LESSONS FOR STAR WARS FANS & MERCHANDISE CONTROL PT. 2C Prior to their 1967 Star Trek campaign, Bjo and John Trimble had been involved for years in the Worldcon Art Shows. They used the rolodex they had compiled from their years of working in the Science Fiction community to organize fandom into a campaign to keep Star Trek on air. Behind the scenes, Gene Roddenberry put up money to help with the Star Trek campaigns expenses. The Trimbles mailed letters including a sample how-to form letter for people to send to NBC and addresses of people who lived in the same area, so they could form small fan clubs. The campaign worked the first year, but two years later, failed, and NBC canceled the series. In 1969, three things happened: 1) Star Trek ended its NBC run, 2) Gene Roddenberry divorced his wife and two children, marrying Majel Barrett, and 3) Star Trek began its wide, international syndication. Wikipedia says, Reruns began in the fall of 1969 and by the late 1970s the series aired in over 150 domestic and 60 international markets. This helped Star Trek develop a cult following greater than its popularity during its original run. As the show began its syndication, fans invovled in the letter writing campaign evolved, forming fan clubs, creating fanzines, and organizing conventions. Using their experience from the many ventures they had been involved in, the Trimbles set up a mail order business called Star Trek Enterprises to sell Star Trek merchandise. The name of their mail order business was subsequently changed to Lincoln Enterprises. Bjo credits Gene Roddenberry for that name change, saying Gene loved Abraham Lincoln. Its that simple. One thing you have to remember is that although Gene Roddenberry had conceived of the Star Treks multi-verse, he was not able to get work as a producer, and his only source of income came from the fees he made as a touring speaker, or for his invovlement at the conventions. Its possible he may have received residuals for his first year on the show, but he had alimony and child support payments to make for his first wife, and a new family to support. At the same time, you had capitalist entrepreneurs like Lisa Boynton or convention organizers like Al Shuster realizing they could make money off the fans. Boyntons 1975 Star Trek convention charged a $20 admission fee, which is todays equivalent of $88.27, to 15,000 attendess. You do the math. Athrough they paid many of their guest of honors to appear (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Arlene Martel, Mark Lenard, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Hal Clement, David Gerrold, and Frank Kelly Freas), they also charged dealers for tables. Meanwhile, the series creator, Gene Roddenberry, is living off speaking gigs... Bjo trimble said in a 1999 interview, John and I set up Star Trek (now Lincoln) Enterprises for Gene, only to find that he really wanted to turn it over to his new wife, Majel. We ran several small mail-order businesses prior to setting up ST Enterprises, but always failed due to lack of money to advertise widely (another thing the Internet might have changed). Majel had no business experience, so we left and she took over, the business never really took off as it should have. This was because Lincoln enterprises was competing in a field where there were other businesses competing for Trekkie dollars. This Star Trek background gives you an idea of what was happening before I started working on Star Wars. From Star Treks example, I hope you can understand why I believed it was important that we, the Star Wars Corporation, which later because Lucasfilm, controlled the copyright, fans, convention, and merchandise. My next section will talk about the fanzines and intellectual rights.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 22:17:58 +0000
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