A new radio interview with Gene Roddenberry has surfaced on YouTube.
Texas Radio Hall of Famer Scott Arthur was cleaning out some boxes of old interviews from his illustrious career when he came across this lost interview he did with Gene Roddenberry from 1973. Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek spent almost a half hour talking with Arthur about Star Trek, pushing boundaries and the future of humanity.
Listen below:
Listened to this yesterday. Great towards the end when he talked about Questor Tapes and Genesis II/Planet Earth. I remember them well.
This is the type of special find that’s particularly exciting to see uploaded to the site! Thanks.
Any chance of a transcript of this turning up, somewhere?
Fascinating. Interesting to hear him acknowledge the contributions of others to the Star Trek mythos. In later years it seemed that he was happy to take the credit for ideas that originally came from Gene Coon, D.C. Fontana, and others, but here he’s quite open and honest about the collaborative nature of television.
Thats a funny point, David #4. In the interview, he made note of writing being cooperative effort for TOS. Was it how Paramount treated him that made him change (and evoke those story-limited inflexablity)?
That was fantastic, always great to hear interviews from the Great Bird of the Galaxy himself Gene Roddenberry!! :-)
He tells the story of Number One and having to can her, but doesn’t mention marrying her. Hmmm.
Great stuff for Trekkies. Thanks for posting it.
to 7: Indeed, he often told the joke that he kept Spock and married Number One, as the alternative wasn’t as appealing to Leonard…. I saw him in ’82 or ’83 when he was doing the college lecture tour circuit and am pretty sure he was already making that jest at that point. He also would note that he found a way to work Majel in later, by putting her in as a blonde, and that her name “Christine Chapel” was a jest at a network insistence of having a “Christian chaplain” on board.
Thanks for posting the link to the recording! What a great thing to listen to while working this morning. It reminds me of the “prerecorded records”, which this is almost of that type. The PR folks would send you pre-recorded answers to questions. The DJ, like me in the late 70’s early 80’s would record oneself reciting the question, and then play the next track in the album that had the answer. I remember there existing just such an LP of answers for the Motion Picture publicity.
Thanks, Matt! =)
Fascinating! Whilst the interview goes over most of what we know, it’s interesting that Paramount were looking at a motion picture before Star Wars. We were always lead to believe that “Phase II” was dropped in favor of a movie after the success of SW and CEOTTK.
Also that Roddenbury was always open to improving the sets with new technology and said, even then, that if they did a new series panels etc. would look a lot better. I’m sure he would have approved ST-E sets, something that has been debated by many who thought it should have stayed with a 60s style. Roddenbury very much tried to keep things state-of-the-art, so I feel this debate is finally over.
Good work getting this one, TrekMovie!
Sorry for misspelling
Mr Roddenberry’s surname. Spellchecker tried to highlight it but I clicked “Say It” button prematurely. Dohh!
Interesting interview with the Great Bird of the Galaxy. Gene Roddenberry pushed for tolerance and equality even if the network didn’t want it. He also wanted smart science fiction.