Star Trek Pajama promotion
The idea of promoting “Star Trek The Motion Picture” with pajamas is kind of loaded, the film almost put me to sleep as a kid and the crew looked like they were all in their pajamas, so it’s a bit of a comedy goldmine.
Thanks to my friend Corey, we get an amazing glimpse at this long forgotten promotion from Mars.
The offer was advertised on “fun sized” bags of candy bars, a rarity in my household as a kid so this never hit my radar.
$4.50 seems like a lot, I wonder how successful this promotion was.
You had your choice of Spock or Enterprise, William Shatner could be heard sobbing.
Here are the PJ’s you got, note the classic TV depiction of the characters with the movie logo.
Say what you will about the motion picture, it had some sweet art.
Many thanks to Corey for sharing this little bit of “Trek history”.
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Star Trek: TMP is a great film that could do with a ruthless editor. For that matter, so could 2001. That might be blasphmey to sci-fi purists, but it's true. Case in point (and there are many, many such points in both films): the shuttle transit just went on forever.
Kubrick wanted to show "the future of space flight". Watching astronauts unpacking their box lunch and the entire uneventful landing procedure step by plodding step might have been fascinating for sci-fi starved audiences back in 1968 (and even then this Anon wonders). For kids who grew up on Star Wars, it was dull even on the first pass. The second time and on every subsequent viewing it's time to get up, get the menues, go order delivery, make popcorn, refresh everyone's drink and bathroom breaks because we are in NO hurry, folks.
The same is true for Mr. Scott taking Captain Kirk on a leisurely visual "travel pod" trip while the newly improved Enterprise sits in space-dock. The grown-ups who remember being teenagers and pouring over the blueprints of the original Enterprise must have loved it. For those kinds of fans it wasn't a fly-around, it was a reach-around and done with loving slowness so they could enjoy every moment. For everyone else, it's the first hint this is going to be a very long, slow movie.
On the plus side, Dr. McCoy models some men's fashions from the future.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/4/4e/McCoy_beard.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171128070555&path-prefix=en
Mantique is still alive and well, so are flashy pendants, leisure jump suits, and all very much favored by wealthy retired Federation doctors in their late fifties when they're out being pharmaceutical sugar-daddies on the intergalactic disco- club circuit.
*gravelly DeForest Kelly voice*
"C'mon, let's go back to my place. I'll write you prescription…"
…and before any of Bones' loyal fans start setting their phasers to kill, please remember this was a man who was already buying illegal Romulan ale and (in his own words) "gets a case every now and then across the Neutral Zone".
I never minded the travel pod sequence, but the 10 minute long V'Ger flyover is what does me in. I'm not exaggerating either: it really is 10 minutes long, with no dialog. Cutting that part out entirely would speed up the film. Anyway, great post. I have a soft spot for TMP, despite it's flaws.