Ouch… Time sure flies. I suppose if STAR WARS had to turn 40 this year, then E.T. the EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL had to turn 35.
I have a distinct memory of seeing E.T. on the June 11 opening night back in 1982. Going to see it was a no-brainer; I was excited to see what the director of three of my favorite films at the time — JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK — would do next. Walking in, I knew almost nothing about the film, other than there would be an alien that comes to earth and has some sort of adventure. At that point in the movie’s marketing roll-out, E.T. himself had been an absolute mystery and no one knew what he looked like. I envisioned something similar to the visitors from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, and during that first scene of E.T. in which the little critter from another world got left behind in the woods, I remember thinking, “Huh?” It looks so… weird.” The animatronic movement of the newly introduced Spielberg alien felt a bit off as it waddled along, and I had a moment of serious doubt about the film. I also remember the two teen girls in the seats in front of me groaning. “We should’ve picked DAWN OF THE DEAD,” complained one to the other. I wondered too if I had made a mistake. Of course, E.T. and his winning personality soon won over the hearts of every person in the theater that night — including those two girls, who were sobbing loudly by the end when he said his final goodbye to Elliott, played by a young Henry Thomas.
Five years ago, when E.T. celebrated its 30th anniversary, I dug into the video archive vault at the other “ET” where I worked — ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT — and unearthed some great set visit interviews with Spielberg (sporting a RAIDERS cap) and the kids from 1981, along with footage of him directing scenes at the same time that he was putting the finishing touches on POLTERGEIST. Finding that forgotten footage felt like hitting the jackpot for a film fan like me, because the bulk of that material rarely finds its way to air, and I was allowed to use anything I wanted. Footage like that reveals a less-commonly seen side to Spielberg in his prime, sharing his mindset while juggling the responsibility of making two major films at the same time that would ultimately become pop-culture classics. And in typical Spielberg fashion, he just shrugged it off as something the great directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age would do, like Howard Hawks or Michael Curtiz, and shared his hopes to ramp up production to directing or producing multiple films per year.
“It does not stand for elapsed time, it stands for extra-terrestrial,” joked Spielberg about the film’s title. “It’s a very warm adventure story, and it’s a relationship story; the unusual aspect of this relationship is it’s between a person and a creature, not between two people. … I think it’s probably one of the most exciting experiences I’ve had making a movie up until now.”
Three years after it became a worldwide box office phenomenon, E.T. was poised for re-release in theaters, and ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT brought Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore back to the suburban Tujunga, California neighborhood where they filmed the movie. They shared some of their fond memories of working there, from bike riding to food fights, and, more importantly, reflected on how the film had changed their lives.
“I’ve changed a lot, but I’ll always be the same in spirit,” said an adorably precocious Barrymore, who didn’t want to be seen as “braggy” or “conceited,” back in August of ’85. Asked how many times she had watched the movie, she replied, “I’ve seen it 28 times I think, maybe 30.” And, of course, she knew back then that she wanted to be an actress when she grew up.
Henry Thomas seemed more serious about his experience with stardom. “I couldn’t do the things that a year ago would seem, you know, the easiest things to do,” he said about losing his anonymity. “They say, ‘There’s the kid from E.T., let’s go ask for his autograph.’ … I couldn’t be in the public eye for awhile.” While filming the Spielberg movie, the kids had no inkling whatsoever that the film could possibly become such a revered phenomenon. “We thought it was just going to be any old movie,” said Barrymore, while Thomas pondered, “It was basically just a film we had done and had a lot of fun on. I don’t really think that much about box office hits and all that. It just matters how you think you did, and how the film turned out overall.”
Watch the fun “E.T. Flashback” video on the following link:
Cut to the 30th anniversary of E.T. the EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. Working for ET myself, I sat down with Dee Wallace to talk about her experience playing the memorable mom in the movie. She reminisced about the joy of working on the set with the kids and how “that little animatronic thing” made a big impact on everyone. Working with E.T. himself “was like working with another actor,” she explained, pointing out that the beloved animatronic alien was “always alive; somebody was always working him, especially for Drew’s benefit, because she’d go over into the corner and start talking to him. … [She was] constantly confusing reality with fantasy.”
Wallace added that daily life on the set was like “a family affair.” At times, Wallace helped Barrymore with her homework because she had been a teacher herself before becoming an actress. And she offered that a major element that made working on the film so special was the fact that they shot it all in sequence — rarely the case in large-scale filmmaking — for the benefit of the kids and their understanding of the story’s emotional progression.
Overjoyed that a new generation would get to experience the film for the first time on Blu-ray, Wallace compared the enduring nature of E.T. to THE WIZARD OF OZ and declared, “It’s about the celebration of a movie that’s changed lives and touched lives and it’s still touching lives.” As part of the 30th anniversary Blu-ray release celebration, I got to be part of the action and filmed a scene with E.T. himself (through green-screen movie magic). Not too shabby! See the awkward emotional interaction below:
Revisiting E.T. so many years later, I still marvel at how Spielberg pulled off such a wonderful piece of filmmaking given my initial reservations upon seeing the alien itself for the first time. I’m glad I didn’t bail to go catch DAWN OF THE DEAD instead! Happy 35th anniversary, E.T.!
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For more IT CAME FROM… coolness, there’s plenty of STAR WARS musings, Famous Monsters fun, cool vintage movie lobby cards, or try more of my ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT-related tales and interviews.
While I used to watch the likes of REPTILICUS and YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP on ABC’s THE 4:30 MOVIE because they were released before my time, such craptastic films as AT THE EARTH’S CORE, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT and STAR CRASH were films that I made an effort to see at my local movie theater. I’ve gotta tell you, that makes for a hard look in the mirror. I guess I have to face facts that am indeed of the “vintage” variety myself.
to get a few choice bon mots for our GAMERA 50th anniversary issue (the giant turtle monster has been very good to MST3K, providing fuel for a few truly inspired episodes). And then Hodgson was kind enough to join last year’s 2016 Comic-Con panel that I assembled for the Forrest J Ackerman Centennial Celebration. There, he shared his love and respect for the founder of Famous Monsters of Filmland, the particular issues that he devoured as a kid, and how they all influenced his upbringing, mindset, and ultimate MST3K career choices. Joel is a true Monster Kid, albeit a bit of a subdued, self-effacing one at best.
“When you go to a movie, you really know what you’re getting because it’s been presold to you in so many different ways,” Hodgson tells ETonline. “With Mystery Science Theater, I think people liked it because it’s kind of like being taken into a haunted house with guides — you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re just kind of strapped in, and you’ve got to go watch this movie, and that’s an unusual exercise in today’s world. … You just don’t watch movies you don’t know anything about [these days]. It’s just unusual.”
Whoever nudged Harrison Ford a few years back and told him he was being too grumpy about Han Solo, Rick Deckard, and Indiana Jones, I give them serious thanks, because he’s clearly gone out of his way to cater to fan demands with revisits to all of these beloved characters (even though no one was pleased that he got his wish to kill off Han Solo). Still, as much as I appreciated the miracle that the creative team behind BLADE RUNNER 2049 pulled off to deliver a satisfying, visually sumptuous sequel, I find myself going back to Ridley Scott’s 1982 original with more and more appreciation (which I already had plenty of). It truly is a remarkable film. An absolute cinematic classic. 
For those not in the know: Based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, the original BLADE RUNNER starred Ford as a retired Los Angeles detective in 2019 (the future!!!) tasked with tracking down a quartet of Replicants — perfect androids practically indistinguishable from humans — who are illegally on Earth seeking to meet their maker and extend their expiration date. Scott and screenwriter Hampton Fancher, who also wrote the 2049 sequel, originally conceived of their 1982 project as the first in a series of films incorporating the themes and characters featured in Dick’s groundbreaking novel, and I’m all for it given how well 2049 turned out. Here’s hoping that BLADE RUNNER 2049 recoups enough of its investment that they’ll make another one. Until then, like tears in rain, we’ll all just have to work on our unicorn origami at a noodle bar.
And In the meantime, here are a variety of vintage BLADE RUNNER lobby cards from 1982, in both English and Spanish, to ogle:
Back in the days before the Internet, movie lobby cards were a powerful tool used by Hollywood studios to lure audiences into the darkened theater. They were the last line of enticement — and sometimes the first — alongside carpet-bombing consumers with coming attractions, movie posters, marquees, publicity stunts, movie program books, and newspaper advertisements for their newest big-screen sensation. With no entertainment websites or blogs available to tease audiences with stills from their films, lobby cards served that purpose for the studio publicity machine. These days, movie theater lobbies have eschewed the traditional lobby card for posters, standees, trailers on repeat, experiential activations and more.
WHAT’S THE DEAL: More than three decades after Ridley Scott’s visionary masterpiece changed the way moviegoers think about the future, the sequel to BLADE RUNNER is here with the return of Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard opposite brooding new Replicant retirer Ryan Gosling.
WHY SEE IT: Much like Ford’s improbable reprise of Han Solo in THE FORCE AWAKENS, Sci-Fi fans are in for a treat with the now-75-year-old star back as Deckard. Directed by ARRIVAL helmer Denis Villeneuve (Ridley Scott, too busy mucking up his ALIEN franchise, is executive producer this time around), the canon-faithful BLADE RUNNER 2049 exceeds expectations with a visually sumptuous, tech-savvy glimpse into our potential future 30 years from now. The biggest thing 2049 had going against it, other than it showing up decades too late, was that it would be a parody of itself. Scott’s groundbreaking 1982 film was so influential that countless numbers of movies (from THE FIFTH ELEMENT to the stunted TOTAL RECALL remake) have begged, borrowed, or outright stolen its concepts and bleak production design; a dark, gritty Los Angeles, full of rainy streets overpopulated with multi-cultural, earthbound denizens grounded below flying cars, living on fabricated resources with a daily struggle to distinguish who or what is real or manufactured. But 2049 has big ideas beyond a cash-grab effort to capitalize on its predecessor’s iconic status, tackling concepts of the human soul and the disparity between genuine and implanted memories/emotions. There’s also the central plot device of Replicant procreation, which may strain one’s sense of suspended disbelief. On the soundscape side of things, the film’s audio design is incredible, thoughtful, and bombastic, and Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch deliver a score that does Vangelis justice.
THE FLICK FLACK: The bad news? Not much. I have my nitpicks, but that’s because I’m a huge fan of the original. This long-awaited sequel is much better than it deserves to be, but primarily I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the concept that manufactured beings, even with the help of nanotechnology, could create life, “miracle” explanation or not. Also, those looking for an action-packed Sci-Fi flick will be disappointed. While there are moments of satisfying action, much like the original BLADE RUNNER this is a long, at times slow-moving meditation on the future. The film telegraphs its big plot twist a little too early, perhaps intentionally, and then snatches it back with a storytelling bait-and-switch ploy, to diminished effect. Plus, it’s good to know that Harrison Ford does not make his appearance until the last quarter of the film, which runs two hours and 45 minutes. Though Ryan Gosling is well cast and stands on his own with a great performance, I couldn’t keep from wondering every 20 minutes or so when Ford would actually appear. Still, I’m thankful this film got made at all and ended up much better than it had any right to be. And I really want that new Peugeot Spinner…
NOTABLE NOTES: While the initial 1982 theatrical cut of BLADE RUNNER left audiences scratching their heads as to whether or not Ford’s Rick Deckard was a Replicant himself, or simply a flawed human who fell in love with the Replicant Rachael, Ridley Scott subsequently returned to the film a total of four more times to fine-tune his cut and make his determination more obvious. In 1992, when he had just released his Director’s Cut of the film, he explained to ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, “I think what would be curious to ask about the Harrison Ford character is was he a [Nexus]-7, or was he an 8? … It’s clearly there if you watch even the first version — there’s a clue when he picks up the unicorn at the end, that little piece of origami.” But perhaps it’s not as obvious as Scott suggests, and Ford has always maintained that Deckard is not a Replicant. Who is right? With BLADE RUNNER 2049 now in theaters, that question still remains open-ended — and up for interpretation.
Who’s that man posing with the Beatles? He’s the Hollywood producer who signed the Fab Four to star in A HARD DAY’S NIGHT before they touched down in America for the first time. He’s also the guy who launched the 
Many movers and shakers in the entertainment industry are hidden in the fine print and not seen in the spotlight, but legendary producer David Picker stepped out with his intriguing memoir – MUSTS, MAYBES, AND NEVERS: A BOOK ABOUT THE MOVIES. I interviewed him during my ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT days and I was so enthralled by his amazing Hollywood tales that I thought it was time to revisit our lengthy chat. 
Of capturing the Beatles before they broke out, Picker explained, “Through sheer good luck, we wound up having a three-picture deal with this group. We made a low-budget movie deal with a rock group because we thought they were kind of good … but they hadn’t broken beyond their local market [in Liverpool]. … [After they became a sensation in London], I walked into my boss’s office and said, ‘Guess what? We’ve got the Beatles.’ … Now the question is, what do you do with them?”
As for Bond, Picker was an avid fan of Ian Fleming’s work and tried to get the ball rolling with Alfred Hitchcock directing a 007 adaptation, but Fleming didn’t like movies and didn’t want his creation ruined onscreen. Later, the author changed his tune and gave Cubby Broccolli and Harry Saltzman the option to produce his novels. Their $1.1 million budget request was turned down by their regular studio, Columbia, as being too high, so they went to United Artists and Picker, who gave them the green light for 1962’s DR. NO.
“My vision of it and their vision of it was exactly the same,” said Picker of the 007 films, adding with another laugh, “Everybody got rich off it but me.”
“Sean realized he could trust us, came back, did the one movie, and saved the series,” said Picker, who adds, “One of the terms of his deal was that he would not have to talk to the producers. It’s laughable, but on the other hand, he was deeply offended and he had every right to be because they treated him like shit.” Connery subsequently gave his $1.25 million salary entirely to The Scottish Educational Trust Fund. He added, “Sean is famous for being cranky; I’ve never experienced it, he’s never been anything but cordial, but he was heard to say that the only movie executive he’d ever liked was me.”
Young’s co-star Ford was returning to the sci-fi genre after Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark made him an international superstar. Asked whether he had his guard up or was very approachable while making the movie, she reminisces, “Harry’s like a guy’s guy. I think he has his guard up when it suits him, and at that time anyway he would be one of the guys with the drivers. … Harry was a big, tall, strong-guy manly man, and when he didn’t like something you knew it, and if he did like it you knew that as well. He had a great sense of humor, and he’d been in the business for quite a long time by then. He started in his twenties and he was 42 when we made [Blade Runner]. He’s a professional, he knows his stuff.”
“I know that the actual case that Blatty based his novel on was real,” Friedkin told me when I last interviewed him. “The 1949 case in Silver Spring, MD, where the exorcism was done at Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis, all of those events happened. I read the diaries of the doctors and nurses who were involved, and the patients who were in other rooms when this was going on, and the priests. I know that something happened there that was beyond the understanding of psychiatry or internal medicine, so I made that film accordingly. … It was a boy, not a 13-year-old girl [like in the movie]. I know a great deal about this 14-year-old boy — I know his name, I know where he is now. I’ve never revealed it. The church keeps very close tabs on him to this day, and as far as any of us know, he has no recollection of what happened to him when he was 14. … I spoke to the relatives of the boy, especially to his aunt, and they gave me some details that weren’t in Blatty’s novel, which I put in the film.”
The 40th anniversary EXORCIST Blu-ray (which contains both the theatrical and extended director’s cut of the film) also contains lots of great supplemental material, including the featurettes “Beyond Comprehension: William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist,” in which Blatty reads excerpts from his novel and reminisces about the remote-cabin atmosphere in which he wrote the scary tale, and “Talk of the Devil,” in which a Jesuit professor talks about former student Blatty’s unlikely success with EXORCIST and his thoughts on the real deal.
As the former Executive Editor of Famous Monsters, it was a pleasure to meet Basil and interview him for our special Forry Ackerman Centennial Tribute in 2016. I also got to work with him and his lovely partner Linda Touby, an established abstract artist herself. I was in the process of getting his paintings back on the covers of Famous Monsters with a combination of unseen previous works and potential new paintings. It was an exciting prospect that was unfortunately cut short by my having to reluctantly step away from Famous Monsters last fall. In retrospect, I wish I had been able to stay longer simply to have been able to put Basil Gogos back on an FM cover at least one more time.
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back in the early ’80s, and immediately began plotting how to meticulously relive the film on camera. “It was really born out of a role-playing fantasy, that I just wanted to play Indiana Jones,” said Chris, who took on the role of Indiana Jones. “It was always our goal from the very beginning to do the entire film.”
**Undiluted for the most part. The film’s SPECIAL EDITION release in 1980 added seven minutes of bonus footage that included a look inside the Alien Mother Ship, while trimming and deleting other scenes. Spielberg had always wanted to deliver a more polished film despite pressure from Columbia Pictures to deliver six months early, and got the chance to make a director’s cut after the film became a huge hit — with the caveat that he show the inside of the Mother Ship as a marketing hook. Still, he ultimately regretted showing the interior.
I always loved the bonus footage of seeing the landlocked S.S. Cotopaxi boat discovery in the Gobi desert, but I personally think the original cut of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS remains superior by leaving the ending to your imagination. Spielberg returned to the film one more time to cut it again as the COLLECTOR’S EDITION, and in that one he kept elements of the 1980 SPECIAL EDITION, but wisely excised the climactic Mother Ship interior coda.
Hollywood studios to lure audiences into the darkened theater. They were the last line of enticement — and sometimes the first — alongside carpet-bombing consumers with coming attractions, movie posters, marquees, publicity stunts, movie program books, and newspaper advertisements for their newest big-screen sensation. With no entertainment websites or blogs available to tease audiences with stills from their films, lobby cards served that purpose for the studio publicity machine. These days, movie theater lobbies have eschewed the traditional lobby card for posters, standees, trailers on repeat, experiential activations and more.
Beyond the numerous Tiki, nightclub, Bondian, Blake Edwards and ‘50s influences, I noticed that Shag had a sincere appreciation for Sci-Fi, fantasy, and horror icons. Amid skeletons playing bongos, four-armed burlesque dancers seducing fez-wearing gents, and mythical creatures like a Cyclops watching TV or Medusa applying makeup in his settings are appearances by Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and even Dr. Zaius of PLANET OF THE APES simply lounging in a den, enjoying a well-deserved drink — or passed-out drunk.
Shag’s cartoonish style is a perfect marriage with these fan favorites of the pop-culture stratosphere, and it’s no surprise that he has taken on more and more commissions to put licensed characters in Shag World for various companies and studios. Over the years, he has tackled THE PINK PANTHER, BATMAN, H.R. PUFNSTUF, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, the UNIVERSAL MONSTERS, and WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, as well as iconic rockers such as The Beatles and Ramones and legendary media figures such as Andy Warhol and Bettie Page.
I caught up with Shag at his first-ever San Diego Comic-Con appearance this July, where he displayed rare prints (including his fun BATMAN ’66 painting), a giant H.R. Pufnstuf photo backdrop, cool themed merchandise, and a trio of Comic-Con exclusives: Limited-edition silk-screened prints of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Warhol. 
Growing up mostly in the late ‘60s to ‘70s it was PLANET OF THE APES, going back to the days when the only place you could see it was on TV and it would be shown once a year, so you had to make sure you were on top of the TV Guide to see what movies were being shown that week because you might not have another chance to see that movie for another year, another five years. And I remember when they announced on ABC that they were going to be showing PLANET OF THE APES, I remembered as an 8-year-old or 10-year-old marking it on my calendar — not that I had a calendar! But things like that — MAD MONSTER PARTY — those were things that you organized your life around so you could see them.
That’s like calling a movie CAR CHASE or MILITARY BATTLE, you know? I was like, ‘That’s a really dumb name!’ Then a couple weeks later I was at the movies. I even remember the movie that my friends and I were seeing — it was JABBERWOCKY — and they had a preview for STAR WARS, and I remember seeing that preview and thinking, ‘That is going to be the best movie ever made.’ Like, ‘What is that guy in black?!? What are those white soldiers?!? I don't know, but it looks so cool!’ So the day STAR WARS was released my friends and I stood in line for the very first matinee showing, got in to see it the very first day it was released, and I was like, ‘I was right! That is the best movie I've ever seen in my life.’ So that was like another huge kind of pop culture thing in my life. But STAR WARS didn't really make it into my art until later. [However] I painted a Darth Vader action figure on a table in a painting once…
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Miles Copeland formed his own label, 
I couldn’t believe my luck when I’d be flipping around the dial and I’d catch the spectacle of a giant octopus tearing down the Golden Gate Bridge in IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, the desperate fight with a killer crab in MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, the insect-like aliens of FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, or a dino rampage in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. or THE VALLEY OF GWANGI.
Told by Lazenby himself with re-enacted flashbacks by younger actors, the documentary plays more like a biopic and displays a charming amount of humor, emotion, and bravado — just like the man himself. Amusingly, there are a few times in the film when the interviewer asks Lazenby, “Is this really a true story?” There are lots of tall tales, many involving “birds” and the Australian alpha male’s pursuit of the next conquest, but they’re never prurient — just honest and human. Directed by Josh Greenbaum (who recently directed Daniel Craig in a 
Those new to Lovecraft may have heard of Cthulhu — his tentacle-faced, cosmic-demon-god creation — or have seen it around in pop-culture ephemera, but have little to no idea who or what it is, much less how the name is pronounced (most agree to “Kuh-thoo-loo,” though Lovecraft pronounced it in different ways, because few could really master the writer’s other versions that don’t roll off the tongue very easily; relax, it’s from an alien language anyway). 
A whole mythos and expanding universe by way of other writers has grown way beyond what Lovecraft first started with Cthulhu (and the fabricated cult that awaits his return) in 1928, as he essentially kept the character to one story.
Folio’s tome also features six intense, mind-blowing pen-and-ink illustrations by the incredibly talented Dan Hillier. Bound in cloth blocked with a design by the artist and a slipcase featuring an unblinking, monstrous eye, THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES runs 472 pages and is also available in an ultra-cool, limited-edition (750 copies) presentation, bound in eco-simulated leather and lurking in a mysterious solander box with a print signed by Hillier.
Get more info on 
I also had the privilege of visiting The Federation Trading Post in New York City as a kid (the first fan-created STAR TREK store devoted solely to the show, which doubled as a mini TREK museum), which stands as one of my fondest memories. In a time before VHS, they played full episodes on the loudspeakers and gave fans access to prop replicas, uniforms, show scripts, and more impossible-to-find memorabilia way before the TREK merchandising market was saturated. The Federation emblem on my yellow shirt was a patch bought at The Federation Trading Post (sewn lovingly by my mom, seen in the photo above), and I still have the tribble that I picked out of the store’s barrel marked “TRIBBLES” in my possession. It was a one-of-a-kind place.
Back in 2013 when I was with 
Trevor Roth, the COO of Roddenberry Entertainment, walked me through some of the Roddenberry Entertainment archives, highlighted by access to original STAR TREK costumes, props, and a chance to sit in a perfect, working recreation of the original Enterprise captain’s chair.
“Our mission is to continue to create substantive science-fiction for the world and make sure that it’s accessible to people, and real to people, and is something that has the Roddenberry spirit within it,” he said about the company’s directive. “What’s great about STAR TREK is people love different parts of the franchise. … STAR TREK has to grow and evolve, and I think that you have to remember that when you’re watching, because it is a living, breathing entity in some ways, and so you have to let it grow and change.”
Recently, Roddenberry Entertainment unveiled great, never-before-seen STAR TREK footage via 
Before the debut episode even aired, critics dogpiled onto the fact that the show’s budget was between $5-6 million, an exorbitant rate at the time, and that the star was a train, not a recognizable human. The scale-model hero version of the train alone cost the network $250,000 — and at one point crashed into a giant heap during production.
It didn’t help matters that the cast of characters running SUPERTRAIN was chosen to mirror many of the same roles on LOVE BOAT, or that the producers (including executive producer Dan Curtis of DARK SHADOWS and TRILOGY OF TERROR fame) struggled with the show’s tone right out of the station — was it a comedy-drama, or a mystery thriller?
There was the usual cavalcade of staple ’70s guest stars, including Dick Van Dyke, Tony Danza, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Abe Vigoda, Roddy McDowall, George Hamilton, Lyle Waggoner, Isabel Sanford, Steve Lawrence, Larry Linville, Loretta Swit, Vic Tayback, Joyce DeWitt, Billy Barty — even LOVE BOAT’s Bernie Kopell — who climbed aboard the SUPERTRAIN for romance, mystery, comedy, and drama over nine episodes. On paper, it looked like a winning formula.
But after its respectable two-hour premiere episode, SUPERTRAIN was almost unanimously voted thumbs down by viewers with their TV sets and Nielsen boxes as the series struggled to find an audience — and identity. Producers worked feverishly to retool the tone (“It’s back! All-new and ready to roll!”), promising “all-new stories” and “all-star casts,” but it was too little too late.
Timing is everything, and NBC practically lost its shirt due to the ratings disaster of its multi-million-dollar gamble. That SUPERTRAIN flop, combined with the U.S. boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow, cost NBC millions in ad revenue and almost forced the network into bankruptcy.
I was 11 when SUPERTRAIN debuted, and being an avid TV watcher I welcomed the series with relish and exuberance. Who wouldn’t want to watch a weekly show about an atomic-powered, double-decker train that could travel from New York to Los Angeles in 36 hours and had practically all the same amenities of LOVE BOAT’s Pacific Princess, like a nightclub, a swimming pool, a beauty parlor, a gym, a doctor’s office, shopping and more? It looked slick and super cool to me. And that Supertrain design concept was kinda sorta like the “Cyclops” from THE BIG BUS (one of the great, overlooked comedies of the ’70s).
But I, like everyone else, gradually soured on the TV show. There were only so many “money shots” of the high-tech train model I could watch speeding through the heartland before I came to the conclusion that I was bored out of my gourd with the sub-par weekly plots and subplots. So, I flipped the channel to either THE INCREDIBLE HULK on CBS or EIGHT IS ENOUGH on ABC.
Watch the opening credits of SUPERTRAIN with its super ’70s theme music:
On the film’s 30th anniversary, I was working at 
I sat down to talk with Harrison Ford for the Jackie Robinson baseball drama 42 for ET. Despite his reputation for being an infamously grumpy interview, I personally saw our one-on-one as a challenge: My goal was to simply make him smile or laugh. I told him that his character’s bushy eyebrows in the film deserved top billing, which got a chuckle from him, and got an even more unique response when I asked him to confirm whether or not he would be in STAR WARS VII (at that point, no cast or title had been announced). He amusingly zipped his lips, shook his head and went, “Mmmm hmmm mmm hmmm mmmm.”
THE WRATH OF KHAN ranks as one of my all-time favorite films, and is generally considered to be the best TREK film ever made. After the release of 1979’s 
During my days working at 
Interestingly, it was a candid DeForest Kelley that confessed his surprise to be standing on the Enterprise set again so soon after the less-than-stellar reception of STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. “I thought after the other one that perhaps it would be a long time, if indeed we did one at all again,” he told ET. “This one came as quite a surprise. But I feel real good about this one. This one is really into the STAR TREK feeling like the old show had, naturally on a motion picture basis, but it seems like everybody is working well together and it’s a very exciting script and we all feel very good about it.”
Asked how the revival of STAR TREK (in syndication and on the big screen) had changed his life, DeForest Kelley ruminated, “The show is such a phenomenal thing that I think I have experienced something that very few actors really have experienced… It’s almost an indescribable feeling the way it seems to affect the people all over the world.”
Meyer, who later returned to direct the original casts’s 1991 swan song, STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, said in the 1981 ET interview that he was not especially familiar with Roddenberry’s classic series, and had only seen SPACE SEED, the episode that introduces Khan, along with only a handful of other episodes. “I’m not terribly interested in science fiction myself, but I’m very interested in interpersonal relationships, and that’s what this movie’s about,” said Meyer, who was setting out to make a more “sophisticated” and “perhaps a little more daring” version of Roddenberry’s “wagon train to the stars.” Amazing, when you think about how effectively he recaptured all the best elements of the show for one rollicking adventure. A fan of Horatio Hornblower, Meyer was keen to translate the TREK elements into a more nautical structure, rather than a western in space, focusing on the structure of command and the rules of engagement.
Bennett, meanwhile, admitted that his TREK background was “zero” and had a lot to learn, but he had already learned the difference between the terms “Trekkie” and “Trekker,” and singled out STAR TREK as a show that was “ahead of its time” and was “above the cut of television then, and it remains that way. That’s why people are so crazy about it.”
