208 Away Team Too

[Swan]

I'll SEE your husband's Technical Manual and raise him.... a cargo containerload (I'm NOT kidding you!!) of TOS PROPS!!! Here's the story-

Back when Trek TOS was cancelled... fandom as a national phenom did NOT exist.. Yes there was Bjo Trimble and the Welcomittee and MAYBE one or two paperbacks and that was IT! Lincoln Enterprises was the ONLY STrek licensed company and all they had were IDICS, the uniform patches and a few Tribble keychains.

When the show folded, DesiLu looked around at their massive inventory of properties and said "What the @#$! do we do with all THIS?!!" The answer: Pitch it! But they didn't really want it all to go to the landfill... not when they could make somewhat of a profit on it all... tax-wise that is... SO....

They took one of the Shuttle craft builds... LOADED it up with EVERYTHING... and donated it to the Foundation for the Junior Blind. The FJB, located at the edge of Watts, on Angeles Vista Blvd, was where I went every weekend. SO....

YOu can IMAGINE my SHOCK when I came in one day and found room after room FILLED with PROPS!! The ones I remember were: The Giver of pain and Delight, The captain's Log, The little styrofoam ployhedron that was supposed to have been a crystallized crewmember, Fabric from the sickbay beds, a pile of ACTUAL show-used uniforms, a Klingon Disrupter Rifle, The USS Galileo shuttlecraft (complete with dashboards and chairs, all removed from mountings), the Sickbay instruments, a bunch of wigs, a pair of Spock's rubber ears, one of the bridge consoles, and boxes and boxes and BOXES of bits, bobs, things strings, springs and wings!

IMMEDIaTELY I went to Norman Kaplan, the director of the Foundation and said "Do you have ANY idea what you HAVE here?!!" "Yes, he replied glumly "A bunch of junk! We're just going to have to throw it all out." "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... I told him that my friends and I, serious Trekkies, could HELP him rEFURBISH the shuttlecraft, spiff up the props and SELL them!

It was not to be. Being the polite, HONEST sort, I did NOT help myself!! I asked for a few items, and was told "no, leave them... we'll find a use for some of this..."

Over ther weeks, things disappeared... And disappeared,.. and dwindled, piece by piece by piece.... I did NOT take anything and to this DAY I kick myself!!

Here are some "personal details" of some of the props: Captains Log. It was made up of a 3-ring notebook, vinyl covered, I think... with a "Magic Erase thing TAPED onto the top! A lightbulb had been stuck through the cover and was attached to a batter clip so the light would glow. The Magic Erase tabled was the writing surface and the stylus was a little triangular piece of painted wood. OH how cheap and cheesy it looked "up close" OH how I wish I'd lifted it!!!
The giver of Pain and Delight. The "wrist bracelet" was actually (wait for it) A TIN CAN spraypainted gold!! The body of the Giver was a small wooden trophy plaque onto which had been glued little paste jewels. Ditto the Captain's log... Things were glued on here or there, on the props. The Klingon Disruptor Rifle was a toy gun with stuff hot glued onto ht and a plywood stock.

The Shuttlecraft was the one thing I watched "die" and it nearly KILLED me!! The chairs. plastic hot-molded things, were discarded, because they had been bolted into the shuttlecraft flooring and did not have proper "stands" The shuttle craft's two tin "nacelles" were scrapped and the shuttlecraft was painted sky blue and covered with vinyl flower decals!! It became a small temporary storage shed until the los Angeles rainstorms reduced it to warped rotting plywood... at which it was ingloriously hauled away. The sickbay bed coverings, glitter cloth, were recycled into various craft projects, and much of the bits and lieces ended up used in craft classes... recycled into flowerpots, pencil holders, belts, rings, pot holders, place mats, whatever the craft teachers could think up.... Several boxes, not gone through or cataloged or anything... were just thrown out.

Whenver I see a "Screen-used TOS Prop" on eBay I wonder... was it something that I sifted through back then on Angeles Vista?

Oh... and another thing that was tossed out... box after box after box of SCRIPTS!!!! Shooting scripts, scripts with actors' notations and reminders scribbled into the margins... And in one of the boxes... two or three Tootsie Roll Pop wrappers.... *I* threw THOSE out... not for an INSTANT realizing WHOSE they had been!!

*sigh* If I had known THEN what I know NOW.... I'd've hired a bloody TRUCK and GRABBED everything that wasn't nailed down!! Which was about all of it... ONLY the shuttlecraft would've been beyond my ability to snag.

So... all together now....


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Somewhere... the Vulcans weep.

Swan

[K2!]

I'll see your husband's 'nerd' and raise him a 'Geek'!

The husband sees your Geek and raises you a Star Trek Technical manual with signatures...

I'll SEE your husband's Technical Manual and raise him.... a cargo container load...

Ahhhh, I got nothin'. I fold!

[AlmySidaKay]

I'll see your husband's 'nerd' and raise him a 'Geek'!

The husband sees your Geek and raises you a Star Trek Technical manual with signatures...

I'll SEE your husband's Technical Manual and raise him.... a cargo container load...

Ahhhh, I got nothin'. I fold!

I got an Enterprise pizza cutter?

[Greyhaunt]

I have a replica original Star Trek communicator that makes real authentic noises....used to have a tricorder too but haven't seen that in years

[zirconmermaid]

NO wonder I like all you people! We are the same!! Geeks RULE!!

[OkamiKodomo]

My friend has a bust of Mr Spock in her living room? And her brother's name is Kurk. They have one of those battery-operated Tribbles. Their father speaks fluent Klingon.

And wow. "Klingon" did not have to be added to Mozilla's spell-check dictionary. I did not know this.

[Greyhaunt]

LOL - I worked in a comic book store on and off for years (part time job) and we had not-quite-lifesized cardboard cutouts of Kirk and Spock. Every year at the holiday season I'd decorate them with Santa hats and garland and stuff. Eventually they just gave me Kirk because no one ever bought him (Spock sold). I'm afraid he long ago was either sold or given away...but I remember him well

Sorry K2, but I'm afraid you've caused us geeks to hijack your thread!

[K2!]

Sorry K2, but I'm afraid you've caused us geeks to hijack your thread!

No problem. I just never collected much Star Trek stuff (except videos).
Eventually the girls will get around to playing Star Wars and then we'll see...

[Swan]

I'll open the bid on Star Wars!

Back in 1976 I was at MidAmeriCon, the World Science Fiction Convention, being held in Kansas City. I was younger, thinner (much), VERY newly wed (the con was part of our honeymoon! How fannish is that?!) and I was in the elevator with a scruffy looking guy in baseball hat, beard and moustache and some VERY annoying cutouts, visual displays etc etc... and a slender shy looking fellow. "What's all this about?" I asked him since he was the closest.

"Oh these? They're displays for a film I'm in." "Really? Cool, tell me more." "Uh... well, it's a picture about this farm boy who gets to fight galactic evil. It's called "The Star Wars" and I play the farm boy."

By this time the elevator had reached its destination from hotel to con floor and they were unloading all this stuff. I asked a couple more questions as the actor unloaded stuff for "Mr. Lucas" (I remembered the name because we managed apartments and I had a tenant by that last name. I used the mnemonic to peg the name in my mind... surely the film would be a crashing bore!) "So what's your character's name? How will I know it's you?"

"Oh... well... when you see me, I'll be standing in a hole hollering up at my uncle. I think... I'm Luke Skywalker." "OK!" I said brightly to the shy and rather uncomfortable looking lad, scarcely older than myself. "I'll make a note of it."

I skipped the demonstration and panel discussion. I mean... REALLY! A FARM BOY fighting Galactic evil?! Where could THAT go? Little did I know that THAT film would completely CHANGE my life forever, place me in LucasFilm's temporary employ, cause a hysterically funny divorce, bidding war that would shake several WorldCons and eventually result in a legal skirmish that would make an internationally famous director blink before *I* did AND get me my second (and best) marriage!

"Lucas Lucas Lucas... same name as the tenants in #214." I wasn't sure if I'd remember but if not, *shrug* who cared?" Farm boy.... Psshhhhhtt!

Swan

[kurosu.chan]

My hairdresser gave me a life size cardboard pit droid! It's one of the ones where you punch out all the pieces and they fold up into the model. He's hanging in my stairwell <3