Vintage Original Series Sell Sheet
2 min readA booklet promoting the original series was sent out ahead of the 1966-1967 television series to interest advertisers in the show in hopes of getting them to purchase commercial time, and a copy of this Star Trek NBC sales pilot sell sheet has recently made its appearance on the Internet.
The booklet features a cover with James T. Kirk as Captain of the USS Enterprise, with Yeoman Smith (Andrea Dromm) at his side.
“As the Apollo moon shot moves steadily from the drawing board to the launching pad, Star Trek takes TV viewers beyond our time and solar system to the unexplored interstellar deeps in a full-hour adventure series,” said the opening to the ad. “Each week, the home screen audience will be invited to join the men and women aboard the United Space Ship Enterprise, as this huge star cruiser searches out safe landfalls in space.”
The next page of the sell sheet describes the Enterprise and its mission, Captain James Kirk, and William Shatner, the actor who was to play the “strong, capable, highly intelligent man.”
Familiar crew members are then described, such as Mr. Spock, Engineer Officer Scott and Physicist Sulu, who is listed as the “trim, soft-spoken chief of the Enterprise’s Astro Science Department.
Instead of the familiar Dr. McCoy, Dr. Piper (Paul Fix) was slated to be one of the co-stars of Star Trek. Communications Officer Alden (Lloyd Haynes) would have had the job that became Lt. Uhura’s and instead of Yeoman Rand, there was Yeoman Smith (Andrea Dromm).
Guest stars of the pilot episode (Where No Man Has Gone Before) were listed, including Gary Lockwood, Sally Kellerman and Paul Carr as Lt. Lee Kelso.
Finally, a brief description of the program and the creators (creator, producer, director and writer) of Where No Man Has Gone Before are listed, and that page is followed by one with six black-and-white photos from the pilot.
The sell sheet can be seen here. Click on a page twice to enlarge that page.
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Thanks for posting this up! We’ve got more great Star Trek Sale memorabilia from the first three seasons that we’ll be posting up that the Invisible Agent. Keep checking back!
Wasn’t this reprinted and included in one of the books about the show? Maybe Herb Solow and Bob Justman’s book?
Yes, it was already published in the Justman / Solow book “Inside Star Trek: The Real Story” back in 1996. The book, published by Pocket Books, is an excellent book on Star Trek’s early days. This book and Stephen Whitfield’s “The Making of Star Trek” are the two best books written about the original series. I still re-read both of them every four or five years.
This is the infamous sell sheet where Spock’s ears and eyebrows were airbrushed to look less satanic.
This is the infamous sell sheet where Spock’s ears and eyebrows were airbrushed to look less satanic.
This is the infamous sell sheet where Spock’s ears and eyebrows were airbrushed to look less satanic.