geekery for the day

[kaigou]

Apparently, Dr. King talked Nichelle Nichols out of leaving Star Trek...

That series was on reruns by the time I was allowed to watch anything other than Sesame Street, and given the diversity on Sesame Street, I probably figured Star Trek -- with its hokey costumes and plots but obvious mix of ethnic and cultural backgrounds -- wasn't all that landmark. I thought Captain Kirk was too square-face farmboy, and Spock's voice gave me the creeps (mostly because I already associated it with the narrator on In Search Of), but I had the biggest freakin' grade-school crush on Uhura.

Purely innocent except for the greedy element of "when I grow up, I want to be her!". I just thought she was Sexy-Smart Incarnate: she knew everything that was happening on the ship, when she said stuff, everyone listened, and she looked good while doing it and was always cool and collected -- how can such a combination not be totally hot!?

Now she's what, in her sixties? The woman is still sexy-smart incarnate. Zzzzing!



[I find myself thinking, okay, world: since you didn't let me grow up to be Tina Turner, can I be Nichelle Nichols instead?]

Comments

[tharain.livejournal.com]

I've met Nichelle Nichols. She is that sharp.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

She has a voice, too, that I could listen to for hours.

[okaasan59.livejournal.com]

My crush was on Spock. But Uhura was pretty kick ass as well.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

It was that she never got flustered! She was always just so collected. (Plus even as a kid I could recognize that sometimes she thought something was amusing, just that slight twitch she'd get of the mouth.)

[pxcampbell.livejournal.com]

I'm old enough to remember watching Star Trek in its original broadcast. Yikes! But I was still too young to appreciate what I was watching.

When I was old enough to get it -- when it went into reruns -- I remember wanting to be Mr. Spock or Captain Kirk (i.e., without the sex change necessary to, yanno, actually BE either them).

I don't know what it says about me that now I aspire to be Denny Crane.

I'm so confused.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Star Trek have the first interracial kiss on television?

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

Yep, they did. (It was under duress, but it still counts.)

And I totally had a crush on Spock. Some guy in college called me "Spock" (primarily b/c I wouldn't go out with him, didn't fit his mold of the mushy/romantic teenaged girl who likes teddy bears and roses, and kept shooting down his arguments). I rather liked that comparison.

But yeah, Uhura kicks ass.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Hey, Spock is a compliment IMO. I'd still rather be compared to Uhura, because if I could come across as intelligent and still look that good in a miniskirt? Hell yeah.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Really?

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

First on serial TV, though there were some in movies before that.

http://www.usefultrivia.com/tv_trivia/tv_trivia_006a.html

[edit] Also, I should have specified "American television," since I don't know if there were interracial kisses on other countries' TV networks or not.

Furthermore, the 'taboo' of white and black actors kissing had already been broken by Buckwheat from the The Little Rascals (though that first aired as films) and NBC itself: Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. kissed in the 1967 TV special Movin' with Nancy (though on British television the event had happened even earlier, in the 1964 hospital drama Emergency Ward 10).

[nyx-greenfire.livejournal.com]

I saw Nichelle at DragonCon. She is simply amazing. In fact I was named after her. My parents love science fiction and loved her as Uhura. They also admired the things she had done as far as promoting space travel, and being a role model. I was born a few years after the show premiered.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

See, now that is a cool origin of a name. (Not to mention how awesome it must've been to meet someone and tell her that she'd made such an impact on your parents!)

I mean, sheesh. I got named after someone my mother described as a college classmate who "smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, cussed like a sailor, and drove like a bat out of hell." Then I met my namesake, and... well, it's been several decades and no sign of slowdown in the hellraiser category. I remain dubious as to whether this is good, or bad... ;-)