The Passing of an Icon

Those who were born post 1974 or so, do not remember a time when Star Trek wasn't ubiquitous.  When the show as first aired in the 1960s (66-69), it was not a big hit. Although, because of MBB (My Big Brother) who was 13-16 years of age at the time and a Science Fiction aficionado, I watched most of the episodes first run. In fact since MBB was the eldest of the four of us, and was responsible for us many evenings, we only watched the Television shows he liked. I know that definitely sounds strange to any younger readers, but in the '60s, most families only had a single TV. So we all became Star Trek fans.

The show didn't really gain a cult following until syndication started. Around 1970, new little non-network TV stations sprang up in major markets, usually on the UHF band.
  
  Old dial TVs had two bands, VHF (2-13) and UHF (14-60). To get to the UHF stations, you had to turn the VHF dial to U or what would or should be channel 1, and then use the UHF dial to find the station. The difference in the two dials were that the VHF had a positive "Clunk" for each channel, and there usually was a "fine tuning" ring around the dial for trying to get the channel reception clearer. The UHF dial was like a radio dial or the fine tuning ring on the VHF dial. the dial had numbers and you had to adjust it to tune in the station near the number of the channel you wanted.

Once in syndication the show aired two to three times a day, seven days a week. In fact most of the non-network TV stations only played re-runs and old Movies from the '30s-50s. I would get home from school and in the winter, I would sit and watch TV until dinner.

Leonard Nimoy was on another series in syndication in the mid to late '70s, Mission Impossible as the character Paris.


Here he is, with his Spock hair cut, I believe on Laugh In, singing about Bilbo Baggins..