Redneck Star Trek – Beam Me Up, Bubba

 For your amusement, we have a Star Trek parody, Redneck Star Trek – Beam Me Up, Bubba.

Space Shuttle Enterprise 50 Years

Above, Enterprise in its maintenance hangar at Edwards Air Force Base in 1977. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It is hard to believe that the start of construction of the space shuttle test vehicle Enterprise began 50 years ago this month. 

I got to see it and stand under it in its maintenance hangar at Edwards Air Force Base in 1977.

Above, Mitch Geriminsky and I in Enterprise's maintenance hangar.

From NASA's Facebook page:

On June 4, 1974—50 years ago today—construction began on NASA's first space shuttle. Officially designated OV-101, Enterprise received its more common name after a dedicated write-in campaign by fans of the original Star Trek TV series. When Enterprise made its public debut in California on Sept. 17, 1976, several cast members from the show, as well as creator Gene Roddenberry, were on hand to attend.

Enterprise made its first independent flight on Aug. 12, 1977, released from atop a Boeing 747 to test the shuttle's approach and landing capabilities. Built to perform test flights in the atmosphere, Enterprise never reached orbit but paved the way for NASA's next generation of spacecraft. Space shuttle Columbia became the first shuttle to fly into space on April 12, 1981. 

Leonard Nimoy As Sherlock Holmes

Many on Facebook had noted the late Leonard Nimoy's birthday yesterday. 

I spotted a photo of Nimoy playing Sherlock Holmes in a rather campy stage play in 1976. Alan Sues (of Laugh-In fame) played Moriarty. I shared it. Some people weren't even aware Nimoy played Holmes upon seeing the photo (shown above).

My parents and I went to see the play at the now-gone Shubert Theater located at the ABC Entertainment Center in Century City in Los Angeles. Somewhere around here, I have the program from the show. 

Campy though it was, I found it entertaining nonetheless.

Here's a newspaper advertisement:

Here's the cover of the play's program:

One of these days, I should dig around to see if I can find my copy of the program.

Star Trek: "Plato's Stepchildren"

Above, the famous kiss.

While viewing some of the Star Trek movies starring the original series cast, I found that some sets Paramount Pictures used looked cheap and obviously sets. Some sets of the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock looked very cheap. I still enjoyed the movies anyway.

But those cannot compare to the cheapness of the Star Trek original series sets. Last night, I watched the 3rd season episode, "Plato's Stepchildren". It reminded me that I didn't watch the original series as, even as a kid, I felt the show looked cheap. 

In case nobody remembers this particular episode, here's a synopsis:

The telekinetically powerful Platonians hold Capt Kirk and Mr Spock prisoner when Dr McCoy refuses to remain behind as Parmen's personal physician.

Even the acting in this episode left much to be desired. It was interesting seeing a young Barbara Babcock (Dallas, Space Cowboys). And, the famous first television interracial kiss between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura. I didn't think it was such a big deal. 

One blogger wrote of the episode:

While much of this episode is horrible, the series managed to slip by the censors some great moments that make it worth viewing.

Well, I'll give it that.

At least the sets in Star Trek: The Next Generation looked better to me.

Vulcan Proverb

 

Data Resembles King Charles III

I saw a clip of Data (Brent Spiner) from Star Trek: Picard and and to laugh. The aging make-up Spiner is wearing makes him look sort of like King Charles III. 

Here's a screenshot from that clip:

Engage!

Someone in the city's planning department must've been a Trekker.

Mr. Spock Coffee Mug

Above, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. 

The other day, I had to pick up a few things over at Walmart.

While walking through the kitchenware section, I spotted a coffee mug. It was of the late Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock in Star Trek. 

On one side, it had an image of Nimoy (a good one) giving the Vulcan hand sign and on the other, Spock's Vulcan salute, "Live Long and Prosper".

Above, the Vulcan salute.

Since the mug was under $5.00, I decided to get it, even though I have a cupboard full of coffee mugs.

It also reminded me of the time I saw Nimoy perform at the Shubert Theater in Century City's ABC Entertainment Center as Sherlock Holmes and Alan Sues as Prof. Moriarty back in the 1970s. The ABC Entertainment Center (along with the Shubert Theater and the Playboy Club) was demolished in 2004. 

Hollywood Elitist George Takei Pops Off About Russia

Before 2016, George Takei's postings on Facebook and elsewhere were funny and entertaining. Since then, he is nothing but an angry old gay man with multiple chips on his shoulders and constantly attacks Republicans.

Now, he is trying to tell us that we should put the screws to Vladimir Putin by paying more for gasoline. It would be an honor to so, or so he says.

There's only one problem with that.

From The Gateway Pundit: 

Hollywood elitist George Takei of Star Trek fame, popped off about the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Takei, who is worth millions of dollars, said Americans should be honored to pay higher food and gas prices “if it means putting the screws to Putin.”

“Americans: We can endure higher prices for food and gas if it means putting the screws to Putin. Consider it a patriotic donation in the fight for freedom over tyranny.” Takei said in a tweet on Friday afternoon.

Someone should tell George Takei that the United States is funding Putin by buying Russian oil.

To read more, go here. 

Shatner's Flight In Pictures

Funny thing, after the flight, Shatner spoke of his experience and he's way more articulate at age 90 than Joe Biden is at age 78.
 

About To Boldy Go...

Above, the crew stopped to view the Blue Origin rocket before boarding.

The Blue Origin is set to launch in a half hour. I am watching at Space.com.

The screen shot below was just after the crew, including William Shatner, entered the shelter at the launch pad:

William Shatner Poised To Go Where Some Have Gone Before

Above, William Shatner in his flight suit. Blue Origin photo.

In less than three hours from now, Star Trek actor William Shatner will be among a crew of four when Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin spacecraft lifts off from West Texas.

According to Yahoo! Finance:

VAN HORN, Texas, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Billionaire U.S. businessman Jeff Bezos's company Blue Origin is set for its second suborbital tourism flight on Wednesday, with actor William Shatner - who embodied the promise of space travel on the "Star Trek" TV series and films - among the four-person all-civilian crew poised to blast off in Texas.

Shatner, at age 90, is due to become the oldest person ever in space. He and his crewmates are scheduled for a 9 a.m. (1000 EDT/1530 GMT) takeoff aboard the 60-foot-tall (18.3 meters-tall) fully autonomous New Shepard spacecraft at Blue Origin's launch site about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural west Texas town of Van Horn.

 To read more, go here.

Captain Kirk Set To Go Into Space, For Real

Above, William Shatner in Star Trek, the original series. Publicity photo.

Capt. James T. Kirk is set to go into space for real.

Actor William Shatner, age 90, who starred in the 1960s Star Trek television series and the first six related movies, will be blasting off aboard Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin spacecraft next month.

According to ABC7:

William Shatner, who boldly went where no one has gone before on "Star Trek," is going to make real space history as the oldest person ever to go into space.

The 90-year-old will take part in the next Blue Origin rocket launch from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Shatner, best known for playing Captain Kirk on "Star Trek," will take his real-life voyage in October.

He's set to break the record just recently set by pioneering aviator Wally Funk, who was 82 years old when she joined Bezos on the first Blue Origin launch - 60 years after being denied a chance to do so with NASA because she was a woman.

My only question is: Will there be a fight over the captain's chair in the Blue Origin spacecraft?

To read more, go here.

"Enterprise" Rollout 45 Years Ago

The following was posted yesterday on Facebook:

It is hard to believe that the rollout took place 45 years ago.

I was able to see the Enterprise up close in July 1977 when I visited Mitch Geriminsky at Edwards Air Force Base. He was stationed at Edwards and had clearance to different areas on the base. We went to the hangar where the Enterprise was kept and the photo below was taken during our visit.

The shuttle prototype got its Enterprise name from a petition drive of Star Trek fans. They actually should have waited to have an actual space shuttle be named Enterprise instead.

50 Best Alien Movies Ever Made

Above, a replica Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still at the
 Roswell International UFO Museum. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since summer is over and autumn has arrived (with winter just around the corner), many will find themselves indoors and needing something to do. One idea to keep occupied is to watch alien movies.

Madison.com has compiled a list of the 50 best alien movies ever made. Several Star Trek movies made the list, by the way.

Before listing the 50 best, they wrote:

Humanity’s ideas of alien existence often says more about us than the little green men we envision. Our conception of life beyond Earth reflects our collective hopes and fears about the unknown and about technology, as well as our knowledge of the larger universe — which changes dramatically as time goes on.

No medium has more vividly captured and utilized scenarios of extraterrestrial life better than film. Aliens first appeared on screen in 1902, in Georges Méliès’s “A Trip to the Moon.” After 1947 — in which civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold’s UFO sightings and the discovery of a mysterious “flying disc” near Roswell, New Mexico occurred — a subculture devoted to otherworldly creatures called “ufology” emerged, leaving a lasting mark on cinema.

As America dealt with the Red Scare in the 1950s, influential alien films like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “War of the Worlds” used intergalactic characters to reflect citizens’ fear of Communism and other “outsiders,” as well as humanity's penchant to destroy itself from within. Extraterrestrials were also common sci-fi horror monsters, ranging from the titular alien in Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic to the shape-shifting arctic creature in “The Thing.” However, in the 1970s and 1980s, friendlier and sometimes lovable aliens were also reflected in movies such as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” and “Cocoon.” These days, otherworldly characters appear in a wide range of roles, from the alien force that mutates biological creatures in “Annihilation” to the more kindly, time-bending heptapods of “Arrival.”

With the wide number of alien movies throughout the history of film, how can viewers determine which extraterrestrial features are most worth their time? To answer that question, Stacker compiled data (as of Sept. 2, 2020) on all sci-fi movies on Letterboxd, the film-based social media network, and selected the top 50 alien movies, ranked according to their average Letterboxd score. To qualify, aliens had to be main characters or central to the plot of the film.

Here are the best alien movies of all time, starting at No. 50 and counting down to No. 1.

To see the list, go here. 

New William Shatner Biography by Author Michael Starr

It is strange how things happen.

I had just finished watching the 1991 flick, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the last Star Trek movie featuring the original cast when I received an email about a new William Shatner biography.

Here's what the email said:

New William Shatner Biography by Author Michael Starr, the New York Post TV Columnist

Biographer Michael Starr has covered television at the New York Post since 1995 as a reporter, columnist, and critic, and has authored critically acclaimed biographies of Peter Sellers, Art Carney, Joey Bishop, Bobby Darin, Raymond Burr, Redd Foxx, and Ringo Starr, which was selected as one of People magazine’s "Books of the Week" upon its release in July 2015. He now debuts SHATNER, also featured in People as "best new books."

About the book:

In the early months of 1966, a handsome, hardworking thirty-five-year-old Canadian-born actor named William Shatner was cast as Captain Kirk in Star Trek, a troubled, low-budget science-fiction television series set to premiere that fall on NBC. Star Trek struggled for viewers and lasted only three seasons, but it found a huge, rabidly dedicated audience when it premiered in syndication following its cancellation—turning Shatner into a pop-culture icon and launching him on a career path he never could have imagined after graduating from McGill University with an economics degree twenty years earlier. As he approaches his ninetieth year, he's still working at a furious pace as a man of boundless contradictions: by turns one of the most dissected, disliked, revered, respected, mocked, imitated, and beloved stars in the show business firmament.

Shatner takes a comprehensive look at this singular performer, using archival sources and information culled from interviews with friends and colleagues to transport readers through William Shatner's remarkably bumpy career: his spectacular failures and triumphs; tragedies, including the shocking death of his third wife, Nerine; and, ultimately, the resilience Shatner has shown, time and again, in the face of overwhelming odds. Author Michael Seth Starr unravels the mystery of William Shatner, stripping away the many myths associated with his personal life and his relationships with fellow actors, presenting a no-holds-barred, unvarnished look at the unique career of an inimitable performer.

New Space Force Logo: It's Only Logical

To boldly go where no snowflakes have gone before.

Some liberals on Facebook aren't too happy with the new Space Force logo that President Trump revealed in a Twitter Tweet today.

The logo Trump revealed is obviously a knock-off of the Starfleet logo from Star Trek.

According to Vice.com:

Donald Trump just tweeted out the logo for Space Force, a new branch of the United States military created to deal with threats in space. It is an obvious knock off of the logo for Starfleet, the space force of the United Federation of Planets, from the popular television show Star Trek.

Since Star Trek takes place in the 23rd Century, maybe this is the beginning of Starfleet?

Here's the Starfleet and Space Force logos:

To read more, go here.

Live long and prosper!

Whatever Happened To Proofreading?

Well, I've said it before, but it seems that proofreading seems to be a lost art or just non-existent with some publications.

The latest (from George Takei of Star Trek):

Shatner Phasers A Whiny Snowflake

The best post-election Tweet I've seen belongs to the former Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek.

A whiny liberal was complaining that actor William Shatner hadn't joined the chorus of crybaby liberal snowflakes complaining about Donald Trump's victory. Keep in mind that Shatner is a Canadian.

He responded:

To read the full story, go here.

Looks Like Romulan Ale

Travel + Leisure posted an article on a new blue wine from Spain.

They wrote:

There's a company in Spain that goes by the name of GIK that's trying to make blue wine a thing. 

Whether or not that's a good (or delicious) thing is yet to be determined, but it's at least intriguing.

It looks like Romulan Ale from Star Trek to me.

To read more, go here.