[STAR TREK FILM REEL] Being an Original Reel of 16mm Film Containing the Famous But Highly Elusive "Blooper" Footage. [With] A Digitalized Recording of the Contents on Modern Media

[Holywood]: [Desilu Studios, unpublished], [Circa 1969-1971]. A reel of original black and white 16mm film containing a film print of the full footage of the blooper reels Roddenberry had assembled following seasons one and two of STAR TREK (September 8, 1966 to March 29, 1968). Roughly fifteen minutes of black and white footage from film originally rescued from the cutting-room floor at Deslu Studios. On a contemporary 12.5 inch film spool, and in a film can from the same period. The digital print is made from the actual film provided, and is on modern "thumb-drive" media. Request for conversion to DVD. The celluloid film appears to be very well preserved, there is no odor of acetate or evidence of brittleness associated with degraded film, the actual projected images range from scene to scene but are, as in virtually all known examples, generally of fairly low quality. The history of the their creation and early distribution explains this. A VERY ENJOYABLE, AND YET ALSO AN IMPORTANT HISTORICAL ITEM FROM THE MOST FAMOUS TELEVISION SCIENCE FICTION SERIES OF ALL TIME. STAR TREK has lived on to be a cultural phenomenon with an almost 60 year life comprised of twelve television series, twelve major motion pictures, and a countless array of books, graphic novels, parodies, and various merchandise. In the history of modern Science Fiction only STAR WARS rivals its popularity.
The STAR TREK bloopers were also the first generally viewed or distributed films of their kind. In the decades since, bloopers have become big business, spawning a popular television series and commonly shown at the end of movies such as the Marvel film series and Dreamworks productions. But prior to STAR TREK, unusable footage such as this was in virtually all cases simply discarded.
The making of the STAR TREK Blooper Reels began as a labor of love. Series creator Gene Roddenberry hand-assembled the first original reel from film scraps rescued from the cutting room floor of things such as goof-ups, horseplay, practical jokes, etc. This first reel was made to show to the cast, production staff, and other studio personal at a 1966 Desilu Christmas party. It was a hit, and he had a few copies made to give as gifts to the studio execs. At the conclusion of season one, he created a second reel using film from reel one combined with additional new footage from the episodes produced after Christmas. Copies of this reel were also produced, again as gifts to studio execs. Another reel was made using clips from season two.
STAR TREK was canceled in 1968, but knowing it had a broad base of mostly well educated fans the studio heavily promoted it for syndication. These afternoon "reruns" quickly gave the series a second life. Roddenberry began as early as 1969 going to colleges to give public speaking appearances and occasionally brought along his copies of the popular "bloopers". These appearances eventually led to the early S.T. conventions, where Roddenberry would speak and often show his film reels. Eventually, as the conventions grew in popularity, copies were made from Roddenberry's copies for wider distribution. And occasionally copies of those copies were made to sell to the devoted fans. While the original broadcast episodes of the series were protected by copyright, the editing room scraps were not. The conventions could show these as they pleased; and in fact the series owners (by this time Paramount/Gulf Western) encouraged it as free advertising for the franchise; they would later try to clamp down on this, but the genie was already out of the bottle.
The distribution reels being made from Roddenberry's already well-loved and often-shown originals is what accounts for the generally poor audio and video to be found on the film. Fan complaints about the viewing quality go back as far as the early 1970s. No official effort to restore or market the bloopers has ever been made, though parts of them showed up on unauthorized VHS anthologies in the 1980s and later on unauthorized DVDs.
The reel of film offered here contains the full season one reel combined with the full reel from season two, making for just over 15 minutes of viewing pleasure. It is also an uncommon example as it was produced in black and white. The bloopers themselves provide a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse not only into STAR TREK, but into the television industry of the era. They show us a typically good-natured group of fun and creative people who seem to be genuinely enjoying their work. Many of the scenes are physical mishaps, such as tripping, falling, dropping things, or walking into doors (that happens a lot). Others are line flubs and slips of the tongue, and many more are the cast of actors just goofing around, horse-playing, or pulling gags on one and other. Much of the activity is clearly from a different era and would be considered highly "workplace inappropriate" by today's standards!