Watching YouTube: Original Star Trek Bloopers, Season 3!

Before searching for the Season 1 and 2 bloopers on YouTube, I didn't even know for sure that these existed.  I recall some source saying as a fact that there was no third season blooper reel, because, since they knew the series would almost certainly not be picked up for a fourth season, there was nothing to celebrate.  (Which sort of misses the point of a "wrap party," but never mind.)

I once had a record album of third season Star Trek bloopers, salvaged from the original studio tapes.  I don't remember them being that funny, but I wish now I hadn't given it away... if for no other reason than people are selling them for $20 on eBay.

As I recall, Allan Asherman mentions a couple of third season bloopers in The Star Trek Compendium.  But since I never heard about them anywhere else, I thought maybe these were bloopers that someone remembered, but that never made it into an end-of-season reel, per se.

But here it is... I guess.  I can't say for sure that the cast and crew saw these, in this form, when the series wrapped up production at the end of 1968, but they're more than I ever expected to see.

As to the end... I don't know if this was part of the same reel, but it's footage from the pilot version of "Where No Man Has Gone Before."  It looks like it's here just to set up a pretty lame voiceover gag (which may be a new addition, seeing as it's pretty clearly a video pause, not a film one.)

My theory is that someone noticed it in the editing room (it is, after all, exactly the footage that they cut out in 1966 to make the broadcast series version), and added it for nostalgic reasons.  As the series was coming to an end, cast and crew could look back on where it all began (not counting the rejected first pilot, of course).



0:14 This is what you call "gallows humor."  To be greeted with a hollow laugh.

0:28 Beats me what this text says, at this resolution.  Get used to seeing it several times a minute, though.

1:26 This and the next one (in the transporter room) are the ones I remember Asherman mentioning.

4:55 I've had this cue (and the end theme, which we'll hear in a minute) for 20 years on CD, and cassette tape before that.  I once used both of them (and other pilot music) in a not at all Trek-related student film.  It's nice finally to hear them in context.