Melancholy Mentor Podcast
Welcome to Melancholy Mentor where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays.
Melancholy Mentor Podcast
Trek Tales: Captain Kirk's Cosmic Pet Adventure
Step aboard the USS Enterprise with us as we uncover a forgotten gem from Star Trek history! We're exploring "Passage to Moauv," a captivating 1975 audio drama that follows Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy on their mission to transport an unusual alien pet across the galaxy.
This rare audio treasure was the first of eleven Star Trek stories produced by Peter Pan Records, complete with a 20-page companion comic book that brought the adventure to life visually. What makes this particularly fascinating is the mystery surrounding the production. Despite our research efforts, the voice actors remain uncredited to this day, their identities lost to time like ships in the nebula.
The original Star Trek series may have only run for three seasons before cancellation, but its cultural impact has spanned generations. From William Shatner's iconic portrayal of James T. Kirk (still going strong at 93!) to the franchise's groundbreaking storytelling, Star Trek pioneered what science fiction could achieve on television. We dive into the series' origins, its journey from American screens to British broadcasting, and how it spawned a multimedia empire that continues to explore strange new worlds today.
Whether you're a dedicated Trekkie with strong opinions about your favorite captain or you're curious about vintage radio dramas, there's something magical about experiencing these stories in audio form. The clever writing, signature character dynamics, and that unmistakable Star Trek humor shine through brilliantly in this clean, restored recording that avoids the crackle typical of vintage audio.
Have you experienced Star Trek through radio dramas before? Which captain would earn your loyalty? Join us on this cosmic journey, subscribe to hear more classic literature brought to life, and as always, keep your minds open and stay curious!
Send us an email to let us know your thoughts or if you have anything to add at ⏬⏬
info@melancholymentor.com
You can watch the radio drama episode we are discussing on our YouTube channel :
https://youtube.com/@melancholy_mentor
Hello everyone and welcome to Melancholy Mentor, where classic literature meets the vibrant world of radio plays. I'm Fran and I'm joined by Evan from Mystery Mythos. Together, we're your guides on this creative journey. During each episode, we'll dive into stories featured on the Melancholy Mentor channel, allowing fresh ideas to flourish, inspiring you to dream big and unlock your creative potential. Get comfy, open your mind and embrace curiosity. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm Fran and I'm Evan, and today we're highlighting an episode on our YouTube channel of a radio drama and it's we're giggling because of my pronunciation of this. It's Passage to Moab, moab, moab, moab, moab. Yeah, how would you pronounce it? Moab, moab, passage to Moab. Yeah, how would you pronounce it? Moav, moav, passage to moav. So passage to moav is an audio story and it's accompanied by um, a comic book. It's an audio story accompanied by a comic book.
Speaker 2:The actual radio drama that we've got, um, it's got an amazing background, so the sound effects in it and the the quality of the actual recording is really really good. Um, it's very dramatic background music as well, and it's it's actually a star trek story. Yeah, this is a star trek story based on the original series, um, so we've got a little bit more about that in a minute and the actual radio drama starts with an amusing exchange between bones and captain kurt. So anybody that knows star trek would know that they've got, like, um, very strong characters that started off from the original series. Um and captain, kind of, was it quite humorous? A lot of the exchanges were quite humorous. And bones, um, bones.
Speaker 2:This character was, um, like, known for a few one-liners? Yeah, yeah, quite interesting, um, so the story is about them transporting a pet not just, yeah, this is an alien pet and it follows the journey to get to their destination with, with this alien pet. So, james tiberius kirk, um, often called james t k Kirk. Yeah, so he's a fictional character in the Star Trek, um media franchise, um, and in the TV series, of course, yeah, by William Shatner. So William Shatner's a Canadian actor, um, I like William Shatner a lot. I liked him as well. He was born in 1931, so he's currently 93 years old amazing, doing awesome, isn't he?
Speaker 3:yeah, still presenting tv shows and stuff like that, yeah, yeah for real?
Speaker 2:I think I'll have to have a look. Yeah, I like him, I like his voice. Um, I'm not sure what he's like as a person. We're not advocating for him as a person, we only know him from screen acting. So, just in case, I don't think he's done anything majorly shady, has he? No, I don't think so. I'm only just going to allude to this Slightly difficult ground to tread certain things in, um, actors and stuff like that, because, you know, obviously we don't want to mention anyone that's had shady behavior. Of course, not pretty sure, william shatner's. All right.
Speaker 2:Um, it's the original series of Star Trek. So, again, it was rather humorous and it had a number of catchphrases in it which I really liked as well. So it's five year mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and here it comes to boldly go when no man has gone before. Yes, um, I'm not going to get a binary all over this. See the original words. Original, yeah, it's the original, it's gone before. It's fine.
Speaker 2:Um, so the Star Trek franchise began, um, I've got it as beginning September the 6th in 1966, but this show was released in the United Kingdom in 1969, okay, so for anyone listening to this podcast, we're based in the UK, so I've mentioned this a few times before. Um, and it gets a little bit confusing because the uk is also the united kingdom, is also britain, is also england, scotland, ireland and wales. Yeah, and it gets a little bit confusing because we're an island, surrounded by islands, and the country itself has got countries within the country and the whole thing's united kingdom. Yeah, so we're actually so for context, we're based on the big main part of, you know, the uk, in england and on the south coast. Yeah, we're actually coastal um, just put it into a little bit of context there. So, star trek, the original series of Star Trek, ran for three seasons and it aired 79 episodes. I do think that because I think it was cancelled due to low ratings.
Speaker 2:The original kind of TV series of Star Trek is what we're talking about Cancelled due to low ratings, yet they're still shown today. Oh, yeah, I know that's the fan base. It led on to a lot of other tv series, movies still going and it's still going and the original series is still going, yeah, and you watch it now and it's it's relatively um, groundbreaking for the time. Um, more of that to come because we've got we've got other star trek episodes like audio episodes on the melancholy mental channel. So I'm going to delve it's not all just going to be about the captain going to delve into the other characters a little more, um, and a little more on their backstory of you know the fact that they were groundbreaking. So that's going to be to come. So it's also a number of fan made audio dramas as well as the official ones as well. I love it when the fans take it and just run with it and create something else with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, all that whole fan fiction thing. It's brilliant, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, fan fiction, and also to make fan audios of it too. You know audio stories? Yeah, it's amazing, so this has just sparked so many imaginations. The whole Star Trek franchise has just really kind of. I'd like to say, though, I'm pretty sure that Doctor who was first. Yeah, I was wondering about that actually. Oh, again, uk england island. We're also called british. Yeah, just to throw another name in there. It's all the same thing. Um, so, doctor, who is a uk? Um, like, what story series isn't it that was adapted into movies and the tv series? Yeah, pretty sure it came before star trek, but interesting, interesting, I know I have to delve a little more into that one. Yeah, have you got some information about the actual audio drama that we feature on the channel?
Speaker 3:yeah, I do, um this the one that we've got on the channel. This one was the first of 11 star trek stories produced by peter pan records. It was initially released in 1975 as an audio production along with two other stories and then, after it was packaged.
Speaker 3:After that it was packaged by itself with the 20 page comic book uh, that's where I got the audio drama with the comic book bit from yeah, and this was the first of seven stories set during captain james t kirk's first five-year mission aboard the enterprise, and the first of six with the associated comic book, um. Unfortunately, none of the voice actors were credited, so I can't find anything else about the voice actors, because they weren't credited by peter pan records, um, which is a shame, isn't it real?
Speaker 2:shame. Yeah, and I've done some digging about this as well. Um, attempted, like my limited research capabilities, but I've really tried and couldn't find anything at all. And you couldn't either, could you ever?
Speaker 3:no, and then I just found that little bit of information and went oh, that's why then, if they haven't been credited, we can't, we can't find anything out about it. Uh, the video itself was filmed by you, um, in woodland in Eastleigh.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Eastleigh's a little town near Southampton, again kind of south coast area of England, and this particular film I do remember it. It's mostly a muddy puddle in the woods.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:So for every on the Melancholy Mental channel, for every radio drama episode we've got, there's also an accompanying film that is filmed by me mostly me along the seaside and along the woodland and stuff like that, and we also add in a black screen version for sleep. And on Evan's YouTube channel, which is Mystery Mythos, it's AI generated, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:so we've got a kind of bit of a different vibe going on over there yes yes, do watch, find us on youtube as well and do watch the um video version of the muddy cuddle. Yeah, the audio version that we've got is actually very clean. I've actually listened to other audio versions of this and there's a very strong crackle in the background, because obviously these are old audios and the one that we've got is a really clean version. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's quite easy to listen to and it's really quite funny as well. The characters is funny. Yeah, this one has had 586 views on the channel, which we're very grateful for. Thank you very much. Yeah, um, and there's not a lot else that we can say about this one because there's no other information.
Speaker 2:No, no we do try and bring you kind of a few facts and and if we've got any information about the radio dramas that we actually feature, obviously we like to credit people, the writers and the voice actors. We don't have anything, nothing. So you started watching the original series, didn't you? You started re-watching it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when I was little, I can remember the original series being on telly. Yeah, um, at some point I don't know, maybe they were resharing it or whatever, I don't know I think it was on like BBC two or something, and um, so I watched some of them but never, really never, had the chance to watch all of them. Then on Netflix, it was on Netflix, so I managed to watch all of the new ones. Oh, wow, um, good old Netflix. Yeah, all, sorry, all of the old ones. And then I went on and what did I watch? Star Trek, the Next Generation, which I'd never seen before.
Speaker 3:I like the Next Generation, and Voyager, and my favorite favorite actually ended up being the, being one of the later ones, which is Strange New Worlds. So I actually dug on Strange New Worlds so hard, which is obviously quite more the recent ones, because I just thought it was so funny. Have you got a favourite captain? Oh, like Captain Kirk, to be honest, although I liked a lot of them, obviously. But, yeah, I think the original, I'm gonna go with Janeway. You like Janeway? Yeah, yeah, which I do, I do like Janeway. However, if you're asking me, it's still, uh, captain Kirk, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:If you're listening to this and you're a fan of Star Trek, who's your favorite captain? Who is it? If you've never either watched or listened to Star Trek, then by all means do look it up. The stories are really really good, aren't they?
Speaker 3:really good. It's really funny, got good one-liners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good thing right, okay, thank you for joining us, and bye, bye thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1:Contact us, melancholymentorcom. Until next time, keep your minds open and stay curious.
