In the mid-1940s, television sets had begun being manufactured and sold in the U.S. DuMont Laboratories, founded by Allan DuMont, was aggressively devoted to the advancement, manufacturing and the marketing of those TVs, and also interested in the transmission of television signal. The DuMont Television Network, in fact, was the first to receive a television broadcast license from the FCC. NBC came next and both began their historic broadcasting at very nearly the same moment: the fall of 1946. Two years later CBS got into the game, as did the less powerful ABC. And now there were four.
Between 1948 and 1950, NBC continued to grow. Among the stars under contract, making the short walk from NBC radio to NBC TV, were Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Robert Montgomery, William Bendix, Groucho Marx, and Kukla, Fran & Ollie. CBS had plenty of stars of its own. DuMont and ABC, however, were struggling to compete. For ABC, it all came down to size. The radio network that was created out of a piece of NBC’s hide had far fewer affiliates than either NBC or CBS. DuMont’s situation was worse. With no radio holdings, the TV pioneer had no stars under contract and that meant the network had less leverage to entice the independent television stations across America. As a result, DuMont was forced to go dark in 1955. Its parent company, the television set manufacturer, would also close shop.
By 1956, with the addition of hits such as Gunsmoke, The $64,000 Question, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I've Got A Secret, Lassie, The Honeymooners and The Phil Silvers Show, CBS became America’s No. 1 network. It remained so for 20 consecutive seasons. NBC had dropped to No. 2, but it had a plan -- or at least an agenda.
RCA wanted to market color TV sets. The company had been working on the design for years and, on November 22, 1953, used its experimental “compatible color” system for the broadcast of an episode of the Colgate Comedy Hour. A month later, on December 23, as a Christmas present to parent corporation RCA, NBC aired “The Big Little Jesus,” an episode of the network’s most popular series, Dragnet, which had been filmed in Technicolor. On September 7, 1957, for a special colorcast of Your Hit Parade, the animated NBC peacock made its debut with the immortal words heard for the first time: “The following program is brought to you in living color ... on NBC.” In 1959, NBC began delivering color each and every week for series such as The Perry Como Show and Bonanza.
Despite the status -- or gimmick -- of being America’s first color network, NBC’s audience wasn’t growing and to the peacock’s embarrassment, ABC’s audience was. The “Alphabet Network” had aimed low with their programming and the strategy was paying off. Inexpensive black-and-white westerns for the kids and shows with teen appeal had elevated ABC into second place. TV, after all, belonged to the baby-boomers. CBS had figured this out, too, and strived to find programming that appealed to the young and the old alike -shows the entire family could watch together. This left NBC with a stagnating audience despite its pioneering technology. The majority of the network’s series were now in color, yet in many ways these shows were the least colorful on the air. The Perry Como Show was on NBC. So were The Dinah Shore Show, This Is Your Life, Sing Along With Mitch and The Bell Telephone Hour. Despite the star power, they weren’t bringing in the numbers to match the other networks.
By 1964, the year Gene Roddenberry began shopping Star Trek, the once mighty National Broadcasting Company was in the ratings basement. According to A.C. Nielsen, of the 20 highest-rated prime time series on all three networks, NBC had only three. CBS was commanding $50,000 per prime-time minute from their advertisers. ABC was getting $45,000. NBC could only collect $41,000. When Gene Roddenberry and Herb Solow entered the offices of NBC Burbank in May of 1964, they knew they had at least one thing in their favor: the network was as desperate as they were.
During the meeting with Jerry Stanley and Grant Tinker, Roddenberry, according to Herb Solow, did exactly as Solow suggested. He looked like a younger version of Albert Einstein -- strange, brilliant and hard to figure out. He purposely didn’t offer any more information than needed, nor did he elaborate on how Star Trek could be better than filmed sci-fi of the past because it wouldn't be telling conventional monster stories. And he didn't compare Star Trek to Wagon Train. What he did was present the material Solow and he had prepared and then do one of the hardest things to do in a pitch -- stay quiet and wait.
Roddenberry later said, “Herb had worked within that system. He understood the mentality; that strategy of sitting and smiling and saying very little, and putting your opponent in the hot seat, like in a game of poker. Thirty years doing this and I still don’t understand why it has to be that way. But it was that way at CBS when we presented Star Trek there. Oscar [Katz] had come from CBS, but from the East Coast. And things like that did make a difference at that time. So, it helped that Herb was there when we went to NBC [Burbank]. He had worked out of that office. He was friendly with Grant and Jerry. And that’s what we needed at that moment.” (145)
Solow had the inside track, knowing that in four months NBC would be premiering The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a series unlike anything the network had aired before -- a series intended to appeal to teenagers and cash-in on the spy craze sweeping the country due to the recent big screen success of James Bond. Also in development, I Spy, an espionage show that would travel the world and co-star a “Negro.” It would be hip, unconventional and extravagant. There was more. Like Flipper, a series for the kids about a boy and his pet dolphin, and Daniel Boone, a Davy Crockett rip-off which went so far as to feature the actor who played Crockett for Disney and ABC: Fess Parker.
Solow knew how to do the dance. NBC had never done business with the CBS golden girl, but now had an opportunity to partner up with the No. 1 star of America’s No. 1 network. He also knew that these cool, confident-looking men in tailor-made business suits had a collective bellyache from CBS and ABC kicking their butts. Star Trek, he insisted, was nothing like anything tried before -- a space show for adults as well as for kids. Unlike Lost in Space, where the Jupiter II was scheduled to crash land in Episode Three and remain planet-bound for the remainder of its first season, this new space show would actually stay in space. Above all else, Star Trek would be in living color.
Then Solow did what executives with ice water in their veins are so good at: he stared at Jerry Stanley and Grant Tinker. Stanley and Tinker stared back. Roddenberry stared at the ceiling. The pitch for Star Trek had turned into a staring contest. NBC blinked first. It was a small blink, but a blink nonetheless. The network men agreed to take the first step: a check was written for “script development.” Jerry Stanley later said, “It was Herb’s tenacity and Herb’s presentation that sold the series.” (166)
3
Designing Star Trek
The spending starts here (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
In May, 1964, NBC put up $20,000. Roddenberry was to develop three stories for the pilot, then write a script based on the network’s favorite. He immediately got busy -not writing, but getting a crash course in science fiction. Samuel Peeples, a sci-fi enthusiast, was his first call. Roddenberry and Peeples had competed for a Writers Guild Award years earlier. Roddenberry’s Have Gun - Will Travel script “Helen of Abajinian” had been nominated, as had Peeples’ "The Bounty Hunter," for Wanted: Dead or Alive. Roddenberry won, but the two met and said they had actually voted for one another. It was the polite thing to say, true or not.
Peeples later said, “I thought [the idea for Star Trek] was fascinating and fun because [Gene] was going to try to do what I considered to be science fiction, which is not often done in Hollywood. Most so-called science fiction movies are horror plays. Gene actually had an idea, a plan, a dream of making a genuine science fiction series that would be very much like the better science fiction magazines.” (136-3)
Peeples loved science fiction. But, while his head may have been in the stars, his feet were planted firmly in the good earth of the American frontier. He created five TV western series (The Tall Man, Frontier Circus, The Legend of Jesse James, Custer and Lanc
er) and was a staff writer on Overland Trail, The Rough Riders and The Texan. Harlan Ellison’s recollection that Roddenberry said he got the phrasing “Wagon Train to the stars” from Peeples seems quite plausible.
Peeples remembered having drinks with Roddenberry and “just shooting a lot of bull” about the possibilities of the series. He felt that Roddenberry had done his research, conveying knowledge of numerous scientific theories including the paradoxes involved in faster-than-light travel. Peeples loaned him a couple science fiction books, and Roddenberry soaked it all up. Peeples also recommended other writers to check out. Among them: Robert Bloch (Psycho), Theodore Sturgeon (More Than Human), Richard Matheson (The Twilight Zone and I Am Legend), Jerry Sohl (The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits) and Fredric Brown (What Mad Universe), all of whom would become involved with the series.
Jerry Sohl had his first meeting with Roddenberry at Nickodell Restaurant on Melrose Avenue, a studio hangout for Desilu employees and those of its next door neighbor, Paramount Pictures. Sohl said, “I found him to be amiable and easy to talk to. He didn't seem to know an awful lot about science fiction and he confessed that he didn't. That’s why I was there. He was going to pick my brains and, quite frankly, find out what I thought of this series that he had in mind and whether I’d be available as a writer.” (160-1)
Roddenberry asked Sohl to recommend other writers. He came up with some names that Peeples hadn’t. New on the list: George Clayton Johnson, who Sohl met while working for The Twilight Zone, and Harlan Ellison, whom he knew from The Outer Limits.
There were others who gave Roddenberry valuable input. Harvey Lynn, a physicist from the RAND Corporation, was contacted in June to act as a technical consultant. This was a feather in Roddenberry’s cap. RAND, generally cited as the very first scientific “think tank,” was established in 1946 by the United States Army Air Corps (The acronym RAND stood for Research and Development). Roddenberry’s instructions to Lynn, from a June 30, 1964 letter: “Keep [Star Trek] enough in accord with the laws of physics that scientists can enjoy the program, too.”
Now that his support team was in place, Roddenberry started writing.
The first treatment was “The Cage,” with a first draft from June 25, 1964, and revised versions dated June 29 and July 8. The story dealt with hypnotic suggestion and mental illusion. Forbidden sex was also part of the mix.
The second story treatment was “Visit to Paradise,” from July 20, 1964. This was later used as the basis for a first season episode: “The Return of the Archons.” In the story, Roddenberry attacked both authority and conformity. He wrote:
Archon is anything but a paradise. What can be seen on the street, the happy friendliness and tranquility, masks despair, dullness, almost a living death. There are no police, no crime, no jails, because the slightest infraction is stamped out ruthlessly by The Lawgivers.
Writer Joel Engel (Gene Roddenberry: the Myth and the Man behind Star Trek) said, “This would be the first of what would be several Star Trek episodes in which man searches for God, finds Him, debunks Him, and lives more happily afterward -- or kills Him off metaphorically, thus improving mankind’s well-being.” (58b)
Christopher Knopf, a friend of Roddenberry’s and a fellow TV writer, said, “Gene seemed to distrust high authority -- people in power. He liked to tweak authority, as opposed to just nailing them and going to war. That was his way of bringing them down. Just tweak them.” Looking for a silver lining to this gray cloud, Knopf also noted that Roddenberry “seemed to have a great affection for people in low places.” (101a)
Those low places were the inspiration of the third story submitted to NBC. “The Women,” from July 23, 1964, was eventually filmed (as “Mudd's Women”). For this earlier version, the antagonist of the story was a con artist named Harry Patton (later renamed Harcourt Fenton Mudd), a scoundrel practicing the trade of “wiving settlers,” or, more simply put: interstellar prostitution. Roddenberry was trying to sneak a sex story past the network.
By the end of July, “The Cage” was selected to be developed into a screenplay. NBC had made an unusual and calculating choice in selecting this particular story. If filmed it would require more optical effects than the others. It would also pose a greater challenge in makeup, costuming and set design. This was more than a pilot, it was a test. If Roddenberry and Desilu were going to prove themselves, they had to do so with the most impossible of the three concepts.
Roddenberry immediately went back to Sam Peeples, who was proud of his collection of science fiction magazines, later boasting it was “probably one of the most complete around.” Roddenberry photographed many of the covers and discussed with Peeples every element of what he hoped to accomplish with Star Trek. At the same time, Desilu assigned him a small staff, including a graphic artist and a set designer.
Rolland “Bud” Brooks, Desilu's supervising art director, arrived at work one day to find Star Trek dumped in his lap. It was a giant leap from The Lucy Show and Ben Casey (the latter being a series that, while not owned by the studio, was filmed on the Desilu lot). Brooks said, “I was sitting there thinking, ‘My God, we gotta come up with a lot of stuff here’... and I thought of Matt.” (22-1)
Matt Jefferies (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Walter “Matt” Jefferies was fascinated by flight. He had joined the Army Air Corps during World War II and flew combat missions over Europe and North Africa. After the war, he became an illustrator for the Library of Congress, as well as a freelance artist for various magazines. In 1957, Jefferies was hired by Warner Brothers as a technical consultant and unofficial set designer for Bombers B-52. The movie was a success and Jefferies was given more work by the studio.
Because he proved he knew a great deal about airplanes, someone at Warner Bros. decided he must also know a great deal about sharks -- they were both grey, after all. And so Jefferies found himself designing a 20-foot mechanical, man-swallowing shark for The Old Man and the Sea. Work at MGM followed, where Jefferies designed the ship interiors and models for The Wreck of the Mary Deare. Then, because some felt the inside of a sea ship was not that far away from the interior of a space ship, Jefferies was put to work on Men Into Space, a science fiction series produced by Ziv. It premiered on CBS in 1959 and lasted one year. From the low rent offices of Ziv, Jefferies was lured to Desilu for The Untouchables, followed by Ben Casey. His title, finally: set designer. The illustrator who thought he was taking a single job on a film to help recreate the interior of a B-52 had now spent seven years designing everything from planes to moon bases to prohibition-era breweries.
Interviewed in 1968 for the fanzine Inside Star Trek, issue 4, Jefferies said, “At that point, [my wife and I] took a month off and went to the East Coast to visit the family. [We] came back and I couldn't find my equipment. My little cubicle was empty. So I went to Bud Brooks’ office and said, ‘Where's the next Casey script?’ and he said, ‘You're not on the show anymore.’ It served me right for taking a month’s vacation.”
Jefferies was wrong in thinking he had been fired. He had actually been given a promotion ... of a sort. He remembered Brooks saying with mischievous glee, “Your stuff is in the big drafting room... and there’s a man coming in this morning by the name of Roddenberry to do a space show.” (91-9)
Brooks had already told Roddenberry that Jefferies flew B-17 bombers in the war, which led to a bond between the two men. Jefferies said, “When he came in, we re-fought World War II for about 20 minutes, and then he told me what he wanted. Actually, about all he said that would help me along was several ‘don’ts,’ such as, ‘no flames, no fins, no rockets.’ And one ‘do,’ -- ‘Make it look like it’s got power.’ And then he walked out.” (91-6)
As a member of the Aviation Space Writers Association, Jefferies was able to amass a large collection of designs from NASA and the defense industry. He also viewed episodes of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon to see their vision of intergalactic space craft, and quickly decided: “This is what we will not
do!” (91-5)
Pato Guzman, the second man on the team, was a talented Desilu set designer. He had been under-challenged with his duties on The Lucy Show and immediately demonstrated abilities far greater than previously believed. Guzman’s time on Star Trek was brief but his contributions influenced much to come.
Regarding the direction they were given, in a 1968 interview, Jefferies said, “Roddenberry insisted everything be believable. We had to base it all on fairly solid scientific concepts, project it into the future and try to visualize what the fourth, fifth or tenth generation of present-day equipment would be like. So, working within those limits, Pato and I sat down and began to sketch out ideas. When we had about two walls covered with sketches, we called Roddenberry in and he looked them over. Damn it, but he can be irritating. He liked only a piece of this one or a small part of that one, but none of our ideas had what he was really looking for. So we did 20-some more designs, using the few elements he had said he liked.” (91-4)
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 8
