Memories of Treks, Cheap & Otherwise

Hi.

Aside from a new graphic that I just posted on the web page, nothing truly newsworthy to report, but I’ve been watching some stuff on TV and it made me want to share some thoughts with anyone who might be following this blog, the show, and its origins.

Not long ago, we bought the Blu-rays of what I consider to be the three best Star Trek movies ever made, namely II, III, and IV – or, as I refer to them, the Holy Trinity. If you’re into old Trek and haven’t picked them up yet (and you have a Blu-ray player, of course), I highly recommend the box set of them . The visual effects look stellar (well, okay, there’s some FX masking in a few shots in III, but it doesn’t ruin the overall film) and the stories hold up quite well. All of the extras from the films’ last DVD releases are intact, plus there are a few new hi-def extras on each one. (No offense to Nick Meyer, but I suggest skipping the “tribute” to Ricardo Montalban on II. It’s just Meyer talking about Montalban in 1080i. For about five uninterrupted minutes. No clips from “Space Seed” or any of Montalban’s old movies. Just Nick sitting and talking. Next!)

Anyway, I watched II and III yesterday, and the memories attached to them overwhelmed me. Not just the usual ones you’d associate with watching a movie you first saw many years ago – which friends were with you, where you first saw it, that kind of thing – but memories associated with how I and a bunch of my best friends had the time of our lives systematically ridiculing these and so many other films and TV shows on convention stages for a decade.

I refer to the moron squad we called Cheap Treks (1987-1997), and I mention it because it played an important role in how my overall writing developed and, consequently, how SuperHuman Times came to be. In fact, if it weren’t for a horrible onstage spoof of Star Trek III, you might not be hearing the show at all.

See, Cheap Treks came into being after Dave Keefer (playing Scotty) and I (playing Kirk for what would be the first of many times) took part in an abominable parody of III in 1986 that caused us to look at each other after wards and say, “We could do better than this.” (This was also how we started the Boogie Knights four years earlier, only with filksinging; Dave was always suckering me into such things – thankfully.)

Anyway, back to ’86: The only things that made this show tolerable for us were 1) the Cole Porter musical score (yes, this was a musical; no, we could not sing); and 2) the fact that the director – the late and much-missed Marion McChesney – gave us permission to experiment during rehearsals. And we did. Hell, we didn’t just throw in an ad-lib or two, we ran amuck, and the audience loved it. If I can find the show tape and can finesse the quality, I really should put the Scotty rant that Dave came up with on YouTube. I remember him reciting it for me the first time as he drove us to a rehearsal. My God, that’s still funny.

BUT, what does all this geezing have to do with SuperHuman Times?

Well, like I said, the next year, Dave and I began Cheap Treks with our Trek IV parody, “Live Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. It, and all the shows that followed, were terrific exercise grounds for me as a writer and, when summoned, as an actor. Remember, I was still in my 20s, when I still believed the All Things Are Possible, like my becoming a professional scriptwriter. And having convention stages to play on allowed me to try writing different types of shows, experiment with verbal and visual gags, play with timing, and, basically, figure out what a given audience would let me get away with. It also gave me and my pals a chance to put on what I humbly submit were some of the best and most elaborate spoofs – no, that's a disservice; by the time it ended, we were doing plays -- to grace any convention stage (and I’m not just talking about the ones I wrote or co-wrote). To this day, it’s hard to watch the Trek films – and a host of other things, from the original Star Wars trilogy to Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera to Dragnet – without reciting the lines we wrote/made up on the fly. And that cumulative experience has guided me in every “serious” writing project since – including (FINALLY, the point) SuperHuman Times.

“But Lance,” you’re asking, if you’ve read this far, “you said something about how we might not be hearing the show at all if it weren’t for that godawful Trek III spoof in 1986…”

True enough. Here’s why. While I was playing Kirk, I met a very twisted and talented young man who essayed the role of David Marcus, the Admiral’s son. Like Dave and myself, he ran with every opportunity to make the show better for us and, more importantly, for the audience. A prime example of this can be found in his offstage death scene, which he used to (successfully) knock me off guard on stage during the performance and bring down the house. I knew he was a farceur to be reckoned with and, if you’ve heard Prometheus Radio Theatre’s Planet of Dark Shadows, you know I was right.

His name? Steve Wilson, master of Prometheus and he whose whim allows SuperHuman Times to have a home. Being incurable parodists, our paths probably would have crossed and entwined eventually beyond that show, but I want to think that SOMETHING good came out of that Cole Porter show, so it may as well be our friendship. And, oh yeah, Cheap Treks.

Thanks, Steve, Dave, et al for the writing lessons. And a great ride.

-- L.

Cheap Treks' first class picture from Shore Leave 1987: "Live Long & Thanks for All the Fish", featuring a few names you may recognize from Prometheus productions.
Back, L/R: Paul Balze, Steve Wilson, Sharon Palmer, Dan Coggins, me, David Keefer, Barb Helfer, Eric Burch
Front , L/R: Chuck Coates, Alan Chafin, John Scheeler, Winchell Chung
Yes, we often took liberties with the costumes -- like Spock's mohawk -- which I'll go into some other time.