Animated Star Trek PSA "The Slaver Weapon"

Public Service Announcement from the Animated STAR TREK series for the episode "The Slaver Weapon" written and animated by Curt Danhauser.

Several animated Saturday morning series beginning in the 1970's had a 30-second "message" aimed at teaching the children viewers a lesson, like staying away from downed power lines and not being a bully.

Filmation was actually the first studio to add a moral in the form of an epilogue at the end of Saturday morning cartoon episodes. They made their debut in conjunction with Filmation's Hardy Boys series in 1969, but they didn't become a regular epilogue element until 1972 as part of Filmation's Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids series.

No Public Service Announcements (PSAs) were made for the initial broadcast of the animated STAR TREK series. Just for fun, I decided to create 30-second Animated STAR TREK PSAs with the type of lessons that might be learned from each Animated STAR TREK episode. They were written seriously just like the ones that were seen on Saturday mornings in the 1970's and 1980's, but when viewed with today's sensibilities, they will probably seem quaint and perhaps humorous. Curt Danhauser - 2009

More info on these special PSAs can be found at http://www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSeries/PSA.html

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• STAR TREK
• animation
• 1970's
• Danhauser
• Filmation
• Saturday Morning TV
• cartoon
• Larry Niven
• Kzinti
• gun safety

[HerrEllsworth]

The Slaver Weapon is my personal favorite from TAS. An intriguing story and quite a different character line-up and Kirk, McCoy and the Enterprise are not in this episode at all. Spock, Sulu and Uhura make a solid team in this story and Larry Niven's creations, the K'Zin are an aggressive and militant race which I wish could have been explored more in the ST universe. Lots to tell in a mere twenty-four minutes and it just shows how TAS was (or should be) a worthy addition to the ST canon.

[radiofreecalifornia]

I remember seeing this when it ran originally. I also remember thinking the episode was a direct lift from Niven's "the Soft Weapon" that I had not too recently before read. Dropped Spock right into Nesses's roll... I see Wikipedia has some stuff regarding this episode...

[SpeaksTooSoon]

I liked this one, considering Kirk wasn't in the actual episode

[SartoriusSeven]

Is this real?