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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

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Speaker 1: Nori back with Mark Cushman. We're going to take calls

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Speaker 1: with Mark next hour here on Coast to Coast Mark.

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Speaker 1: The original Star Trek series ran what just three seasons? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you know back then they made thirty episodes a year,

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Speaker 1: and so it's pretty much like about nine seasons for

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Speaker 1: a current TV series. That's true, but it ran for

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Speaker 1: three years and NBC kept moving it from one time

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Speaker 1: slot to another. The folklore is that the ratings weren't good.

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Speaker 1: That's not true. We license all the Nielsen ratings for

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Speaker 1: every single episode for my book series, These are The Voyages,

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Speaker 1: and it was NBC's top rated Thursday night show, quite

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Speaker 1: often winning its time slot. As a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: the first episode had a forty seven percent audience share,

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Speaker 1: and during the second season they moved to Fridays, not

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Speaker 1: a good night for it, but it was still NBC's

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Speaker 1: top rated show. They tried to cancel it, they got

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Speaker 1: a million protest letters, so they put it in the

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Speaker 1: death slot Fridays from ten to eleven, and it's still

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Speaker 1: the first episode out spos Brain, the notorious Spox Brain

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Speaker 1: won its time slot against Judd for The Defense, which

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Speaker 1: had just won an Emmy for his Best Series on TV,

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Speaker 1: and the premiere of Wi Fi Vaux, which ran for

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Speaker 1: twelve years. What kind of person was Jane Roddenberry. He

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Speaker 1: was difficult if you ask NBC, and that's why Star

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Speaker 1: Trek got canceled. They were butting heads with him constantly.

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Speaker 1: I loved Jane. Jane was a writer's producer. He was

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Speaker 1: a great producer for a writer to come in and

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Speaker 1: pitch two which I did, and talking out stories and

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Speaker 1: developing the stories in the office there between the two

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Speaker 1: of you, and he really took care of writers. He

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Speaker 1: did not add his name to their scripts, even though

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Speaker 1: on the original series he would quite often rewrite seventy

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Speaker 1: eighty percent of the dialogue during the first year because

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Speaker 1: he was the only one who knew how these characters

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Speaker 1: would speak. But he did not put his name on

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Speaker 1: the scripts. And he really believed in the good of mankind,

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Speaker 1: but he knew the bad of mankind as well, and

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Speaker 1: he wanted to send out a positive message. So you know,

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Speaker 1: I liked Gene a lot. Did Twilight Zone make Cool Well,

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Speaker 1: William shatter or did Chatterer make twilight Zone? Well? Shatterer

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Speaker 1: was in a couple episodes, and there are a couple

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Speaker 1: of the most memorable episodes of twilight Zone, you know.

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Speaker 1: And the difference between Gene Roddenberry and Rod Serling was

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Speaker 1: Sterling was very negative in the messages that he put forward.

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Speaker 1: Star Trek put forward positive messages, so they were kind

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Speaker 1: of Star Trek was kind of like the anti twilight Zone.

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Speaker 1: But Jean and Rod very much respected each other. And

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Speaker 1: what Jean wanted to do was be a modern day

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Swift, and that's what he was doing on TV,

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Speaker 1: trying to talk about subjects that television wouldn't talk about

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Speaker 1: back then, which is why he had difficulty with NBC.

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Speaker 1: But William Shatner, you know, I don't think Star Trek

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Speaker 1: would have made it if it wasn't for William Shatner

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Speaker 1: and Leonard Nimoy, because originally it was going to be

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Hunter, and they were thinking of Martin land Out

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Speaker 1: to play mister Spock and both good actors, but I

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Speaker 1: just don't think it would have gone Years ago, Mark

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Speaker 1: I had George Dakai on the program, Sulu, and he

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Speaker 1: did a great job. They all did. They all did.

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Speaker 1: George Dakai is a really terrific actor, and if you

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Speaker 1: watch anything he's in, not just the original Star Trek,

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Speaker 1: but if you catch him on reruns of anything, this

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Speaker 1: guy brings one percent. It was a good cast all

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Speaker 1: the way around. And it's one of those strange things, George,

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Speaker 1: where it feels like fate, because I always say I

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Speaker 1: was on a History Channel special about Star Trek, and

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Speaker 1: I remember saying there that I really felt it was

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Speaker 1: like the Beatles of TV meeting. If you had taken

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Speaker 1: John Lennon or Paul McCartney or George Harrison or Ringle

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Speaker 1: Star out of the Beatles, it would have been the

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Speaker 1: same thing. Well, if you've taken Shatner or Nimoi or

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Speaker 1: Gene Roddenberry or producer Gene Cone or a lot of

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Speaker 1: other people out of Star Trek, it would have been

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Speaker 1: the same thing either. And I don't think it would

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Speaker 1: have made it since one of those things where fate

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Speaker 1: brings the right people together to make something happen. It's

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Speaker 1: bigger than us. It's bigger than we can even conceive.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, everybody who worked on Star Trek

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Speaker 1: couldn't understand. They never dreamed it would have gone on

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Speaker 1: like it did and had children like us had and

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Speaker 1: outlive all of them like has lived. They loved the

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Speaker 1: fact that it's done that, but nobody expected that. What

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Speaker 1: a franchise it is now. Did George Lucas use Star

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Speaker 1: Trek as his impetus to get Star Wars going? Yes, well,

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Speaker 1: he has admitted in interviews that Star Wars he would

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Speaker 1: not have gotten the financing and the studio support for

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Speaker 1: Star Wars that hadn't been for Star Trek because by

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Speaker 1: the time he was doing Star Wars in the mid

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Speaker 1: too slightly late nineteen seventies, Star Trek had become so

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Speaker 1: huge in syndication and in merchandising and conventions. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Comic Con wouldn't even exist today if it wasn't for

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Speaker 1: the Star Trek conventions. It just invented all this stuff,

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Speaker 1: not just technology, but so much else. And that's where

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Speaker 1: the interest came. Everybody wanted to bring Star Trek back.

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Speaker 1: Paramount wouldn't do it because Paramount was afraid if they

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Speaker 1: started making new Star Treks the bottom would fall off

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Speaker 1: on the reruns, which was crazy, but that was that

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Speaker 1: what they were thinking. NBC wanted Star Trek back. Everybody

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Speaker 1: wanted Star Trek back because the reruns were killing them.

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Speaker 1: And so that's how George was able to get the

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Speaker 1: financing in studio support for Star Wars. What did Roddenberry

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Speaker 1: think of extra terrestrial life? Real extra terrestrial life? You know,

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Speaker 1: it's really interesting. After I did the first three books,

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Speaker 1: which cover the first series, one for each season, and

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Speaker 1: the reason there's so much there is because the Gene

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Speaker 1: gave me all the memos, all the ductory reports, everything,

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Speaker 1: and I just wanted to share that with the fans,

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Speaker 1: see the battle that was fought. But then I did

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Speaker 1: three more books for the nineteen seventies, Gene Roddenberry and

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Speaker 1: Star Trek in the nineteen seventies, and in volume two,

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Speaker 1: because it happened right around nineteen seventy five and seventy six,

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Speaker 1: Gene was hired by an organization called Lab nine out

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Speaker 1: of New York State and they brought him in to

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Speaker 1: write a screenplay to prepare mankind for extraterrestrials coming back

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Speaker 1: to Earth or being revealed, being allowed to be revealed,

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Speaker 1: because they're already here and we all know that. And

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Speaker 1: they put him with a channeler who communicated with the

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Speaker 1: Council of Nine, and he wrote a screenplay called The

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Speaker 1: Nine And that transcript from that channeling session is in

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Speaker 1: this book Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek in the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: Volume two, and it is fascinating. He asked such intelligence questions.

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Speaker 1: He came so prepared for this meeting and wanted to

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Speaker 1: know what kind of crafts they use, if they were

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Speaker 1: interdimensional creatures or interplanetary creatures, and they said interdimensional and

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Speaker 1: so forth. And it's just a fascinating interview he did

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Speaker 1: with this chandler who was channeling in the Council of Nine.

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Speaker 1: He believed in life out there. He thought it would

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Speaker 1: be ridiculous if there wasn't life out there. And I

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Speaker 1: believe they were probably watching Star Trek, and that's why

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Speaker 1: they wanted him to write the screenplay. How did you

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Speaker 1: get involved with Roden Berry Mark in the first place.

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Speaker 1: I was assigned to interview him for a TV special

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Speaker 1: that was being done in La on a station that

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Speaker 1: was running Star Trek, And this was in nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 1: and we got on great and he gave me forty

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Speaker 1: plus boxes of materials for Star Trek memos like you

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Speaker 1: can't believe, which I put into These are the voyages

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Speaker 1: and all the rates and production reports and so forth.

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Speaker 1: And then when Star Trek and we kept in touch,

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Speaker 1: and when Star Trek the Next Generation came on, I

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Speaker 1: went in and pitched to him and I sold him

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Speaker 1: a story called Sarek, which was the first episode to

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Speaker 1: tie the original series and Next Generation together by bringing

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Speaker 1: back Spock's father, and that I've worked for other shows

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Speaker 1: like Star Trek Continues and so forth. Did you ever

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Speaker 1: have a chance to meet Rod Serling? No, No, because

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Speaker 1: he died what was it, I think in seventy four,

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Speaker 1: seventy five, it was so early. Yeah, he had a

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Speaker 1: hard issue or something. Yeah, and I was very young.

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Speaker 1: I mean when I was meeting with Geane, I was

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Speaker 1: in my twenties. And if he had yeah, oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: he had a bad heart. And he was a tormented individual.

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Speaker 1: Because he wrote a third of the Twilight Son episodes

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Speaker 1: and he rewrote all the others and all this. He

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Speaker 1: would have nightmares every night and he would get up

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Speaker 1: at the typewriter and he'd write another episode of Twilight Song.

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Speaker 1: Those were his nightmares. Did you ever expect Star Trek

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Speaker 1: to have kind of teeth and legs after it was

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Speaker 1: done airing, meaning the franchise went on forever. Still is

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Speaker 1: Nobody could Jane didn't think it would. Nobody who worked

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Speaker 1: their shouting or nobody. They were proud of what they did.

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Speaker 1: They knew what they did was special. But who would

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Speaker 1: think that sixty fifty five years later it would still

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Speaker 1: be out there and have had so many children and

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Speaker 1: grandchildren as it has. But it's the positive themes. I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you one quick story. My son was still living

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Speaker 1: with me at the time that I was doing these

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Speaker 1: These are the voyage books, and I had already written

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Speaker 1: for Nextcenaries and so forth, and they were running Star

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Speaker 1: Trek every night on an LA station, but also running

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Speaker 1: Next Generation. And he would come into my office and

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Speaker 1: he said, hey, Dad, I've been watching that show you're

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Speaker 1: writing about, and it's really good. It's much better than

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Speaker 1: the one you wrote for. I'm not going to tell

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Speaker 1: you the exact words of years, but he said it's

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Speaker 1: really good. And I said why do you think it's good?

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Speaker 1: And he says, well, it's like one from ten to eleven.

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Speaker 1: And I watched it and I turned the TV off

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Speaker 1: and I turned the light off, and I find myself

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Speaker 1: lying there. Now he was sixteen, So I find myself

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Speaker 1: lying there and I'm thinking about what they were telling me.

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Speaker 1: And that was so important to Gene Roddenberry. He was

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Speaker 1: it was always, you know, when I pitched Sarak or

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Speaker 1: anybody pitched to him, he said, I like that idea,

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Speaker 1: but what are you trying to say? It's all about

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Speaker 1: the theme. And that was important to him, and I

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Speaker 1: think that's why it still works to this day and

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Speaker 1: why people can still watch it because of the statements

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Speaker 1: it was making. Mark's websites are linked up at Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast dam dot com for you what was Lucille

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Speaker 1: Ball's role with Star Trek. She lost her studio because

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Speaker 1: of Star Trek. She is the mother of Star Trek.

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Speaker 1: She didn't create a Gene Roddenberry did. But after she

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Speaker 1: and Desi divorced and she became president of Desi Luke

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Speaker 1: because he was running it and and he didn't want

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Speaker 1: to do it anymore. He was burned out, and so

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Speaker 1: she came the president and she told her lieutenants herb

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Speaker 1: solo on Oscar catch She said, go out and find

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Speaker 1: me a show that can rerun as much as I

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Speaker 1: Love Lucy is because that's the show that built this studio,

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Speaker 1: and they brought her Star Trek, and the board of

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Speaker 1: directors tried to talk her out of doing it because

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Speaker 1: they said, an hour long science fiction show like this

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Speaker 1: half a science fiction movie each week, this is going

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Speaker 1: to bankrupt this. And she did the pilot and it

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Speaker 1: was the most expensive pilot ever made. An NBC applauded it,

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Speaker 1: but then rejected it ordered a second pilot. They tried

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Speaker 1: to talk her out of financing it. She did, and

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Speaker 1: then NBC ordered sixteen episodes, which was just half of

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Speaker 1: the first season, and the board of directors tried to

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Speaker 1: talk her out of doing it, and she said, no,

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Speaker 1: we're going to do this. She was right, but they

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Speaker 1: were right. Halfway into the second season, Desilu was broke

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Speaker 1: and she had to sell to Paramount. But she was

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Speaker 1: right because Star Trek and I Love Lucy are the

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Speaker 1: two most rerun shows around the world to this day's fantom.

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Speaker 1: Did she know Roddenberry? Oh yeah, Oh, I've got a

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Speaker 1: letter in one of my book, so the first one

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Speaker 1: where she writes him a letter. After the first episode

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Speaker 1: aired and got to that forty seven percent audience share

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Speaker 1: as she writes a letter to him saying, dear Jean,

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Speaker 1: we're so proud of you. It looks like we have

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Speaker 1: a hit. But she was there. She would come to

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Speaker 1: the set and everything. He would have meetings with her

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Speaker 1: all the time, so she had a great involvement. Nobody

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Speaker 1: knew this until I did the books and started revealing

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Speaker 1: these correspondences. Now it's kind of out there on the

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Speaker 1: Internet and people are getting hip to the idea that Lucy,

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Speaker 1: that wacky redhead was the mother is Star Trek. That's fit.

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Speaker 1: We were some of your favorite episodes, Mark. I was

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Speaker 1: a good friend with Dorothy Fontana DC Fontana, and she

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Speaker 1: wrote an episode Soode called This Side of Paradise where

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Speaker 1: Spot gets shot with these spores from a plant and

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Speaker 1: he's and the spores take over just enough of his

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Speaker 1: emotions that allows him to fall in love and he

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Speaker 1: falls in love with Jill Ireland. And it's such a

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Speaker 1: poignant episode because at the end of it when he

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Speaker 1: breaks the spores, when Kirk gets him to break the

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Speaker 1: spores and he comes back to being who he is,

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Speaker 1: and in the last scene on the bridge, he just

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Speaker 1: looks at Spot. It looks at Kirk and he says,

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Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, I was happy,

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Speaker 1: And oh my god, it's so poignant. It's such a

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Speaker 1: powerful episode. It just is funny, it's sad, it's adventurous,

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Speaker 1: It's got everything you wanted a TV show and conflict, conflict, conflict,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's just anybody watched that episode, it

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Speaker 1: will show you if you're interested in running for TV,

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Speaker 1: what you need to do. Now, how did you get

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Speaker 1: involved in I Spy? I met Robert Cope and I

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Speaker 1: was talking to him at a function and asking him

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Speaker 1: questions about ice By saying, you know, this was the

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Speaker 1: first show to shoot around the world, and this was

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Speaker 1: the first show to put a white in a black

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Speaker 1: together on equal status and the first show for a

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Speaker 1: black to win an Emmy as a lead. Bill Cosby,

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Speaker 1: Bill Conill Cosby three years in a row, one an Emmy.

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Speaker 1: And I said, you know, there's no book on I Spy.

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Speaker 1: I want to read about how you guys did all this,

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Speaker 1: And he says, Bill, and I can't understand it. Why

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Speaker 1: nobody's written about I Spy? And I said, well, if

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Speaker 1: you help me, I will, and so I did. I

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Speaker 1: went over to his house a dozen times and interviewed him.

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Speaker 1: He connected me with Bill, he connected me with everybody else,

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Speaker 1: interviewed everybody. I got authorized through William Morris and got

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Speaker 1: all the memos and all the papers and we did

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Speaker 1: that book. And it's a shame that the show is

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Speaker 1: not remembered like it should be. But it was an

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Speaker 1: incredibly successful show when it was on NBC right around

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Speaker 1: the same time as Star Trek, and it really opened

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Speaker 1: up the doors. And then Star Trek was the second punch,

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Speaker 1: the one two punch as far as changing the way

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Speaker 1: they looked at casting on television. So it's a historic show. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I Spy came out a year before Star Trek, didn't

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Speaker 1: it yep, nineteen sixty five, and Star Trek was in

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Speaker 1: September of nineteen sixty six. It's a right before then.

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Speaker 1: If you watch any TV prior to those two shows,

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Speaker 1: it's very vanilla, it's very white. It's it's almost a

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Speaker 1: little embarrassing because you know, you tune in and leave

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Speaker 1: it to Beaver or anything, Ben Casey a fugitive, and

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Speaker 1: you just never see anybody but white people. And these

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Speaker 1: two shows change that to where casting became more diverse,

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Speaker 1: not just for black African Americans, but for Hispanics, for Asians,

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Speaker 1: even for Vulcans. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM

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Speaker 1: every weeknight at one am Eastern and go to Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast am dot com for more