May 2014

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teamsttoscams227:

Mediums like “zines” created a new level of audience participation in a television show. Zines are collaborative fan made publications that can take many different forms. One of the trailblazers for these projects was  “A Piece of Action (APOTA)”: a new form of fan interaction called a gen newsletter zine. The publication started in 1973, and produced 94 issues before ending in 1982.  APOTA average circulation by 1976 was approximately 1500 (Fanlore Wiki).     

http://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Piece_of_the_Action/

Preceding “A Piece of the Action” by 5 years was the fan produced Spockanalia. Published in 1967, copies were sent to Gene Roddenberry to read. According to Fanlore “Each issue of ‘Spockanalia’ had many examples of Roddenberry, Fontana, DeForest Kelley, and other Star Trek creators’ interest, if not direct, comments and assistance." 

The zine went through multiple print runs, with almost 5000 copies in circulation.

Summary from Fanlore: ”Spockanalia is a gen Star Trek: TOS anthology of stories, poems, articles, art and letters.[1] It was the very first all-Star Trek fanzine ever published, done when the series was still in its first season on NBC. It was edited by Devra Michele Langsam and Sherna Comerford. Originally meant as a one-shot, it ended up as a five-issue series when the editors were inundated with material after the first issue appeared.“

Read more here: http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spockanalia

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The thing you have to know about Star Trek, beyond the obvious it-forever-changed-how-we-envision-the-future stuff, is that when the original series first aired in 1966, it was just about dead in the water. Audiences didn’t love the original pilot episode, and the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, had to fight to convince NBC executives to air more episodes of this weird, forward-thinking show about space exploration. The network and let him air a second, new-and-improved pilot (with the role of Captain James T. Kirk recast with William Shatner) and then a whole season, and then a second season, but although the show was slowly gaining viewers, the ratings were still pretty low, so NBC announced its cancellation.

Bjo [Trimble], however, would not hear of it.

“It really annoyed me,” she said on a recent episode of The Real Story on the Smithsonian Channel. “I think we had a moral prerogative not just to save the show, but to let these networks know that the public had an opinion.”

“Boldly Going Where No Man (or Woman) Had Gone Before“ by Devon Maloney (via startrekhistory)