Gene Roddenberry DROVE THE CENSORS CRAZY With This Decision!
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- I like to call this particular incident, "Roddenberry’s Last Laugh" because he definitely got it. Here are the details about some of the censorship issues that the classic TV show "Star Trek" had to deal with as well as the fun way that Gene Roddenberry struck back.
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This video is not intended for children under the age of 14. Quite frankly, kids...I'm just some random old dude talking about nostalgic TV and movie stuff from a really long time ago and I highly doubt that it is going to interest you.
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Goldie Hawn on Laugh In broke the belly button rule. It was such a huge hit that the censors backed down.
What gets me, is, the incredibly high amount of commercial ads on tv that would be rejected by the censors and sponsors from 'the golden rage' of tv. an aside, The librarian in the highlighted episode was aptly named- something id not realized for half a century, until seeing it with captioning. Mr AtoZ.
Roddenberry stands far above other 60's producer-directors.
The biggest mystery about this episode is - why did she choose to wear such skimpy clothes when she was stranded in an ice age?
Good question!
Because if she had not, this video would have no purpose.🤗
Have you ever tried to tan hides as was done back in the day?
I hear hot flashes can be tough for a woman at a certain time in her life.
A strain on resources wich could affect the amount of functionally available materials, hence the skimpy wardrobe. But not a strain on appreciative eyes, such as Spocks. PURE ENERGY!
Gene Roddenberry on Star Trek he certainly pushed many boundaries to the limit. The 60's were certainly a time of change especially for Star Trek. The women that were part of the Enterprise wore short dresses because that's what was taking place in the 60's. The TV Series was just keeping up with the times. The interracial kiss between William Shatner and Barbara Nichols no doubt sent shockwaves through out TV Land. That was marking a change of what was to come later. Now in shows and movies you see interracial couples holding hands and kissing. Back in the 60's that sort of thing was unheard of.
joe gongora: NICHELLE Nichols!
Barbara Nichols was a different actress
@@mikegrossberg8624 Ok...Thanks for pointing that out!!!
@@joegongora2200 Considering the subject matter, i think Barbara Eden in her Genie costume was lurking in your mind while typing that😃
@@Ifyernotawakeyet of course you have a point with Barbara Eden not only was she stunning in that Genie outfit, but to others she was their favorite Blonde. She certainly was mine. That showed that things were changing with TV shows.
Southern states freaked out and most tv stations refused to show it.
Star Trek was my first look at Mariette
Hartley💗
Fun trivia:
The first Star Trek episode was about a McCoy love interest. The last two were love interests of Spock and Kirk.
With Scotty striking out in various ways all in between
Wasn't the first episode the full episode with Captain Pike?
@@charleshodgdon6168 the first episode broadcast was "The Man Trap" about the salt vampire, shape shifter. which did feature McCoy's old flame who the shape shifter appeared as.....
@@alpha-omega2362 my fault. I was thinking of The Cage which was the pilot episode. First episode made. Nearly completely different crew other than Spock and Majel Barrett who played a different character. The Cage was later broken up and turned into the double episode The Menagerie.
I fancy myself a bit of an "pop culture historian" too and this is one fact I was not aware of. Roddenberry was indeed a visionary and we've not seen his like on TV since. BTw, Dave I know you are a fan of the 70s Logans Run show, and I wanted to mention that it's running for free on Tubi right now. Thanks!
I think a lot of the public didn’t mind Kirk and uhruhu kissing because she was considered very attractive even by white people standards. And there’s a strange double standard back then wear a black man in a white woman was offensive but a white man and a black woman was somewhat less offensive
We need more sensors - and I'm no prude!!
😀
Don't you mean censors?
Great info - didn’t know that history of the censor ban. One might also suspect that “All Our Yesterdays” was another kind of revenge by Roddenberry and writer Fontana against Harlan Ellison - Ellison having badmouthed them for doing a necessary and masterful rewrite of his original “City on the Edge of Forever” script. Based on what Producer Bob Justman says, “All our Yesterdays” was likely ghost- written by Fontana and not the author of record Jean Lisette Aroeste - while not a direct rewrite “Yesterdays” borrows similar plot and romantic points from “City”.
Good job Dave!
Thanks Edward!
Many TV stations in the South refused to air "Plato's Stepchildren" (the episode with the interracial kiss).
I've thought of Mariette Hartley as "The Double Belly Button Lady" since I was a little girl.
What??? No mention of Wink of an Eye where Kirk and Deela are in his bedroom after getting handsy, and we cut back later and Kirk is putting his boots back on? Gene sure snuck that one by the censors.
You’re right!
Another thing you were not supposed to see back then were restrooms. I never saw a sign on any door on the Enterprise to indicate that it led to a restroom. Where did the crew go, pun intended, then they needed to relieve themselves? Later, when bathrooms were allowed to be filmed, no toilet was ever shown.
I, too, always thought that Lyra-a's two navels were an in-joke and/or a double-barreled shot at somebody.
The no-navel rule seemed to apply depending on the actress's stature. Newcomer Diana Ewing was allowed to expose hers quite clearly in "The Cloud Minders" (filmed 11/1968, aired 2/1969) -- along with a lot of midriff, but Lee Meriwether had to wear a flap in "That Which Survives." The censors didn't seem to mind with Nichelle Nichols or Nancy Kovacs, but Sherry Jackson and Angelique Pettyjohn had to cover up. Jackson's costume (filmed 7/1966, aired 10/1966) in particular was quite revealing in other respects. Anne Francis was able to expose her navel, albeit in black and white, on "Honey West" earlier in 1966.
Boy, how things have changed! Those days are definitely gone forever. My teenage daughter’s favourite show is the Waltons, and one of my teenage son’s favourite comedy is The Beverly Hillbillies. And that makes me so proud.
They sound like great teenagers!
You are great!!!
People all around the world would have to follow the behavior from Star Trek, a majestic lesson from Gene Roddenberry (a quiet appreciation would be welcomed). Never forget he is looking us from above, literally!
Cartoonist Mort Walker of Bertle Bailey fame got fed up with censors and once drew an open crate of navel oranges.
🗣Live long and prosper Dave, I couldn't help myself.🖖🏼👩
Love it!
Belly button = reverse sphincter. Censors logic?
Something about Mariette Hartley just rings my bell. She looks so familiar for some reason, even back in the 60's when I was a kid. Okay, I had a crush on her, but she was special. I don't know what it was, but she was a standout. It was pretty funny that she has two belly buttons in Genesis II. Such a silly thing to censor.
On Long Island, in the early 70's, I took my girlfriend roller skating and we were told to leave because her belly button was showing.
That's just plain nutty.
Not quite. Gene was barely involved with the show in Season 3. If anyone drove the censors crazy, it was Freddy Freiberger. Although even that's not really true, since if the censors had been upset, they wouldn't have allowed it. I think we just wish they were upset.
Thanks for sharing...and, yes, it's always fun to upset the censors.
All Our Yesterdays was a decidedly exceptional episode of Star Trek, it showed the world the contemplative, sensitive and very human side of science fiction. Marietta Hartley’s natural beauty was the perfect backdrop to the very real plot, mirroring life and death itself.
I've raved about it on other sites so this is the calm version: the producers of the 2009 STAR TREK reboot film...GOOFED! The LEONARD NIMOY Spock was trapped in the past where he met his younger self, played by Zachary Quinto! A cute scene in an "okay" reboot! I would have preferred that if Spock had found himself stranded in the past, it would be on ZARABETH's planet, where she and Spock would have lived happily ever after! That ending would have blown the rooves off movie theaters around the world and the film would be seen as a classic today! But nope, they missed that opportunity!
The scene where Hartley shows two navels was repeated dozens of times in promos leading up to the the showing of the movie. I can remember people talking about that even before the movie came on.
Laughably, it wasn't just belly buttons, married couples like Ricky and Lucy slept in separate beds; how did little Ricky happen? Bathrooms also were taboo. Even in the Brady Bunch where the boys and girls shared a single bathroom, there was no commode shown.
Well...you can still make babies even if you do sleep in separate beds. 🙂
@@jdsundstrom I was just wondering since they both slept in separate twin beds, what did Ricky do, bend her over the kitchen table? The bottom line is even as far back as the '50s and '60s, babies were made the same way, so why subliminally suggest that the practice doesn't occur?
Roddenberry was quite open in the 1970s about why he had given her two belly buttons and yes it was because of the generic belly button ban.
I love this stuff ☠🏴☠️
I hope Gene's vision of the future comes true one day.
The 2 novels based on this episode were pretty good, as well.
As Mr Spock would say: Censorship.. a very logical concept when done with reasonable limits as to not restrict one's freedom. 🙂
Roddenberry never forgets! 😄
So very true!
How was the censor like a warship?
He was a navel destroyer.
😂🤣😀
Buh dump bump. Chhhhhh.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mariette Hartley several times. I worked at a flight school with her soon-to-be ex-husband. She was always as sweet, kind, gracious and classy as you could hope for. Very genuine and down to Earth as well. No Hollywood ego.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing, acefox1!
Ex-husband? Why would any man want to do anything to her that would end your partnership. I would never want to hurt a woman like that to make her want to leave me.
@@marksauck8481 yeah it was quite a mess. I was ringside for the whole end of the marriage, I was well acquainted with the three folks involved and it was pretty depressing. MH deserved far better. Their kids were all high school and college aged, pretty nice people and didn’t deserve to go through that soap opera. If it makes anyone feel better her husband significantly downgraded IMHO. Hopefully MH’s life was happier afterwards.
I am going to assume the ex-husband was NOT James Garner. So many people thought they were married because of their great chemistry in all the Polaroid commercials they did together in the 70s and 80s. Mariette had a t-shirt made that said, "I am not Mrs. James Garner."
Uhura's muscled belly was badass in "Mirror mirror"
Star Trek "alien" women could be wearing the most primitive strip of hide, but their hair is perfectly coiffed with hair spray in 60's style.
And, who can forget McCoy asking Spock, "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?"
Gene really took "To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before" seriously .StarTrek broke alot of rules and taboos!
and Don't forget the sheer force of nature that William Shatner is !
Well said, J. Robert!
Nearly 90 years old and going up in a rocket. Shatner IS Captain James T. Kirk, there IS no other!!!
@@sergioleone3583
Very very well said👍
Did Mr. Spock ears get more erect in this episode??
@@jdsundstrom agreed 😊
I find it ironic that in the decade of free love, that belly buttons and husband's and wives sleeping in the same bed were taboo on TV.
There is definitely more than just a little bit of irony there.
@@jdsundstrom And you couldn't say pregnant on tv back then either! 🤔🙄🤨🤷
@@jdsundstrom Irony - the opposite of wrinkly.
“Free Love” was precisely to fight against those restrictions.
Many episodes in Star Trek had these doorways through time/space (TNG too). Hartley was wonderful. The best part was that Spock reverted back to his ancient past before logic drove the Vulcan psyche. Great video!
I love Star Trek
Hartley was hot!
I definitely like the way they did that with Spock's character. Making him revert back to the way his ancestors acted.
@@blakjack3053 yes, in a very wholesome way...she had natural beauty....
2:50 Mariette Hartley has such subtle beauty. Kinda like the fantasy 'girl next door'. I recall seeing her in shows like Columbo, Twilight Zone and Logan's Run. A quick look at IMDB shows that she has been EVERYWHERE, wow.
Don't forget those Polaroid commercials!
@@jdsundstrom Ah, yes, they are just at the fringes of my memories.
I liked her in the Two-Part Episode Bride of the Incredible Hulk.
An episode of death valley days also.
All our Yesterdays was one of my favorite episodes :) . How could you not feel sorry for her character! Hartley played it sooo well!! Thanks for this video Dave
Thanks for sharing, Bridget. 🙂
@@jdsundstrom the arena is my favorite star trek episode 💖
Yes, but that was 5000 years ago... and she is dead... dead and buried.
Notice on the episode " Shore leave "
McCoys dancing girls at the end have fuzz in their belly buttons that match the fur of their outfits.😂
If only McCoy hadn't rode in on Spock's transport. He could have stayed with her.
Star Trek was one of if not the greatest sci fi show ever! 🙆
I love it!
I definitely agree
As it reran and reran, I kept on thinking, what was going to come along that would make it definitively anachronistic. Well, it was the analog gauges. Eventually, gauges went digital, and Star Trek 1.0 officially became a relic of a lost age.
Not even just the greatest sci fi show ever, the greatest show ever! The collaboration of costumes, sets, writing, acting and directing came together in brilliant storytelling. Nowadays, stories are overshadowed by special effects. Please bring back writing; stories and characters that are engaging and memorable.
@@robynzelickson6164 But no analog gauges, please.
He let hot women be hot, and strong men be bad asses. That's how it should be.
He also recognized that women could be bad asses as well. 🙂
@@jdsundstrom True, he originally had a female 2nd in command for Trek and the Romulan comamder too
And small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri be real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
@@peterg76yt INDEED SIR, INDEED!
Really strong men don't need to be badasses. Men don't need to be asses at all.
William Ware Theiss was a genius. He was the costume man for Star Trek and figured out endless ways for women to look fine and still have their navels covered. It's a shame that some new shows that Roddenberry wanted never got started, like "Assignment: Earth," a show suggested by an episode starring Robert Lansing and Teri Garr, and of course "Genesis II," which the TV movie was a pilot for. Hartley's character Lira-Ah was a "Terranian," a mutant human born with two hearts, which was the reason for the two navels. To which I say: Sure, Gene, sure, whatever you say. Hartley's characters kept messing things up -- trying to steal Spock in "All Our Yesterdays," acting as a double agent for the bad guys in "Genesis II," and even accidentally threatening to nuke the midwestern United States in a hard-to-find TV movie called "Earth II." I guess it's a tribute to how lovely and charming she was that I always forgave her. Thanks, Dave.
Then she hosted one of the big 3 network's morning news programs in the 80s.
Roddenberry wasn't involved with the show at the time All Our Yesterdays was made. Fred Freiberger produced that episode. So, the idea that Genesis II was some kind of revenge for AOY falls flat just on the facts.
But even if Roddenberry had been involved, it's obviously silly to say that something that the video admits was no big deal in 1973 somehow drove the censors crazy... despite being no big deal. (Who thought that made sense?)
The interracial kiss is also an old myth, long debunked. It wasn't the first (or even the second) and it wasn't even a real kiss (just a stage kiss). Roddenberry wasn't involved with that episode either, of course.
He dipped Nichelle for the "none kiss", and the camera zoomed in on his eyes and he crossed them. He kept doing retake after retake of the actual kiss that they only had time for one shot of the "none kiss" and he nurfed it.
-source Nichelle Nichols
Love it!
@@jdsundstrom Absolutely
@@jdsundstrom Well he is Canadian you know 😉👌
@@jdsundstrom It's one big sunny fun-filled Bataan Death March.”mst3k joke 😆
I knew that the two shots were the same except in one they didn't kiss, but I thought it was both of them that intentionally messed it up. If it was just Shatner, well, that's impressive.
Sir! There be an elephants in the room!
While Star Trek took place in the 23rd century, it couldn’t help sometimes being a product of its time. And while the times they were a changin’, it wasn’t everywhere all at once. And here comes the part where I hope I’m wrong. While showing naval was taboo (and I’m as baffled as anyone), I noticed that the two ladies that “slipped by the censors”, weren’t Caucasian. Perhaps a coincidence, or not. Gene did what he could to be (if you’ll pardon the expression) ahead of the curve, not everyone he had to deal with were as progressive. It was what it was.
When I first saw the thumbnail for this video, I assumed it regarded some of the ladies outfits. Often, they were very form fitting and didn’t allow for padding in a particular area. But the censors seemed to be ok with that to some degree.
Actress Barbara Luna is the only person to dispute the first interracial kiss on television claim, citing that she and Shattner did theirs before he and Nichols in the Mirror Mirror episode, as the “Captains Woman”.Luna never pursued this, but there it is.
Would like to give a shout-out to two other Star Trek actresses we lost this month. Laurel Goodwin (Yeoman Colt from the first pilot) , and Sally Kellerman (Dr. Elizabeth Dehner from the second pilot). RIP folks. A new frontier awaits.
Thanks for sharing JP!
Ha Ha! As SOON as you mentioned 'Genisis II' I saw where you were going! GREAT catch Dave!
Thanks TP!
My favorite is the one with Joan Collins Kirk Spock and McCoy are stuck in i think the 1930s or something the ending always gets me.
City On The Edge Of Forever: That episode won a Hugo Award, and many believe it was also the best episode of the series.
@@RobPento Thank you Rob every time i watch it i want him to save her but he knew he couldn't.
According to Joan Collins, she had no idea what Star Trek was when she was asked to be on the show. She did it because her children told her it was a good show. Of course, she was excellent in her episode and it ended being one of her most memorable roles.
@@joseyeastwood It is gut wrenching. McCoy: "Jim, do you know what you just did?!?!" Spock: "He knows, Doctor ... he knows".
@@MrEsMysteriesMagicks Thanks for that insight. She did play the role very, very well.
Gene's vision of a better world was what really grabbed hold of the fans of Star Trek. Today's Picard is a little more dark and thus the fans are not happy. With all the dystopian visions of the future we see today it would seem like they could have left Star Trek alone.
Since Roddenberry passed away, I don't think I've seen any hopeful views of the future.
If you can't imagine a positive future... you're probably not going to create one.
There are no longer any censors, TV is all crap now.
I agree with you. TV is not worth watching these days. From Ms. Harper Stacey.
Dave, I can't believe you showed Genesis II ! One of my all time favourite 70's Sci-Fi tv movies! I have a copy on my computer. I think Alex Cord from it passed away last year. Mariette has always been great ! Thanks Dave!
I loved Genesis II as well. I haven't seen it in years though. I need to track it down and watch it again.
Doesn't really hold up. Especially the scene where our "Hero" knocks Marriotte Hartley out.
I saw it on the original broadcast but haven't seen hide nor hair of it since.
There was a cool factor with all the sexy on TOS. The sexy on subsequent series was corny. No hating on TNG onward. You had attractive people and sexual situations but you laughed more often than not.
I can't picture Hartley without picturing James Garner doing a commercial for Polaroid
Those commercials were so much fun!
There was a scene in the episode Wink of an Eye that totally slipped past the censors. After a passionate moment it cuts to Kirk putting his boots back on, implying he had sex.
I remember that!
Thats right.. I remember now
Roddenberry wrote “words” for the original theme song taking half of music and composer monies for doing nothing. When Alexander Courage was writing the music Next Generation, Roddenberry tried the same stunt. He was cut out and with a better tune, Courage made more money than ever.
Mariette Hartley also was a belly dancer in the Columbo episode "Try And Catch Me".
[Opening title narration]
Narrator: Chosen from among all others by the immortal elders - Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury - Billy Batson and his mentor travel the highways and byways of the land on a neverending mission: to right wrongs, to develop understanding, and to seek justice for all! In time of dire need, young Billy has been granted the power by the immortals to summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word!
Billy Batson: SHAZAM!
Narrator: A word which transforms him, in a flash, into the mightiest of mortal beings, Captain Marvel!
💖
Reminds me of something I heard about one early rock and roll show that got cancelled. What happened was a white girl got on the stage with singer Frankie Lymon of the Four Teenagers and danced with him. We wouldn't think twice about it now, but back then the producers were so incensed they cancelled the show.
It had nothing to do with colour. It was that the girl was dancing with a minor.
Good one. When I saw the title I figured it would just be a rehash of the Kirk- Uhura kiss, which, while certainly noteworthy, has been done numerous times over the years. The belly button thing though was a good oddity of 60s TV that is good to inform younger viewers of.
I figured that many viewers would think that I was going to focus on TV's first interracial kiss. 🙂
For the record, the first notable inter-racial romance (if not an outright kiss) on Star Trek is between a Mexican portraying an Indian (of South Asia) and a White person (Scotland?) in the first season, which spawned at least one feature-length film.
As for _navel displays_ , Gene had issues with that matter during earlier episodes as well; it was just fate that he turned out to be just a bit ahead of the times (Laugh-In and other shows that would come on at the tail end of the 1960s, as well as the 1970s, would not be impeded by those network gatekeepers on that).
@@jdsundstrom mst3k joke it's the crummiest tv show in first run syndication 😆
The thing about Spock (and a tribute to Nimoy) is that Spock was always so cool and logical, so when he did become aggressive, it was frightening, especially with his superhuman strength!
An interesting twist about the Vulcans was the origin of their obsession with logic and self-control. It is mentioned that they were a passionate (pon farr!) and violent race that almost brought upon the end of their civilisation. The mastered their violent impulses but they were not eradicated.
Nimoy was tanked-up every episode.
Fully functional type
I have been ping pongy between old TV shows lately. I have a ton on DVD. I got around to watching Star Trek and ended up watching all three seasons in order. It was just that great of a show. That Mariette Hartley episode was in season 3. 2nd to last episode. They don't make em like that anymore.
Thanks for sharing!
The fashions were amazing. The designer had orders to cover up what the censors wanted covered but cut out spaces never shown before.
William Ware Theiss, the costume designer on Star Trek, had his own theory about provocative female costumes. It's not how much skin you show, it's how accident-prone a costume appears to be. An outfit is sexy if it looks like part of it might fall off or something might pop out at any moment.
Well done as always, Dave. I've always enjoyed this episode a lot myself, and Mariette Hartley's character is a big part of that. I believe Genesis II was one of several pilots Gene tried in the 1970's. None picked up, regrettably. Guess it's a job requirement for TV executives to usually be unable to recognize good things when they see it.
PS Trying to spot Barbara Eden's belly button has long been a part of being a "Jeannie" fan! Censors could get hung up on the craziest things, couldn't they?
Thanks for sharing, my friend!
Until TNG and X-Files got onto TV, SF was a wasteland after an earlier golden age of Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Star Trek, and even some of the Irwin Allen stuff. Even the earlier age of the 1950s had better SF than you had in the 1970s and early 1980s. The Brits helped by giving us Dr. Who and The Prisoner, but The Prisoner was only one short season and Dr. Who only started showing up on PBS in early 1980s.
yes, but Genies don't have belly buttons, so it was all very logical.....dang it!
All our Yesterdays was one of my favorites!! Just awesome!
Absolutely, mine too. When I first saw it I thought that a frozen wasteland was very barrable if your partner was Zarabeth.
While Hartley is very pleasing to look at, when one considers that Star Trek generally made sincere efforts to be scientifically accurate, how logical is it for a woman expecting to remain in solitude in an ice age environment for the rest of her life would dress in such an impractical and provocative bikini?
Well she was an alien 🤔
You are assuming the ice is frozen H2O, it could be another as yet unknown compound discovered by Rodenberry with a melting point of 27.6 Degree C. Perfect bikini temperature. :-)
I beard that there were dozens of scripts that Gene wrote that were rejected by the network and the sensors for being too racy for the time and had to be toned down and that there were some scripts for the original series that never got made. There were also a lot of antics on the set. Shatner once said in an interview that Leonard Jimmy had a lot of fun being un Spock like. There is some footage around of off camera times some shot by other cast and crew on 8mm film though no idea if any of it still exists because it wouldn't have been allowed. Maybe some of those home movies will resurface some day.
I remember seeing that in college when Gene Roddenberry came to make a talk and showed these....one very racy one is when they are being attacked and they have to act like they are being thrown around and I don;t know who it was but one guy is grabbing and holding onto to a girl and he is behind her and fully grabbing her boobs from behind her......but it was all in fun.....
Never a Star Trek fan. It had 79 episodes in the 1960s. Leonard Nimoy proved to be a better director than actor.
I loved Leonard as an actor...and, I agree, he was a very capable director as well.
Don't forget he also gave us the Incredible Song-Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins...
It seems hilarious to me that mini skirts were so small back at the "strict" 60s but got banned at the 90s and after 2000s Star Trek tv shows.
I mean, what the heck was that? 😅😂
Gene Roddenberry should have had a cameo now and then and showed his belly button. You know Stan Lee had cameos in his movies. Those guys would have been pulling their hair out by the roots.
I would have loved to have seen a Roddenberry cameo...but I'll pass on seeing his navel.
Mariette Hartley was just so stunningly beautiful in this show. One of the few really good TOS shows!
Didn't know about the two-belly-button thing. That was awesome and obviously on purpose.
But Roddenberry was a mixed bag. The first Star Trek movie set the standard for awful (until ST V). So bad that the studio would not green-light the second one without two conditions being met: first, they had to accept a much lower budget. Second: Roddenberry was out. So, Gene was given a courtesy title ("based on Star Trek created by...) and told to stay away. The result: either the best or the second-best entry of the series with the original cast.
The rest of his career was hit-and-miss, too, mostly misses. It's like he did this one amazing thing and could never live up to it---or even get close.
I won't judge his personal life--others can do that. But he did struggle to get along with people. Thankfully, Majel Barrett found the key to that lock, and I believe both were better for it.
Oh, and while I adore Jill Ireland, if Marriette Hartley would have been on Omicron Ceti III, Spock would still be there! Just sayin'.....
Roddenberry was a bit like George Lucas. Their franchises continued without them. But that's not to say that their ideas haven't continued to influence new projects.
The only thing wrong with "Star Trek II..."
is that Chekhov was not part of the show
in Season 1, when the original Khan
episode "Space Seed" was made.
Khan could not have recognized him.
It was an incredible coup, however,
to not only get the original actor,
Ricardo Montalban, to reprise his role,
but for the film to mirror real life
chronology, happening actually
15 years after the original episode.
Montalban really should've won
the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
@@laustcawz2089 Chekhov was not bridge crew, but who is to say that Khan hadn't encountered him as he made his way on the Enterprise.
Dave are you aware of the original backstory on Whoopi Goldberg's character Guinan on Star Trek TNG. Around 1988 she had reached out to the Gene Roddenberry in regards to appearing on the series and at first she wasn't taken very seriously as her movie career was taken flight with the sucess of The Color Purple and Jumping Jack Flash until she reached out to Levar Burton requesting that she wanted to be a recurring character on the show. Finally Roddenberry had agreed but sadly he would die in 1991. 😉🛸🌠🙌
@Zauberspruche Yes, I've reprised my comment!
Rodenberry was a visionary, so far ahead of his time. Loved every second of it
Excellent video; nice touch in the end showing personality when you said "go ahead, I'm done here..." Lol the line caused me to have a gentle gafaw!
Glad you enjoyed it, John!
Don't forget the great work Gene Coon contributed to the series.
Regarding "All Our Yesterdays", no doubt Mariette Hartley was great in that episode, and gorgeous as ever.
yep! Fan of Gene's work as well! Long time trekkie! However his other stuff was wonderful as well! The Questor tapes was an incredible movie! Genesis ii was great and so was the sequel! Too bad neither became a series!
While the Kirk/Uhura kiss definitely wasn't the first interracial kiss on American television -- Barbara Luna and Shatner kissed in the previous season, and there were a lot of Asian female/white male kisses on television before then -- it was progressive.
Some of those shows that had some interracial kisses before that Kirk/Uhura kiss were:
*An episode of _I Spy_ called 'The Tiger' which had a kiss between Robert Culp and France Nuyen.
*An episode of _Sea Hunt_ called 'Proof of Guilt' which had a kiss between Nobu McCarthy and Lloyd Bridges.
And the list goes on.
Good point!
When I first saw Trek 40 years ago, I didn't think about the interracial. To me, it was Kirk getting the ladies. Hell, I thought that Plato's Stepchildren for the first time, I didn't care for the episode. I thought it was lame. Again, not knowing what was happening behind the scenes. Now I know the behind-the-scenes and why Gene did this, I appreciate Trek even more.
Gene Roddenberry drove censors crazy in the late 1960s, censors would have a heart attack if censorship standards remained unchanged and they had to contend with modern day TV producers.
Uhura's muscled belly was badass in "Mirror mirror"
Gene was a great man, and a great writer. If you take a look at other people’s shows that he wrote for (Have Gun, Will Travel comes to mind) you’ll notice that the use of guns was at a bare minimum, if at all! It was the most intellectual that show ever got. And that’s just one example.
I remember MH.. She was so hot and Tall.. She seemed taller than all her leading men. I thought her height would tank her career but it didn't. Thank god.
I actually laughed out loud at the second bellybutton! That was a classic move.
On the first of a "two-part" Hawaiian episode of I Dream of Jeannie, Barbara Eden didn't show her navel, but Mrs. Bellows - Emmaline Henry's navel was on full display. Go figure.
Maybe it is something weird with me, but why is a naval sexual? It's where your umbilical used to be. There is lint there, too. Seems weird to me.
My grandfather lost it over the exposed navel back then. He was so angry that women showed their navels on TV. He was especially angry at Cher for exposing her belly button. He as a real old fashioned guy, who came over from Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century- 1900's.
Today they show too much. It is absolutely shocking how our society has put up with the sexualization of the media.
I had the fotonovel of All Our Yesterdays. Star Trek probably pushed the envelope in regards to women’s wardrobe on some episodes.
The censors were either very prudish or nuts.
The interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura was first rehearsed before the studio honchos at NBC because the episode Plato’s Stepchildren would be aired on television stations in the South. According to Nichelle Nichols, the kiss was trick photography using angles to give off the illusion of Kirk and Uhura kissing. But I may be wrong because Both William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols have different accounts of the kiss on Plato’s Stepchildren.
I have heard a bit of a story on Gene Roddenberry being an L.A. cop patrolling the more mean streets and then he was a flight engineer aboard a passenger jet liner before writing for television. I guess those two experiences helped him in creating Star Trek and other shows and films.
Whether it’s true or not, Gene Roddenberry’s career is truly the stuff of legend.
Thanks for sharing, Gary. Good stuff!
"The censors were either very prudish or nuts."
More than likely both! I have that fotonovel too. They were a good pre-video source of STOS. Mariette Hartley's character's fate was so sad, ranking alongside Joan Collin's Edith Keeler.
@@josefschiltz2192 The fate of Edith Keeler was a sad one, as well. I remember feeling more bad about Dr. McCoy in his mental state during the episode.
So, girls don't have belly buttons? 🤣
US americans do not have any gender characteristics.
As a European, I must laugh a little when I see this. First there is the belly button taboo, and now we laugh about it. Nowadays however there is a female nipple taboo in the USA. How long will it take before we can laugh about that taboo too?
Only Gene would find a way to get a female character in such an outfit on a planet in the middle of an Ice Age! Good on him! :)
That whole navel thing was so absurd! Women in real life wore bikinis, so it wasn't like you were seeing something you couldn't see at home!
Both Navels were prosthetic, so no real belly buttons were shown.......Maybe?
Really? I thought the bottom one was real. If that's true, then you are absolutely correct, my friend.
Star Trek indeed was one of my favorite shows from the '60s but there was one that was also a favorite of mines from the 50s the outer limits I love that one. Cheyenne starring Clint Walker was awesome one of my favorites !!!
There are two points that I've seen overlooked about Lieutenant Uhura ; her character a number of times showed that Uhura had authority and had to be respected. I'm thinking of the mirror mirror episode. She actually demonstrated that she had authority and was to be respected. The other point is that as a lieutenant she was in charge of communications. The final point is that she's always she is always respected.
Yeah Uhura was a full lieutenant! Like a captain in the army, Air Force, Marines! She was a department head and like 3rd or 4th in command!! She had the most authority and power of Any woman(black or white) on TV then,and for a long time after!
In the pilot that eventually got pieced into The Menagerie the first officer was a woman (Majel Barrett who was also the voice of the computer, Nurse Chapel, and Roddenberry's wife). That was just a bridge too far in the 1960s. It is a shame because the scene where she sets the phaser to self destruct is great and you can see the history her and Pike had together.
A great job of acting on their part. I hope Anston and Romijn can recapture it.
@@exhaustguy I'm in full agreement with you on this point. She really gave that character a three-dimensional depth. A strong and decisive character that they really should have developed even further. She would have made a great character foil for the character of the captain and the character of Mr Spock
there is a sequel novel entitled "Yesterday's Child".....that part of the story was most certainly censored.....lol...
American TV was in the dark ages compared to British TV in the 1960's.
Couldn’t agree with you more.