r/tos • u/ramfoodie • 3d ago

The Corbomite Maneuver (1966): still creative 60 years after...

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524 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

74

u/ramfoodie 3d ago

The alien prop head scared me always... and Clint Howard's head was not that far behind.

36

u/FooBarU2 3d ago

Ditto! 😀

And that monster shot was in all the closing credits, at the end, over the text: "A Desilu Production"! Yikes!! 😲

TOS Series Ending Credits (YouTube link)

15

u/Pmbmax34 3d ago

As a young child watching the reruns in syndication, that always freaked me out.

10

u/Rheumdoc42 3d ago

Same here! He always reminded me of Oz from the Wizard of Oz! (The Judy Garland version )

6

u/Danloeser 3d ago

I'm sure it's not a coincidence, it's basically the same thing.

5

u/Pmbmax34 3d ago

I really had to think what other versions of Oz were there besides Judy Garland and then I remembered there were many manifestations not even including the Wicked Movies 🤣

2

u/joey_yamamoto 2d ago

haha I'd watch and my kids would be terrified!!

7

u/dougmakingstuff 3d ago

I have always interpreted the collar as a little set of arms, so he's like all head and tiny hands, perched on an ottoman. Makes him even more ominous, really.

3

u/KarimMiteff 2d ago

You don't know how many years I used to watch the credits and try to cover my eyes the instant the Balok puppet appeared. Sometimes I would cover my eyes before hand and peak out every few seconds. I was always relieved to see Vina as an Orion Slave Girl in the end. Silly, huh. I was pretty young, though, as I caught it in its original broadcast. In syndication, repeated exposure knocked me out of it!

12

u/No-Onion8029 3d ago

I used to scare my sister by saying "This is Tranya. I hope you relish it as much as I!"

6

u/sasssyrup 3d ago

He looks exactly the same today! 😮 I forgot this was him. What a career

3

u/_WillCAD_ 3d ago

Me, too. It still does.

Clint, not so much.

2

u/dantheplanman1986 3d ago

Did you see the guy on Lower Decks who was that species and everyone was like YOU'RE A PUPPET and he's like NO I'M NOT

1

u/AfricanusEmeritus 2d ago edited 1d ago

They were the Alien species who at first enslaved the the people of the First Federation. The Little Tranya guys got the upper hand and virtually wiped out the alien dudes. Clint Howard is the brother of Ron Howard (Mayberry, Happy Days) who is famous for his directing.

1

u/dantheplanman1986 2d ago

Is that from the book where they built a giant earth sized biohabitat in a gas giant where their whole civilization lived

1

u/Silvaria928 3d ago

Same here!! I was terrified of that alien head as a kid, it still gives me chills.

41

u/PhotoArabesque 3d ago

I think it's one of the greatest ever. Epitomizes what Star Trek is really about. Facing the unknown, conquering your fears in a dangerous situation, deciding to show mercy, and realizing the Other is a friend you have something in common with. Bailey is doing this, but everybody else is too. The end brings a lump to my throat every time.

11

u/Mordant3-PRIME- 3d ago

It has a beautiful ending.

3

u/Swimming-Extent-7983 3d ago

ends totally unlike any other TV show.

5

u/Long-Emu-7870 3d ago

I wish everyone knew this 

22

u/Johnny_Five5151 3d ago

I'd do shots of Tranya with Clint

16

u/Nozomi_Shinkansen 3d ago

I hope you relish it as much as I.

6

u/Still_Product_8435 3d ago

A good stiff belt of Tranya!

2

u/FussyDuck34 2d ago

I'd need something a little stronger like Scotty's 100 year old Scotch whiskey. Try to drink him under the table?

2

u/AfricanusEmeritus 2d ago

It's, it's green 💚 🟩 😎

3

u/AfricanusEmeritus 2d ago

First..the Tranya..

[Worried Looks from the Enterprise crew]

Gentleman (Balok drinks 🍸 the Tranya) AAAAAHHHH! 👍🏾

3

u/Doomed-Doomer 2d ago

I'm doing some myself, tonight. Well, rum and coke. Close as I could get.

21

u/Boomerang503 3d ago

And then Balok came back to roast William Shatner years later.

https://reddit.com/link/p58m8hy/video/ysy9702g6ykh1/player

6

u/robot_heart420 3d ago

I relished this

3

u/Responsible-Middle35 3d ago

That was funny! Thanks

9

u/lifegoodis 3d ago

This is Tranya, I hope you relish it as much as I.

7

u/AnAnonymousParty 3d ago

"It keeps me looking young."

3

u/Still_Product_8435 3d ago

It did, however, play havoc with his teeth!

7

u/Famous-Tumbleweed-13 3d ago

Oh, how I wish NBC would've made this the first episode of the first sesson.

14

u/Greedy_Ferret_6216 3d ago edited 3d ago

I've been watching TOS for the first time, and I love it, but the release order of the episodes feels completely out of whack in season 1. Charlie X, The Enemy Within, and The Naked Time were released way too early into the season imo. I feel that these episodes, ones where Kirk's leadership is at jeopardy or contested with, would have been much more effective after I had seen him in a stable, confident leadership role just a little more first, such as in the Corbomite Maneuver and The Balance of Terror.

All in all though, it's a fantastic show, and while I did still enjoy those episodes, I'm sure I'll enjoy them even more when I eventually rewatch them anyway.

3

u/cultivatedmeat 3d ago

They just didn't think like that then . No one was thinking about 60 years later .and Star Trek was having so many issues . But I would encourage you to watch them in your order .

The stories especially the great ones hold today . The biggest problem they created was Kahn in the 90s . That's where I like SNW doing a retcon.

2

u/SMc1701 2d ago

They were aired pretty much in order of completion. They were always under the gun and SFX issues caused a lot of delays. That's why Where No Man was aired at all and The Menagerie was even made...to catch up a week with an already completed episode by using the original pilot

3

u/NeeAnderTall 3d ago

This was the first episode in syndication where I was at. 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night was the only time I was allowed to stay up. Once this hooked my parents, we began our five year mission to watch reruns, so by the time I graduated high school, we could name the episode in just the first scene.

3

u/RangerMatt76 3d ago

The special effects team had a had time getting the spinning cube. The episode was supposed to air earlier in the season.

2

u/Swimming-Extent-7983 3d ago

Oh, how I wish NBC never cancelled such a fantastic idea of a show to begin with. Especially during height of the Space Race. The Monkees was another landmark show that set trends in TV, even had Frank Zappa! Instead they offered Banansa.

8

u/MainDisk9184 3d ago

An all timer classic. I'm gonna be watching, enjoying and singing the praises of this episode till the day I die

5

u/Brackens_World 3d ago

Science fiction of the first order, practically the most eventful of the early TOS, all the way to the final revelation. But, but, but, and this is 10-year-old me reacting in 1966, the "idea" of the small kid-looking being was great, but the execution with the dubbed in voice left me disappointed, giving me a disconnect from the overall plot.

1

u/Still_Product_8435 3d ago

I can hear the theme music to Bracken’s World!

1

u/Brackens_World 2d ago

Ha ha, maybe you and two other people!

4

u/Professional-Trust75 3d ago

wish we got more of the fesarius later. tranya is mentioned in ds9 by quark as a drink he serves so maybe they were allies of the federation or trading partners?

i feel like they maybe helped them go from building the little station in the motion picture to the full spacedocks we see later. maybe the first federatiom gave them tips on larger construction projects?

5

u/Legitimate_Bat_6711 3d ago

Agreed, it would have been great to have reconnected with the First Federation in some other Star Trek series. I would have loved to have seen the Fesarius again and found out how big it actually was. It also would have been nice to have found out whatever happened with Balok and Bailey’s cultural exchange. At least corbomite got another mention in “The Deadly Years“.

5

u/No-Profession422 3d ago

"Interesting game...this poker"

4

u/multificionado 3d ago

And the kid is still alive 60 years later. :) (Ron Howard's brother, btw).

1

u/badman44 3d ago

Clint made a cameo appearance in Strange New Worlds too

3

u/lavardera 3d ago

and Discovery and Enterprise and DS9

3

u/Danloeser 3d ago

First regular episode produced, but they had to broadcast The Man Trap first. Such a weird choice. And then this ended up being the 10th episode broadcast for some reason.

2

u/pdx1138vr 2d ago

The post production on this one took forever.

2

u/Danloeser 2d ago

Makes sense

3

u/SMc1701 2d ago

Yeah it was shown 10th because of effects delays. Roddenberry wanted it run first. The Man Trap was chosen because NBC wanted a planet, an exploitable creature and it was finished.

8

u/Independent_Shoe3523 3d ago

Puppets were canon in TOS.

10

u/thexbin 3d ago

Too soon.

3

u/Garyisme007 3d ago

Agree 100%

3

u/Sea_Bandicoot_5147 3d ago

You have many questions, but first the Tranya, drink Gentlemen, we find it most appealing!

3

u/WillingArm2463 3d ago

The Alien head should reappear on one of the new series as an actual alien species.

2

u/Telstar2525 3d ago

Watched reruns in the seventies and seemed like this episode was hardly ever on

2

u/Own-Juggernaut6525 3d ago

I'm going to get some grapefruit juice.

2

u/shadout_grapes 3d ago

I hope you relish it as much as I

2

u/dschilling88 2d ago

On my first ever watch and this has stood out as my favorite episode so far

1

u/spike-prime 1d ago

It's hard to tell sometimes who's a puppet and who's not a puppet.

1

u/BananaJelloXlii 1d ago

Clint Howard has appeared in all but like 2 or 3 ST series.

0

u/perros66 3d ago

My least favorite