Bob Johnson's Star Trek Marathons
| Science Fiction Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | 'Bob Johnson's Star Trek Marathons (commonly called "The Dusk 'Til Dawn Star Trek Marathons" or later the "Star Trek Marathons") |
| Dates: | 1976 - 2000 |
| Frequency: | varied but became monthly |
| Location: | Sydney & Melbourne, Australia |
| Type: | science fiction media |
| Focus: | science fiction, Star Trek |
| Organization: | Educational Film Services |
| Founder: | Bob Johnson |
| Founding Date: | 1976 |
| URL: | none |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Bob Johnson's Star Trek Marathons (known in Melbourne as the Star Trek Marathons) were in part, the creation of an Australian fan named, yeah, Bob Johnson. Historical hindsight indicates that Johnson was a scandalous figure, and his Star Trek Marathons - although providing what the Star Trek Welcommittee once described as being the first screenings anywhere in the world of Star Trek on the big screen - were consistent with his recalcitrant persona.
His film marathons were presented beginning in 1976. [1].
The marathons were originated by Diane Marchant [2] In 1991, she recalled how a late, casual and unofficial addition of Star Trek material to an alternate programming stream at a Worldcon led to the formation of these Marathons:
August 1975 brought the World Science Fiction Convention [Aussiecon] to the Southern Cross Hotel, Melbourne. It was during this time I was able to help organise an impromptu Star Trek presentation... One of my roomies had started up a conversation with projectionist (Vernon). He owned two episodes of Star Trek (which he bought from a South African TV station) - "Naked Time" and "City on the Edge of Forever". [A fan] had brought her copies of the ST bloopers to this con, {An idea was forming} I spoke to Vernon...[An Aussiecon committee member] got us the committee room for the first thing Sunday morning...
So finding a large sheet of card and some coloured textas, I drew up an announcement with a very large Enterprise and placed it on the con noticeboard.
Sunday morning came and after church, I collected the two episodes... [the] bloopers, and my roomies, and we made our way to the committee suite. The lift doors opened and we were overwhelmed! The entire lobby, from the lift to the committee rooms, [was] crowded with people. We had to hold two screenings to accommodate all those people. ...[The Aussiecon committee member] was in strife over us, we had upset the attendance at the scheduled programming.
Vernon was also the projectionist at a little cinema in North Melbourne, The Ritz. He said that his boss [Bob Johnson] was overseas, and that he had a say in some of the programming whilst the boss was away. He also said the boss had a copy of [Star Trek episode] "The Menagerie". So we planned a night for it to be screened. It was teamed with the movie "Destination Moon". Judi Lindner and I set to phoning all the Star Trek fans we knew in the Melbourne area to tell them of the night, and asked them to tell others too. We also had it announced on community radio services, and Vernon announced it in [Melbourne newspaper] The Age - Entertainment section. It was a success. For a cinema where 24 people was a crowd, over 100 people turned up. I placed a list on the foyer walls asking all who would be interested in hearing of more ST screenings to place their name and address below. Thus began the first Ritz Star Trek mail list. Venon's boss came back to Australia and, looking up the books, wanted to know why the jump in attendance. Therefore, he tried it again. Once again, I contacted all fans I knew of by mail or phone and once again the cinema was full. Off he went to buy ST episodes from overseas. So the Star Trek Marathon was born. [3]
From an ad in Spock in November 1976:
ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS OF UNIVERSE!
HEY EVERYBODY! ALL YOU TREKKIES OUT THERE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS TYPEWRITER!! DON'T FORGET THE UNIVERSE'S SOCIAL EVENT OF THIS STARDATE (76!)!
THE DUSK TIL DAWN STAR TREK MARATHON at the Ritz (44 Errol Street, North Melbourne). Stardate 27 11 76.
For all info, see all the good noticeboards on this side of the galaxy! It will really dazzle your "sensors"!!
They eventually became a monthly event through to probably the mid-1990s in Melbourne, and until 2000 in Sydney. The marathons were an important part of keeping up Australian fan interest in Star Trek: The Original Series during dry spells between the end of the original series and the commencement of the official movies.
Melbourne venues included the Ritz Cinema (Errol Street, North Melbourne) and the National Mutual Theatrette (Collins & William Streets, Melbourne). In Sydney, the monthly Marathons were at a theatrette within ANZAC House (College Street, opp. Hyde Park). The Tom Mann Theatre (Chalmers Street, Surry Hills) became the screenings' temporary home when ANZAC House was demolished in the late 80s. Until 2000, the Sydney Marathons were then hosted at the Encore Cinema (Devonshire St, Surry Hills), ending with Johnson's passing.
Initially commencing as a Dusk until Dawn Marathon (in Melbourne at least), six episodes were shown, with repeats happening later at night, enabling audience members to arrive late and still see the full selection. The repeat screenings were punctuated by intermissions that allowed the local fans to hold parties or other celebratory events or even to organise other fan activities. Audience members became well known for shouting 'whoosh' aloud every time the Enterprise flew across the screen, particularly during the episode opening titles. Due to the costs of hiring the projectionist, the "Dusk to Dawn" aspect was quickly dropped, the episodes were shown only once each night and the event concluded at an earlier time. The Melbourne Marathons ultimately settled down to showing six episodes on one night per month, although they remained a meeting place for local fans to gather and sit chatting in the foyer after a club meeting elsewhere. In Sydney, the monthly event also featured six episodes, later changing to five episodes (and a bonus Star Trek: The Animated Series episode), the day including two intermissions. Johnson always had his own huckster tables, where fans could buy badges, t-shirts, photos, Lincoln Enterprises' merchandise and other collectibles. Members of the former AussieTrek conventions, and committee members of Astrex fan club, provided drinks, sandwiches and jaffles at the Sydney events. Buying and selling could be brisk during the intermissions, as was the fannish networking. At some screenings each year, a "Market Day" enabled other fan groups and clubs to set up dealers' tables as well. These happenings resembled a typical minicon.
Bob Johnson also ran Time-Warped, a for-profit convention in 1986. As a fundraiser for the convention, he also organised and promoted a "Great Stream Train Adventure", with science fiction media fans in cosplay, travelling from Central Station, Sydney to the Thirlmere Train Museum.[4]
On non-Trek weekends, Johnson's Sydney venue would host theme days for screenings of "The Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", serials (such as Leonard Nimoy in "Zombies of the Stratosphere") or cult films (such as "Reefer Madness"), making use of the extensive catalogue from his firm, Educational Film Services.
About
An important figure in the history of Australian Star Trek fandom is Bob Johnson. Johnson was an entrepreneur who lived in Melbourne and screened films in both Melbourne and at ANZAC House in the heart of Sydney. Most of these films were cult horror and B grade science fiction, and were shown to small but enthusiastic audiences who did not mind the poor quality of the films being shown. His films were purchased from South Africa where they were sold to families who lived in places that could neither receive television [5], nor access cinema releases. In the late 1970s, Johnson purchased a number of Star Trek episodes on 16mm film from South Africa and started to screen them in marathons of three or four episodes. These marathons attracted a large number of Star Trek fans and the local clubs were encouraged by Johnson to publicise his marathons and hold their meetings or set up information tables in the foyer or nearby his cinemas...
Johnson used fan volunteers to staff his own sales tables, where he resold items purchased from Lincoln Enterprises. He also used fans to act as ushers, and to sell food at the marathons. Inside the cinema, fans would recite whole scenes or ad lib funny lines, and cheer at well-loved lines in the episodes; the atmosphere warm and engaging. The fan clubs benefited from their relationship with Johnson, even though the legality of the marathons was often questioned, with Johnson receiving more than one letter from Paramount instructing him to cease the showing in public of the episodes that he owned. However, because they were legally purchased episodes, he was never forced to stop showing the episodes.
Johnson’s influence in Sydney and Melbourne fandom cannot be ignored. He resold legal Star Trek merchandise; he aired episodes of Star Trek publicly; and he made a profit from fans whilst freely using their services, their support, and their networking capacity to advertise his activities. He also fostered the continued interest in Star Trek during the dry years between the finish of the original series and the airing of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and actively encouraged the fan community, by bringing together fans and encouraging clubs and artisans, as well as fanzine editors, to use his foyer for their tables of sales and information, and to use the showings as club events. [6]
Another description:
Mainly, that it wasn't Bob Johnson who created the Marathons. Johnson owned the 16mm prints, and once he knew they were money-makers, continued to screen them to the end of his life, but the idea was someone else's.
The 16mm prints, indeed, did come from South Africa, and, although they did look like tv broadcast syndication prints, as mentioned, there was no tv broadcasting in SA until the mid-70s. Johnson's prints were on Eastmancolor stock, and, clearly, had been produced in the 1960s. These prints, likely, came from SA film exchanges, which would hire them out to the public to run on their home 16mm projectors - this practice was very popular in South Africa, right up until the arrival of television there.
The execution of the first Star Trek Marathons, beginning in the 1970s, at the Ritz Cinema, in Errol Street, North Melbourne, used Bob Johnson's resources, but the idea was created and curated by another man - a local film-maker, artist, and Star Trek fan. I don't even know if Bob Johnson liked Star Trek, beyond the money that it made for him...
Further, Bob Johnson never cleared the rights to screen these films in public, and never paid a penny to the copyright owners, Paramount. Perhaps Bob Johnson is a 'historically' important figure in Star Trek fandom, but he could/should also be, equally, described as a notorious figure in film exhibition. [7]
Further Reading
- The Age, newspaper from Melbourne, Victoria, Issue Date: Friday, January 6, 1989, page 26
References
- ^ "Another result of the events organised by Diane Marchant at Aussiecon were the Star Trek marathons. These began in 1976 at a cinema in North Melbourne and later extended to events at Sydney's Anzac House. They were put on by a film collector, Bob Johnson, who owned a number of episodes in 35mm. They provided a venue for fans to meet, read fanzines and other memorabilia as well as to see episodes at a time when the series was not shown on television." -- National Library Of Australia: Star Trek Fandom in Australia, Archived version
- ^ "Another result of the events organised by Diane Marchant at Aussiecon were the Star Trek marathons. These began in 1976 at a cinema in North Melbourne and later moved to Sydney's Anzac House. They were put on by a film collector, Bob Johnson, who owned a number of episodes in 35mm. They provided a venue for fans to meet, read fanzines and other memorabilia as well as to see episodes at a time when the series was not shown on television." -- Effect of Commercialisation and Direct Intervention by the Owners of Intellectual Copyright : A Case Study: The Australian Star Trek Fan Community
- ^ Diane Marchant, 'Worldcon in '75 - Birth of the Marathons', in Captain's Log #171, October 1991, pp. 15 & 16.
- ^ Have Phaser, Will Travel: The Perils of Batgirl by Ian McLean & Karen Irving, Data #73, July 1986.
- ^ the fan notes that television did not appear in South Africa until 1975
- ^ effect of commercialisation and direct intervention by the owners of intellectual copyright : a case study : the Australian Star Trek fan community by Susan Batho (2009) (an academic paper which studies the effect of the Viacom Crackdown and Australian fan clubs)
- ^ from a September 2, 2016 on MPH's talk page