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From: markv@dartvax.UUCP (Mark Vita)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Salt Shakers -- Roddenberry
Message-ID: <1575@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-May-84 16:00:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.1575
Posted: Tue May 15 16:00:43 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 16-May-84 08:00:57 EDT
Organization: Dartmouth College
Lines: 37


   I think I have the final word on the Salt Shaker Controversy.
Here's a quote from the Great Bird himself, which can be found
on page 176 of "The Making of Star Trek" by Stephen Whitfield
and Gene Roddenberry:

   "In the very first show of our first season ('The Man Trap'
by George C. Johnson) we needed some salt shakers because
we had a creature that craved salt.  We had a story point which
required the creature (disguised in human form) to give himself
away when someone passed with a salt shaker on a tray.  This
posed a problem.  What will a salt shaker look like three hundred
years from now? Our property master, Irving Feinberg, went
out and bought a selection of very exotic-looking salt
shakers.  It was not until after he brought them in and showed
them to me that I realized they were so beautifully shaped
and futuristic that the audience would never recognize them
as salt shakers.  I would either have to use 20th century
salt shakers or else I would have to have a character say,
'See, this is a salt shaker.'  So I told Irving to go down
to the studio commissary and bring me several of their
salt shakers, and as he turned to go, I said, 'However, those
eight devices you have their will become Dr. McCoy's operating
instruments.'
   For two years now the majority of McCoy's instruments in
Sickbay have been a selection of exotic salt shakers, and we
know they work, because we've seen them work.  Not only
has he saved many a life with them but it's helped keep
hand prop budget costs low."
 
                             Gene Roddenberry
-- 

                            Mark Vita
                            Dartmouth College
                            {decvax,cornell,linus}!dartvax!markv