In the midst of Barbie-pink dominance, TAS would like a word.

Star Trek’s own home of pink, purple and lime green has something to say.

  • teftEnglish
    7•1 year ago

    From Memory Alpha:

    According to Fontana, the pink coloration of the Kzinti uniforms and ship in the episode was a result of Director Hal Sutherland being color blind, and thus unable to discern them as anything but shades of gray. [3] However, storyboard artist/character designer Bob Kline laid the blame on color director Irvin Kaplan. “Pink equals Irv Kaplan,” shared Kline… “Irv was in charge of ink and paint, coloring the various characters and props (and he would do it himself in his office, he would sit down with a cel and paint it). He was also referred to by many people there as the purple and green guy. You’ll see it in a lot of scenes, purple and green used together – that was one of his preferences. He made dragons red, the Kzintis’ costumes pink. It was all Irv Kaplan’s call. He wasn’t listening to anyone else when he picked colors or anything.”

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      As a young person watching TAS in first run the colours never bothered me, they were actually very on trend at the time.

      It was the early 70s (The Slaver Weapon first ran in December 1973) and the mod colours had progressed to the bright Panetone red, blue, gold and orange of mid 60s colour television to a broader mix that included ‘hot’ and fluorescent colours, especially ‘hot pink’.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•1 year ago

        What is TAS, as someone who reads Niven and only knows of Kizinti from the books I’m really surprised to hear of media and tv shows based on the source material. I want to learn more

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          4•1 year ago

          TAS = The Animated Series. It ran for a season and a bit, 22 episodes, on Saturday mornings on NBC. It’s the only Star Trek franchise show to win a series Emmy.

          At the time it was in development, there was also a writers strike. DC Fontana was the supervising producer, and she took advantage of the provision in the contract that allowed writers who have never previously written an animated television script to write one, and only one episode, without violating the strike.

          Larry Niven was one of the science fiction authors whom she reached out to, and he was game to do it. He’s written on the StarTrek.com official site since then, even going so far as to confirm that the Caitians in Star Trek are a related species, much as the Vulcans are related to the Romulans.

          M’Ress was a Caitain officer in TAS. The currently running animated show Lower Decks has a Caitian Chief Medical Officer T’Ana and a Kzinti crew member occasionally appears.

          • @[email protected]English
            2•1 year ago

            Thank you! This is very thorough, and I feel like I’ve learned a lot. Thank you so much I’ll put it on the list to catch up with more N space lore

            • @[email protected]OPEnglish
              3•1 year ago

              You’re most welcome.

              I suggest starting with the Memory Alpha entries on the Kzinti and the TAS episode The Slaver Weapon.

              I also strongly encourage everyone to watch TAS at least once. I had largely forgotten it until I introduced our kids to the DVD set when they were at the age, but it holds up remarkably well.