Toon Trek

The geek-ization of the boys continues…

On Friday I got a copy of “Star Trek: The Animated Series” on DVD. It has all 22 episodes of the cartoon version of “Star Trek” produced in 1973-74.

As I kid, I was vaguely aware that there had been a “Trek” cartoon, but I don’t remember ever actually seeing it. I finally caught one episode on cable TV somewhere when I was in middle school.

The animated “Trek” is actually quite good. It brings back most of the original cast (sorry, no Chekov) and members of the live action show’s writing staff. The writers turned in scripts that were every bit as intelligent as the original show (except they’re only 22 minutes long). They didn’t “kidify” the show for Saturday mornings at all. Better yet, in an animated form they were no longer constrained by what passed for special effects on TV at the time.

Despite that reputation, I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce Nolan to “Star Trek.”

When he was younger (possibly pre-Thomas) Kris used to sometimes watch reruns of “Star Trek: Voyager” with him. He used to call it “The Space Ship Show.” That routine didn’t last long and he hasn’t really been exposed to Trek since.

A couple of times I’ve caught one of the “enhanced” versions of The Original Series that started running this fall and I tried to get him to watch. But he didn’t show much interest.

So when I got my hands on these DVDs, I thought maybe he’d be more interested if it’s a cartoon.

We popped a disc in and sure enough it was pretty “adult” and “scientific-y.” I was thinking that it was over his head and that he must be getting bored. But he really dug it! In fact, he was clamoring for more. I couldn’t be more proud. It will only be a matter of time before we work our way up to “Wrath of Kahn” (“K H A A N N!!!”).

Thomas was around when we were watching the shows too. He wasn’t paying too much attention though. He was more interested in playing with his monster trucks. That’s ok. We’ve still got lots of time to work on him.