OT - Space Cowboys

[vancelw]

Wife and I were watching an old season 1 original Star Trek tonight.

I get tickled every time I see Shatner, Nimoy, and DeForest Kelly in spacemen uniforms, since they all were in westerns before they got their new ride.

I'm always amazed at who else you see in those old episodes as guest stars; Teri Garr, Sally Kellerman, Joan Collins, Ricardo Montalban(speaking of westerns)...even Hilter himself!

Tonight I was surprised to see Kim Darby as the guest star. Rooster would have been proud.

[Ysabel Kid]

Yep... makes a lot of sense too, since Roddenbury wrote for westerns as well, and had commented that "Star Trek" was like a future wagon train, only to the stars versus going west!

Just saw Kelly in an old "Lone Ranger" episode, and then in a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" episode. Y2K even recognized him!

[Otto]

Morgan Woodward appeared in two episodes of "Star Trek"- once as an escaped mental patient, and once as a deranged Starship captain who had set himself up as dictator of a primitive planet. If you don't know who Morgan Woodward is, he is a character actor who guest-starred on just about every western tv show ever made, as well as alot of movies. He appeared in more episodes of "Gunsmoke" than any other non-regular. He also appeared in "Cool-hand Luke" as the head uniformed guard. He often played characters who maybe weren't quite right, for one reason or another.

Tonight I was surprised to see Kim Darby as the guest star. Rooster would have been proud.

"Miri". She was sixteen at the time. Yes, I am a Trekkie. No, I am not wearing a Klingon costume.

[vancelw]

Morgan Woodward appeared in two episodes of "Star Trek"- once as an escaped mental patient, and once as a deranged Starship captain who had set himself up as dictator of a primitive planet. If you don't know who Morgan Woodward is, he is a character actor who guest-starred on just about every western tv show ever made, as well as alot of movies. He appeared in more episodes of "Gunsmoke" than any other non-regular. He also appeared in "Cool-hand Luke" as the head uniformed guard. He often played characters who maybe weren't quite right, for one reason or another.

Tonight I was surprised to see Kim Darby as the guest star. Rooster would have been proud.

"Miri". She was sixteen at the time. Yes, I am a Trekkie. No, I am not wearing a Klingon costume.

Have you seen "Fanboys"? There's a classic spat between some Trekkies (Uh, excuse me, Trekkers) and Star Wars fans. And Kristen Bells not too hard on the eyes, for a blonde.

EDIT-Woodward was on the very next episode we watched tonight.

Of course, everyone in the show starred in westerns. That's about all that was on TV in late 60s if an actor wanted to work...Bonanza, Big Valley, the Monroes, the Virginian, F-Troop (does that count?),Daniel Boone, Wild Wild West (Does THAT count?), and Shane (with grasshopper as Shane). I remember watching all of those except the David Carradine one.

I don't remember watching Star Trek until it was on re-runs.
Tarzan was probably my favorite TV show at that time. ( I hadn't read the books, yet.)

I noticed that Disney is supposedly making a movie "John Carter of Mars." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/
If they follow the book, it starts as a western and ends up sci-fi pretty quickly. I hope they don't screw that one up and make it a disaster like most Tarzan movies have been.

[MrMurphy]

I read up on Roddenberry once and the struggle to get Trek made. At the time he wrote it up he was an LAPD motorcycle cop (late 50s early 60s). There was some senior writer/producer who was The Man when it came to getting stuff done, but he was notoriously cranky and hard on "new guys" with ideas.

He was a regular at this bar with a bunch of other Hollywood writer types.

Roddenberry, in full motorcycle cop regalia (leather jacket, helmet, boots, .357) rides his department Harley through the front door of the bar, sits there idling that loud, loud Harley in the bar for a good 10-20 seconds while every single guy in the bar is frozen looking at him.

He shuts the bike down, stomps up, hands a package to the guy saying "This is for you" or something along those lines, then backs the bike out of the bar and rides off without another word.


Yeah, the guy read it.......


I'm not a Trekkie but reading up on what it took to get it going was interesting.