Last month I was reminded of something I did a long time ago – 1989, to be precise. Thirty years ago, i found out that the independent station in Birmingham, WTTO Channel 21, was putting together plans to promote Star Trek at a local event. The Five Points Festival, located at Little Five Points, took place every October to draw people to the area to explore the restaurants and shops (one such shop was The Lion and The Unicorn, which I wrote about here.
WTTO was showing the original series every afternoon Monday through Friday, and The Next Generation on Saturday nights. The ratings were good, and the marketing team set up a (tiny) budget to do something at the festival
My friends and I (Kyle Clark, John Champion, and Les Mutz) decided to pitch our idea. The Bridge.
We’d build a wall, a captain’s chair, and a helm console – and transfer it to the Festival. It was ambitious. It was stupid.
We did it anyway.
WTTO’s marketing person was open to the idea, but didn’t really put any of his (miniscule) budget into it. We got SOME money, but not nearly enough to cover the cost or the hours of effort.
I remember doing most of the work, though my friends pitched in quite a bit. I built it in my backyard in Pinson, and the hardest part was finding a chair that I could wrap the shell of the captain’s chair around. Besides the back walls (which was basically wall panels hinged together) the set was foam core. Lots and lots of foam core.
We also had Next Gen communicator badges custom made to give away, though we ended up not giving many of them out – the local company who did them did not blunt the edges of the insignia, so the communicator was a stabbing hazard.
Just before the weekend, we found out that WTTO had used the rest of their budget to get an actual Star Trek guest – Walter Koenig was going to be there. Sitting on our bridge! For young me, I was in seventh heaven.
The day of the festival arrived. We loaded the set onto my red pickup truck and drove it down. The station had rented a tent, which helped – except the central support of the tent was right in the middle, where the captain’s chair was supposed to sit. We rearrange things, and made due.
Walter Koenig showed up, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else besides Birmingham Alabama sitting in a tent. He was kind enough, but I couldn’t help but notice he had a glass filled with ice and a bourbon with him throughout the day. I don’t blame him. Here’s a pic of me and him:
Lots of people showed up, many in costume (I wore my fairly new Star Trek movie uniform my aunt had made for me). It was great.
Then it started raining.
The tent was not much protection from the rain, and some of the foam core started wrinkling. The wind started pushing against the back walls of the bridge, almost falling on me (I had not really built any supports for it – I wasn’t very handy). Eventually it became too much and we closed up the bridge.
For a while, the leftover pieces stayed in my backyard, pretty much ruined by the rain and the transportation back home. Eventually we dragged it all to the dump, and all I had left were the memories.
Thirty years later, I’m on the bridge set at Neutral Zone Studios in south Georgia, the same set where the episodes of Star Trek Continues were filmed. The same set that my friend John Champion guest starred on an episode of that exact series.
And I’m wearing my Star Trek uniform that Aunt Peggy made me thirty years earlier.
Still fits.
