was Canon. So that’s the long way of saying it was just convenient for them not to mention TAS for a chunk of time. As soon all the assets of Filmation were settled TAS references started popping back up. And on the official Picard podcast in February of 2020 Akiva Goldsman reiterated TAS was canon.
Great animated show in my boyhood ahead of it's time like Starlost,Ark 2, Return to the planet of the apes,Space 1999,,Gemini man,Far out Space Nuts,Space Acedemy,Time express,Salvage One, Quark,Future Cop,Holmes and Yo-Yo
Wow, you keep giving me stuff I need to watch, don't you? I haven't though about FAR OUT SPACE NUTS in years! As for the rest, I don't recognize some of these... Are some of them from the UK?
Great Galaxies! I was hoping you'd cover this series as I loved it in re-runs! Yesteryear is a personal favourite of mine, and it made me appreciate Spock as a character even more. Time Trap is another favourite of mine, and it's nice to see a positive review of this episode for once. Again, I agree with your rating, and it's nice to hear some more positive things about this take on Trek. Groovy! BTW, it would be great to see you tackling the animated Planet of the Apes tv series or even the Muhammad Ali animated series too.
I'd definitely be up for doing the PLANET OF THE APES series, though I have to admit I barely remember the Muhammad Ali one. I'll look into both. Thanks for the feedback!
I'd be all for a remastered version. Nothing wrong with fixing the obvious mistakes (Like the look and voice of the Guardian, the grey Andorian, all those pink tribbles, etc.).
I remember how geared I was to watch this when it first came out. It is wildly uneven, but it really did produce some amazing episodes (particularly Yesteryear.) The idea that it is not canon is ludicrous because it involved so many of the people that made TOS work. And its legacy has leached into the rest of the canon as well.
For what its worth, I am one of five people for whom ST:TMP is not only their favorite Star Trek movie, but one of their favorite sci-fi films ever. That said, Star Trek has been bled so dry as to be completely meaningless. The first film and the animated series were more a continuation of the original series, so in my opinion they both hold up much better.
I'd agree to disagree with you only insofar as I love TNG and DS9, and I also love LOWER DECKS and STRANGE NEW WORLDS. But yeah, I may make a LOT of fun of it, but that first ST holds a very special place in my heart, and it certainly has an almost hard SF quality to it that nothing else in the series compares to. Unfortunately, that also means about seven minutes' worth of starship pron at the beginning, but we can't have everything. :)
27:45 I watched that episode just yesterday. Gotta say I didn't know it when I saw it😅. Is this a forest-for-the-trees thing where it's actually the whole episode that's a standout? Other than being good I don't remember remarking anything out of the ordinary for those 60s-70s cartoon shows. am i dumb
Shatner had contempt for the animated series. It was reported he would record his lines while he was on location on other projects while sitting on the toilet.
@@rodneyhext8870 It does grow on you, doesn't it? It's been better when you hear an actual orchestra playing it - there's a recording like that floating somewhere around here on RUclips.
I don't pretend to understand the particulars of what bizarre set of determining qualifiers are required before some particular facet of the ST universe may be rightfully deemed as "canon" or not -- but this animated version of ST holds a significant degree of "worthiness" in MY universe. Canonical versus non-canonical extremism -- and people so obsessed with being "right"; the whole thing borders on the ridiculous. There's just way too much judgement - and too much "clipping and snipping" for my personal taste.
I tend to agree with you, and as a lifelong DOCTOR WHO fan, I'm a big proponent of considering something as "canon" as you choose and then ignoring other bits as you wish. (Hell, some people love doing that with the Book of Leviticus...) This show I definitely see as canon, while I have my...difficulties with DISCOVERY sometimes - and yet I love STRANGE NEW WORLDS, PRODIGY, and even LOWER DECKS, which probably should NOT be canon but why not? :)
@@emperordalek as the co-author/designer of Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series I can say with some authority it was never not canon! Urban legend and misunderstanding of internal memos (related to Filmation closing and Larry Niven wanting to start an RPG with Kzinti) lead people to believe it was. And the 'But Gene said..." yeah he also said Star Trek 2 & 3 weren't canon--but canon (at least in Star Trek) is 'What we see on screen in TV and movies' and even Gene couldn't change that.
I was 10 years old and went in hospital for a range of tests in 1973. I took my Alan Dean Foster and James Blish novelisations, and my trusty Viewmaster with Mister Spock's Time Trek aka Yesteryear. They got me through the scary hospital, especially young Spock who was so brave in spite of his fears and having to put his pet Ichaya to sleep. :'( Thanks to Leonard Nimoy and Trek for helping little me through! Regarding The Slaver Weapon, I wonder if the police web was a reference to Jack Webb and Dragnet? About Bem, I didn't think it was that bad. I liked the twist in Bem's story arc at the end, and loved Nichols as an advanced alien "goddess". Much as I hate the Megas-Tu episode, Lucien really reminds me of Q. And most interesting about How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth was that the author Russel Bates was a Native American of the Kiowa Nation. It's odd that this sort of misrepresentation still shows up. That said, I love Ensign Walking Bear.
I love TOS/TAS except when I hear the word "canon." I also like "The Andy Griffith Show," but Lord knows I don't obsess over whether Sheriff Taylor's introductory appearance in "The Danny Thomas Show" should be regarded as canonical within "The Andy Griffith Show" universe.
Cannon Shmannon...As the consumers of the Star Trek product line, we decide individually what is and is not cannon. Despite it's minimal animation style (a signature of low budget television cartoons of the time) I quite enjoy this show, and like any Star Trek series, some episodes seem cannonical wihile others are decidedly not (James H Kirk, I'm talking to you.). The above example of non-cannon is from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - absolutely a cannonical episode otherwise. So I say, who cares what a bunch of people I've never met think, I'll decide what belongs in MY Star Trek mythos and what gets rejected (Picard & Discovery, with Voyager teetering on the periphery*). * It IS cannon that a ship named Voyager got thrown into the Delta quadrant and made its way home thanks to Reg Barclay, but nothing that takes place in between those events is cannon in my mind, because no other Star Trek series has an auto-regenerative ship that self-repairs between episodes.
Well,-------------- Jesesm Crow.---------- We knew the people that were going to animate this thing was not going to be Disney or Warner Bros. Rockey and Bulwinkle. Hell, Even Hanna Barbara does a better job of animation. But at least ST got two more seasons, and a new generation got turned on to it. So, I say a WIN/WIN!!!
compared to what is out there now, this was good. This series even took itself seriously as well. I find that the show Lower Decks is very loud and obnoxious and cheapens Star Trek. This cartoon could have been better if this was taken to live action even.
The fact you chose DISCO as your 70's theme is beyond maddening. All Disco did was turn good ol' old school partying with friends into a cesspool of drug saturated low to zero inhibition gaggle people, for who the motto was, "Screw the book, the only part that matters is the cover.". All disco did was take the air out of the organic trend the 70's was on, and led us into the 80's era of, "Let's kick off Mission of embedding, "Greed is Good" into the ether of how America does things, ideally, via Large Corporations and the little guys they suck up into their machine of making the rich richer, and the rest out are there just for the plucking as a gift from Louie Cypher himself. To say, Star Trek TAS was described by TV Guide at the time as "A Mercedes Benz in a Pine Wood Derby" that was the rest of animated for kids programming for the era (read as, the now long gone Saturday morning kids programming).
It's true, the Animated Star Trek doesn't get enough credit for its cast playing it straight (sorry), having real decently written scripts, and world-building that arguably rivaled what passed for live action Star Trek sets. It has earned being official canon.
Agreed! And don't worry, that usage of "straight" is utterly non-controversial to me. :)
I'm sorry, no wait, I'm not sorry! But I feel that the Animated series IS officially canon. It starred the original cast ( minus Chekov), or at least their voices, and it was created by the creator of the original series, Gene Roddenberry. Plus references from the animated series have since been made canon in live action Star Trek series.
There was a lovely Star Trek Novel "Final Frontier" with Robert April as a prequel to Pike and Kirk by Diane Carey put out in 1988. Absolutely loved it. For myself I do think of this animated series as Star Trek canon and the fourth season as others have put it.
I absolutely adore FINAL FRONTIER. Fun fact: Diane Carey lived and worked in the Flint area, which is where I'm from, so I've gotten to meet her a few times. Wonder what she's up to?
Thanks for watching!
That's awesome about Diana Carey. Also, love your handle - 2nd or 9th Dr. reference?@@emperordalek Speaking of great writers I still think of DC Fontana and the canceled Star Trek Game she had penned the story for - Vulcan's Fury or something like that - lines had even been recorded by the original cast which sadly has been lost. :(
@@JoelEverettComposer whenever I think there should’ve been a Star Trek animated series that should’ve been made in the 2000s I think it should’ve been made by Steve Marmel (the former developer of Danny Phantom) i’m saying it should’ve been made by the same guys that did Danny Phantom.
If I was the person to determine what Star Trek is canon, I would count the Animated series as the fourth season of the original series, and Star Trek Continues as the 5th and final season of the original series.
Tos Continues is fantastic 🖖
My buddies and I considered this series a real homerun back when it came out but unfortunately they never showed it in reruns in our neck of the woods, so we only had shot at each episode, other than if they did a winter or summer rerun that same year. We never doubted it was canon. It was the 4th or 5th year of the 5 year mission as far as we were concerned. The records and Dell comics (and later DC) were more iffy. But only in as much as it either was an alternate universe tale or not, but definitely was "real".
Always loved this from Day 1. While they cheaped out on the animation, it has the original actors doing the voices and they have a bag full of new stories! The stories make it so worth putting up with cheap animation. And some of the line delivery is just hilarious.
I was in my teens when I read and loved Larry Niven's Ring World, and when The Slaver Weapon first aired I freaked out. I didn't as a teenager notice it was the same author. But Kinzinti and Slaver weapons WOW.
It was a mashup of two of my best loved science fiction storylines.
I agree. I met Larry Niven at a book signing, and he became my " pen pal" (this was before the internet) and writing mentor.
As the co-author and designer of the official guide to the animated series… It is canon.
TAS was never not canon. There were times when Paramount didn’t want writers to use TAS characters because Filmation was dissolving and Larry Niven Was discussing doing an RPG with his known space characters, the ones that he used for The Slaver Weapon”-They preferred to not end up having to settle rights issues in court, even though they would win. Gene also had his lawyer whispering in his ear that no one would take him seriously if he was connected with a cartoon. Ironic since that lawyer also got paid about $1,500 1973 dollars per episode. But Gene could even say Spock wasn’t cannon and it really wouldn’t matter because he wasn’t who decided what was Canon.
So that’s the long way of saying it was just convenient for them not to mention TAS for a chunk of time. As soon all the assets of Filmation were settled TAS references started popping back up.
And on the official Picard podcast in February of 2020 Akiva Goldsman reiterated TAS was canon.
Always knew the first episode of Star trek aired on my 3rd birthday but never knew this first aired on my 10th, cool. Loved this when it came out.
Great animated show in my boyhood ahead of it's time like Starlost,Ark 2, Return to the planet of the apes,Space 1999,,Gemini man,Far out Space Nuts,Space Acedemy,Time express,Salvage One, Quark,Future Cop,Holmes and Yo-Yo
Wow, you keep giving me stuff I need to watch, don't you? I haven't though about FAR OUT SPACE NUTS in years! As for the rest, I don't recognize some of these... Are some of them from the UK?
I agree with most of that. Especially Ark II and Space:1999.
You forgot to add Jason of Star Command.
I've never seen this series. This was fascinating. Here in the UK I don't think it was available, not on mainstream TV.Thanks for your review.
Thank you for the feedback! I hear the launch of Paramount+ UK is delayed, but once it launches, you should be able to see it there for sure.
Yeah it was available they showed it because I saw it as a child
It was broadcast around September 1974
Great Galaxies! I was hoping you'd cover this series as I loved it in re-runs! Yesteryear is a personal favourite of mine, and it made me appreciate Spock as a character even more. Time Trap is another favourite of mine, and it's nice to see a positive review of this episode for once. Again, I agree with your rating, and it's nice to hear some more positive things about this take on Trek. Groovy! BTW, it would be great to see you tackling the animated Planet of the Apes tv series or even the Muhammad Ali animated series too.
I'd definitely be up for doing the PLANET OF THE APES series, though I have to admit I barely remember the Muhammad Ali one. I'll look into both. Thanks for the feedback!
I've seen both seasons of Star Trek TAS and it was really good. There is more you can do in animation then in live action.
I'd be all for a remastered version. Nothing wrong with fixing the obvious mistakes (Like the look and voice of the Guardian, the grey Andorian, all those pink tribbles, etc.).
This is awesome!!! thank u. VERY interesting.
Those 8track tape days 1973-74
Tell me the kid who taunts Spock doesn't sound exactly like Bender.
I remember how geared I was to watch this when it first came out. It is wildly uneven, but it really did produce some amazing episodes (particularly Yesteryear.) The idea that it is not canon is ludicrous because it involved so many of the people that made TOS work. And its legacy has leached into the rest of the canon as well.
HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH, is one of my favorites. Along with the Practical Joker.
For what its worth, I am one of five people for whom ST:TMP is not only their favorite Star Trek movie, but one of their favorite sci-fi films ever.
That said, Star Trek has been bled so dry as to be completely meaningless. The first film and the animated series were more a continuation of the original series, so in my opinion they both hold up much better.
I'd agree to disagree with you only insofar as I love TNG and DS9, and I also love LOWER DECKS and STRANGE NEW WORLDS. But yeah, I may make a LOT of fun of it, but that first ST holds a very special place in my heart, and it certainly has an almost hard SF quality to it that nothing else in the series compares to. Unfortunately, that also means about seven minutes' worth of starship pron at the beginning, but we can't have everything. :)
Totally awesome.
I liked almost every episode of STTAS
27:45 I watched that episode just yesterday. Gotta say I didn't know it when I saw it😅. Is this a forest-for-the-trees thing where it's actually the whole episode that's a standout? Other than being good I don't remember remarking anything out of the ordinary for those 60s-70s cartoon shows.
am i dumb
Unfortunately I was old enough to remember the cartoon series when it came out 😂
Shatner had contempt for the animated series. It was reported he would record his lines while he was on location on other projects while sitting on the toilet.
I watched it as a kid & I think the theme music is better than the original series theme.
@@rodneyhext8870 It does grow on you, doesn't it? It's been better when you hear an actual orchestra playing it - there's a recording like that floating somewhere around here on RUclips.
I like the infant Volcan. Lol
Yes he's cute.
I don't pretend to understand the particulars of what bizarre set of determining qualifiers are required before some particular facet of the ST universe may be rightfully deemed as "canon" or not -- but this animated version of ST holds a significant degree of "worthiness" in MY universe. Canonical versus non-canonical extremism -- and people so obsessed with being "right"; the whole thing borders on the ridiculous. There's just way too much judgement - and too much "clipping and snipping" for my personal taste.
I tend to agree with you, and as a lifelong DOCTOR WHO fan, I'm a big proponent of considering something as "canon" as you choose and then ignoring other bits as you wish. (Hell, some people love doing that with the Book of Leviticus...) This show I definitely see as canon, while I have my...difficulties with DISCOVERY sometimes - and yet I love STRANGE NEW WORLDS, PRODIGY, and even LOWER DECKS, which probably should NOT be canon but why not? :)
@@emperordalek as the co-author/designer of Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series I can say with some authority it was never not canon! Urban legend and misunderstanding of internal memos (related to Filmation closing and Larry Niven wanting to start an RPG with Kzinti) lead people to believe it was. And the 'But Gene said..." yeah he also said Star Trek 2 & 3 weren't canon--but canon (at least in Star Trek) is 'What we see on screen in TV and movies' and even Gene couldn't change that.
@@GeekFilter A fantastic book, have it in my collection, lots of information, hope it was a good seller,
I was 10 years old and went in hospital for a range of tests in 1973. I took my Alan Dean Foster and James Blish novelisations, and my trusty Viewmaster with Mister Spock's Time Trek aka Yesteryear. They got me through the scary hospital, especially young Spock who was so brave in spite of his fears and having to put his pet Ichaya to sleep. :'( Thanks to Leonard Nimoy and Trek for helping little me through!
Regarding The Slaver Weapon, I wonder if the police web was a reference to Jack Webb and Dragnet?
About Bem, I didn't think it was that bad. I liked the twist in Bem's story arc at the end, and loved Nichols as an advanced alien "goddess".
Much as I hate the Megas-Tu episode, Lucien really reminds me of Q.
And most interesting about How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth was that the author Russel Bates was a Native American of the Kiowa Nation. It's odd that this sort of misrepresentation still shows up. That said, I love Ensign Walking Bear.
It's my understanding from many sources that Roddenberry was a bit of a pain in the ass about lots of stuff.
I love TOS/TAS except when I hear the word "canon." I also like "The Andy Griffith Show," but Lord knows I don't obsess over whether Sheriff Taylor's introductory appearance in "The Danny Thomas Show" should be regarded as canonical within "The Andy Griffith Show" universe.
I had that book and record set!
I never liked how the saucer section of the enterprise was rectangular in the animated series. ;)
To those who say the animated series isn't canon, I have one word. Tiberias!
Cannon Shmannon...As the consumers of the Star Trek product line, we decide individually what is and is not cannon. Despite it's minimal animation style (a signature of low budget television cartoons of the time) I quite enjoy this show, and like any Star Trek series, some episodes seem cannonical wihile others are decidedly not (James H Kirk, I'm talking to you.).
The above example of non-cannon is from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - absolutely a cannonical episode otherwise. So I say, who cares what a bunch of people I've never met think, I'll decide what belongs in MY Star Trek mythos and what gets rejected (Picard & Discovery, with Voyager teetering on the periphery*).
* It IS cannon that a ship named Voyager got thrown into the Delta quadrant and made its way home thanks to Reg Barclay, but nothing that takes place in between those events is cannon in my mind, because no other Star Trek series has an auto-regenerative ship that self-repairs between episodes.
Well,-------------- Jesesm Crow.---------- We knew the people that were going to animate this thing was not going to be Disney or Warner Bros. Rockey and Bulwinkle. Hell, Even Hanna Barbara does a better job of animation. But at least ST got two more seasons, and a new generation got turned on to it. So, I say a WIN/WIN!!!
compared to what is out there now, this was good. This series even took itself seriously as well. I find that the show Lower Decks is very loud and obnoxious and cheapens Star Trek. This cartoon could have been better if this was taken to live action even.
The fact you chose DISCO as your 70's theme is beyond maddening. All Disco did was turn good ol' old school partying with friends into a cesspool of drug saturated low to zero inhibition gaggle people, for who the motto was, "Screw the book, the only part that matters is the cover.". All disco did was take the air out of the organic trend the 70's was on, and led us into the 80's era of, "Let's kick off Mission of embedding, "Greed is Good" into the ether of how America does things, ideally, via Large Corporations and the little guys they suck up into their machine of making the rich richer, and the rest out are there just for the plucking as a gift from Louie Cypher himself.
To say, Star Trek TAS was described by TV Guide at the time as "A Mercedes Benz in a Pine Wood Derby" that was the rest of animated for kids programming for the era (read as, the now long gone Saturday morning kids programming).
Roddenberry was a hypocrite and not a very nice person.
Do
Soap😂
don't be so woke
Don't be such a stereotype. Or such a dink, doofus, or dillweed.
What?
Canon?