Star Trek followed the crew on what was supposed to be a five year mission, but the show only lasted three. It was through reruns that the series finally gained an audience and became the cultural icon it is today, not counting more recent fare that I don’t see inspiring new medical equipment, cell phones, or anything else like the original series and The Next Generation has. Filmation hoped to capitalize on this by producing an hour-long animated series, free of many of the budget constraints of the original series. NBC liked the idea but opted to make it a half-hour series for Saturday morning. While it lacked in a lot of dead redshirts and Kirk’s various liaisons the spirit of the original series and the smart sci-fi writing were still intact.
I first saw the cartoon in syndicated reruns since it aired before my time on NBC’s Saturday morning lineup but it also aired on Nickelodeon in the 1980s, which means Nick Knacks, the retrospective series of shows that aired on Nickelodeon whether made for the channel specifically or not, did an episode devoted to it. Naturally it also features as much about how it ended up on Nickelodeon as it does talking about the creation and behind the scenes of the show itself. I learned a few things I didn’t know before so maybe you will too. And I have a few of my own thoughts as well. The video is clocked at 43:25 but worth a watch for fans of Star Trek, Nickelodeon, cartoons, or Filmation. I was going to save this for a Saturday Night Showcase but I end up having more to say about it than I thought.
