Justman didn’t want the editing team to be hampered with too many last minute notes from the producers. He feared that the “very clever and energetic but highly overworked” Mr. Swanson was close to a collapse. His letter to Roddenberry pleaded:
Every little piece in this puzzle of how to get ‘The Menagerie’ on the air in time is interlocking with some other piece. If one piece doesn’t fit in at the right time, at the right place, I think we will never be able to complete the puzzle. I tell you now, oh Great Bird, that this is a once-in-a-lifetime situation. I don’t think any of us could stand sweating out a problem like this again without going completely crackers. (RJ15-1)
It was a line of dialogue Roddenberry had written into “The Man Trap” that had the staff now teasingly calling him “The Great Bird of the Galaxy.” Justman was hoping his memo would keep Roddenberry away from the editing room and allow Swanson to complete his attempt at a miracle -- but his words fell on deaf ears. There was more at stake than making an air date. Roddenberry hadn’t taken shortcuts while making “The Cage,” his unaired masterpiece, and he wouldn’t allow shortcuts to be taken now as “The Cage” was resurrected as one-half of “The Menagerie.”
In another memo, Justman strongly recommended Roddenberry give his notes for Part 1 to Swanson’s assistant editor Donald Rode, thereby leaving Swanson in the edit room continuing to work on Part 2. Justman explained the need for doing it, writing:
I hope you are sitting down when you read this memo... because he [Swanson] intends to have a rough cut of Part 2 ready this coming Monday. Unbelievable, but true. That’s the fastest cutting job I have even heard of. If the cutting quality on this show is commensurate with the speed quality, it will be the greatest Editorial effort of all time. In any event, he deserves a medal. Regards, Bob, Small Bird of the Galaxy. (RJ15-2)
Roddenberry went straight to Swanson anyway. He wasn’t going to risk his editing instructions losing anything in the translation. Swanson silently tolerated the “help.” He worked through the weekend and late into the night, cutting Part 2 while at the same time re-cutting Part 1. Amazingly, he made the Monday delivery.
Roddenberry thanked Swanson and all involved with a memo directed to “Bill Heath, cc to Bob Swanson, Eddie Milkis, and all else [sound/music/dubbing].” He wrote:
Getting “Menagerie Parts I & II” out in the time accomplished was a major team effort by all the production people involved. The quality was excellent; these shows should go a long way toward helping ST during this critical Nielsen Rating period. We want to thank all of you for the hard work involved. (GR16-1)
Swanson had done a first-rate job, and it was right of Roddenberry to compliment him in front of his post-production bosses and peers. But the job, and the additional demands he put on Swanson, had taken its toll. By the time the thank you memo was circulated, Robert Swanson had quit.
Film Effects of Hollywood did the optical work, and did it quickly. Out of necessity, the music was tracked.
The race was won, but at a high cost. Besides losing Bob Swanson, Desilu spent $220,953 for the new footage, and forfeited $110,000 in licensing fees from NBC. But the studio nonetheless came out ahead, financially. If two episodes (at $193,500 each) had a combined budget allowance of $387,000, and making the two-part “Menagerie” only cost $220,953, then, even after forfeiting $110,000 in licensing fees, Star Trek was ahead by $56,044. Applying this against the season-to-date deficit of $33,618, that I.O.U. note from Gene Roddenberry to Desilu would be forgiven, leaving Star Trek with a cash surplus of $22,426 to be applied toward future episodes.
This money would be spent almost immediately. The studio allowance for each episode was about to drop substantially.
Release / Reaction
Premiere air dates: 11/17 and 11/24/66. NBC repeat broadcast: 5/18 and 5/25/67.
RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, Nov. 17, 1966:
The Dating Game, taking over for The Tammy Grimes Show, was a surprise hit and nosed ahead to win the top spot for ABC at 8:30. Star Trek followed at No. 2. At 9 p.m., Star Trek retained its hold on second place, ahead of Bewitched. The big gun on CBS, and the time period winner: the six-time Academy Award nominee and two-time Oscar winner The Country Girl, starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and William Holden.
RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, Nov. 24, 1966:
On Thanksgiving night 1966, “The Menagerie, Part 2” tied for first place at the start of the broadcast and was the clear ratings winner by the end of the hour. Doing little business for CBS, in the days before NFL football was an obsession in America, were the Cleveland Browns and the Dallas Cowboys facing off for the Eastern Division title. Following the game on CBS, a 1963 effects-driven look at Greek mythology, the cult classic Jason and the Argonauts, was trampled by the competition.
Two weeks after this, on December 7, 1966, Herb Solow wrote Roddenberry:
Nielsen Company does a special research sample of the ratings in color set homes only. I have been advised that Star Trek is the highest-rated color show in its time period, beating My Three Sons, Bewitched, Dating Game and the CBS Thursday Night Movie. It’s NBC’s feeling that while other high-rated color shows, such as Bob Hope, Bonanza and Dean Martin score well due mainly to the star value within the show [Hope and Martin] or the longevity of the program [Bonanza], Star Trek derives much of its color rating from the magnificent technical quality of the show from the basic concept, design, photography and effects. You’re all to be congratulated on the fine work. (HS16)
In the very immediate future, “The Menagerie,” Part 1 and Part 2, combined together to create a feature-length production, was nominated for the Hugo Award, in the category of Best Science Fiction Presentation for the year of 1966. Among its competition were two other Star Trek episodes. (Stay tuned for the winner.)
For the December 1991 issue of Cinefantastique magazine celebrating Star Trek’s 25th anniversary, critic Thomas Doherty selected a baker’s dozen of the original series’ best. At No. 3 was “The Menagerie,” for which Doherty wrote, “The final farewell is a joyful metaphor for the liberating escapism of science fiction fantasy. Like the viewer, locked in a chair, Pike is free to roam the galaxy in his mind.”
From the Mailbag
Letters received immediately following the airing of the two parts of “The Menagerie”:
Dear Sir, I enjoy Star Trek very much and I don’t mean to try to tell you how to run the program, but, speaking for many teenaged girls here in Virginia, please let Mr. Spock do more leading parts. Patricia L. (Hampton, Virginia).
Dear Mr. Roddenberry, I would like to say that I enjoy that wonderful program of your’s, Star Trek. That is one of my favorite shows now, whereas, at its debut, I doubted that it could be anything spectacular. I’m glad I decided to give it a chance. The name got me intrigued [and] I love Mr. Spock. He is the greatest thing to hit TV since Illya [of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]. Please don’t change Mr. Spock!!!!! They began to change Illya. I don’t like him as much now. But Spock should always be the same. Please! You wouldn’t change his personality, would you? I’d probably die if you did. Anyway, I wouldn’t like him as much, and that would leave me even less to live for, wouldn’t it? May L. (San Gabriel, California).
Gentlemen, I have been a science fiction reader for twelve years, and I am a confirmed follower of your program Star Trek. As one who has seen all the juvenile, mediocre hack-work that has been called science fiction on television, I feel that only Star Trek presently offers stories that are adult, intelligent and are not directed at a dismally low I.Q. level. I feel that this, in itself, is remarkable, since there are so few television shows of any nature that seem designed for an adult, aware audience…. I trust that everything will be done to retain this valuable and engrossing series. Thank you for your time in reading this. Mike D. (Newark, N.J.).
Dear Mr. Roddenberry, judging from the glimpses we had of the original cast on the two-parter, the present cast is far superior, especial
ly “Dr. McCoy,” and Shatner, who is usually very good indeed, except when he is self-consciously grim. Mrs. Dan W. (Syracuse, N.Y).
And from November 29, 1966, five days after Part 2 was broadcast, from Gene Roddenberry to his assistant, Morris Chapnick:
Dear Morris: Who writes up those idiotic one-line story descriptions which purport to explain the episode of the evening in the local TV section of newspapers? Can we do anything about them? Ours usually have been running something like, “The Enterprise runs into a situation which creates a few problems and it is eventually solved.” Last week, [regarding Spock’s trial in “The Menagerie”] the description had it as Captain Kirk who was being court martialed, and even the description of that was completely wrong!
Memories
Hagan Beggs recalled, “Gene brought me in to his office after we finished shooting and said, ‘Everything is fine with your work but I’m making a change in the helmsman; I think I need to spread this out a bit more. So thank you very much, but I want to try to make it bigger -- I think it’s got great possibilities.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and went on to do some other shows, and didn’t think much about it. But it wasn’t until a few years later, when the show was gaining renewed popularity in reruns, that I even thought I should put it back on my resume as being involved. I’d always felt slightly embarrassed because I’m thinking, ‘My God, I’m literally sitting at a board pushing a couple of levers and people are giving me this great credit for being on this show, you know.’ Yes, I did take the captain’s chair at one point, but didn’t see my part as being that important. In time, I became awakened to how popular this show was and how much it meant to so many people. It’s phenomenal. Where it has all gone is totally amazing. It’s by default that I’m luckily in the iconic grouping, and it was simply, honest to God, by me just being there. Because what I had to do was pretty simple.” (12-1)
Sean Kenney said, “It was a thrill to be in the show -- it was my first film job and I received top feature billing in the credits. It took them almost five hours to apply the makeup daily so I guess they figured top feature credit was the least they could do to compensate for all the restructuring to my anatomy and reward my patience.” (100-1)
In another interview, 44 years after playing the crippled and disfigured Captain Pike, Kenney said, “I think ‘The Menagerie’ was so ahead of its time. I’m proud of it because the story said so much and it was taken so -- how shall I say -- emotionally by so many people. Here was a guy, Captain Pike, who was almost the first physically challenged person anyone saw on TV in a major part. He was in a wheelchair; couldn’t talk. I meet people now [in wheelchairs] who roll up to me and say, ‘When I saw that show I thought, what if I lost my voice? I’ve only lost my legs.’ It was a really profound episode and touched so many people.” (100-2)
24
Mid-Season 1966
William Shatner, star of the starship … pre-Spockmania
In an interview dated September 30, Clay Gowran of The Chicago Tribune quoted William Shatner saying that “The Man Trap,” NBC’s premiere episode, was “a disappointment.” Shatner was attempting damage control. Gowran was the critic who said Gene Roddenberry had considerable distance to go to attain his objective that Star Trek would specialize in adult plots scripted by fine writers. His damning review held Roddenberry personally accountable for the perceived failure. So Star Trek’s creator sent in his heroic captain to smooth things over. Shatner told Gowran, “It wasn’t the strongest show we could have had. The program which was to have been our opener [“The Corbomite Maneuver”], which properly introduced all the characters and told a good story, couldn’t be ready in time.”
Roddenberry was spreading the same message. In a September 28 letter to TV columnist Hal Humphrey at The Los Angeles Times, he wrote, “As you know… our optical house gave us severe problems just before going on the air and we were not able to open with the particular shows I had selected. Actually, the first several were planned for mid-season episodes. In the end it may not have hurt us since we now can follow up with increasingly stronger shows. But who knows? I never could figure television anyway.”
Even the people who thought they could figure television had trouble explaining the effect Star Trek was having on its audience. The critics, for the most part, may have panned the premiere installment, but the ratings had been phenomenal. Within weeks, it was clear that this was not just another TV show.
Daily Variety, in its September 14 issue, took notice of the interracial cast. I Spy had led the way one year before. Now staff writer Les Brown, under the headline, “Television Off to the ‘Races’: Previews Reveal the Racial Mix,” wrote:
ABC and NBC offered an unusual night of television last Thursday (8), not just because both were “previewing” new programs but because for the better part of primetime’s three and a half hours they depicted a multiracial world instead of the usual Caucasian one. There was only one half hour at 9:30 p.m., when NBC had The Hero and ABC had That Girl, that the tint medium reverted back to lily white.... It is doubtful that any entertainment values were lost -- anywhere in the country -- from Tarzan having a Negro friend (Rockne Tarkington) and a little Mexican boy to look after (Manuel Padilla, Jr.); from Hawk being a full-blooded Iroquois working alongside a young Negro detective (Wayne Grice); or the spaceship Enterprise in Star Trek having on its permanent manifest a Negro woman (Nichelle Nichols) and an Oriental (George Takei). The real significance of the casting is that in every case the role has no specific race designation and might just as readily be played by an Anglo-Saxon.
The interracial cast was only one of the unique aspects of Star Trek.
Dorothy Fontana said, “First week we got some mail. Second week we got a bag of mail. After that we started getting bags of mail to the point where the Mail Room literally couldn’t handle it. Pretty soon the actors couldn’t even answer it. They had to have mail services taking care of their mail for them. So, the mail was telling us that there were fans out there and they were not fans writing to say ‘send me a picture,’ they were writing to make comment on the show. And they were intelligent comments. We had a great audience.” (64-2)
And so began the buzz.
The September 21, 1966, headline in The Los Angeles Times read: “Star Trek a Costly Sci-fi Epic.” Staff writer Don Page described the series as “one of the most expensive and elaborate productions in the history of television.” It was a point NBC wanted driven home. Mr. Page was especially impressed with the bridge of the Enterprise, writing, “If the show happens to fail television, they could easily turn the set into a tourist attraction.”
The mini first beams across America (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Universal Studios Theme Park would do just that 22 years later.
In the letters section of TV Guide on November 5, 1966, Andrew Porter, the Assistant Editor for Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, wrote that Irwin Allen, with The Time Tunnel, was only “interested in creating a series which will sell him as a producer and sell the sponsor’s product.” Porter praised Roddenberry and Star Trek for taking a very different approach by “appealing to the intelligence of the viewer.”
On November 13, 1966, Marion Purcelli of The Chicago Tribune, looking for another angle, wrote, “The most way-out fashion design for women to come along in months is the miniskirt, and that’s exactly the look designer Bill Theiss has created for Star Trek.”
Theiss did not invent the mini. That had happened in England one month earlier. But Star Trek’s hemlines were clearly at the forefront of the event, and the shortest to date.
William Shatner, for a newspaper article syndicated during October 1966, said, “All the plots have a basis in human experience or fact and all the equipment is authentic. The stories will be an extension of human experience in a different environment.”
That same day, for the TV magazine of the Boston Sunday Herald, Shatner said, “If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be doing science fiction. It would challenge that g
reat imagination of his.”
For a syndicated article picked up by the Boston Sunday Herald for its December 18th TV magazine, the headline read, “Shatner Catches a Big Wave.” The star explained, “You have to catch a wave just as it crests. Last year I did a courtroom show -- For the People. It lasted only 13 weeks. Everyone liked the show but our timing was wrong. We were too late with a lawyer show, with message drama. We missed the cresting of lawyer shows when audiences were fascinated by them.”
Shatner felt he was now on the right show at the right time. Explaining that Star Trek was aimed at adult science fiction fans, he said, “We’re the first real science-fiction show and I honestly think it will be the biggest new series on television. It’s exciting adventure but more important to me it has quality, in the filming and in the writing.” (166-16)
While A.C. Nielsen did not rank Star Trek as the biggest among new shows, TvQ did. Shatner’s prediction, according to Home Testing Institute, had come true.
As series’ lead and primary spokesman, Shatner was showered with plenty of positive press. In the March 12, 1967 issue of the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, John Stanley presented an article entitled “Captain Kirk, A Man of Tomorrow.” He wrote:
Roddenberry’s promise last summer that “we’re taking the weirdest stuff and making it as believable as possible” has been realized. Even the main character -- James T. Kirk -- has become a “futuristic” personality as portrayed by William Shatner. Because Shatner has labored to make him a well-fleshed individual, Kirk has emerged as a firm symbol of authority who makes mind-boggling decisions with the calm efficiency and certainty of a man accustomed to moving through space at 186,000 miles per second.
Shatner told Stanley, “Because there has been nothing comparable to Star Trek in the history of television fantasies, we have had no precedent to follow. Thus we have established our own formula as we progressed.”
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 65