Thursday, February 18, 2016

Ephemera for Lunch #34:
Three Star Trek tales


This 33-1/3 Star Trek record, unlike the other vinyl covers being featured this week, is a personal relic that has survived from my 1970s childhood. We pulled it out of a box in the far reaches of the basement while cleaning out the house on Oak Crest Lane last year.

I had a few cool Trek things as a kid, including a model Enterprise1, and watched TOS reruns all the time. And we're still a Star Trek family here in 2016. Sarah is reading the novel Q-Space, by Greg Cox, as I type this post. Also, earlier this week I was checking out the wonder that is Star Trek Continues after hearing an interview with star Vic Mignogna on Coast to Coast AM.

This record was published in 1975 by Power Records, which was a label of Peter Pan Records. There were, I learned, eleven different Star Trek stories released via 23 different records from 1975 through 1979, as the franchise was relaunching with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I learned this from the fantastic website maintained by Curt Danhauser. It lists all of the records that were released, details the original stories and has tons of other great information. You should definitely check it out.

My record was the first one released. It contained the stories "Passage to Moauv," "In Vino Veritas" and "The Crier in the Emptiness." I can still remember listening to and enjoying them, especially the sound effects of the cat-like critter in "Passage to Moauv."

I do have a question/concern, however, about this record cover. If you look closely, you can see that the Enterprise is labeled the NCC 1311. What's up with that? Apparently, these releases suffered from accuracy problems in other areas, too. Some of the records were accompanied by comic books and, according to Danhauser's trivia page, the comic artists "depicted Uhura as a blond, Caucasian woman and Sulu as a black man in a uniform with a blue shirt, instead of his usual yellow shirt."

The back cover of this first record has Uhura correct, at least.


Since this is Star Trek we're talking about this, many others have written about these 1970s records. Here are some links to other sites you might be interested in checking out:

Other Star Trek-related Papergreat posts

Footnote
1. I have a fleeting recollection of having the Mego Enterprise Playset, but that might represent a faulty memory on my part. The mind can play tricks on you.

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