E (45:51)
Oh yeah, yeah. That's actually the second largest chapter in my book other than the Smithsonian is the AMT chapter. Because I kept finding more and more connections with it. And that was in part because I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan, West Michigan. And anything related to Michigan history I'm fascinated with. And AMT Aluminum Model Toys Corporation was started in Troy, Michigan on the east side of the state. And so I was naturally drawn to it just because of the connections to my home state. But yeah, AMT took a gamble, a big gamble at that time, I mean AMT was known for car kits. I mean they were the largest, at one point they were the largest, largest manufacturer of injection molded cars, you know, hot rods and things like that. They had the Munstermobile and the Dragula, you know, car from the Munsters. And among other things they kind of did celebrity cars. That was one of their big things. And so to even consider to do something that doesn't have four wheels and 20,000 cylinders and whatever was just not, not in there in their nature. So when they did approach Star Trek rather early on in the fall of 1966 to pursue a contract for putting out a model, I have to confess that was just a huge gamble because they've never done anything like that before. They never did anything rocket related, did very few Aircraft. So this was a big step for them. So they did, they negotiated with the, with the television show early on. In exchange for producing a model kit of the enterprise, 18 inch plastic model kit, they would produce a 22 inch miniature filming miniature of the shuttlecraft, the Galileo, as well as the full set Galileo set that you see, the large one that you see in the, in the series. And then of course, the hangar bay, you know, some place for it to go. Because the cast wrap series, you know, just starting out or even, you know, it was always cash strapped. Money was always a big issue. They looked at that and said, hey, that's great, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll agree to it. And so AMT signed a contract in the fall of 66, you know, just after the series started, that they would do this, do this model and the early advertising that they had for it just to show your listeners how hesitant they were about what the Star Trek stuff was all about. Or even if it would go beyond maybe eight episodes. Because it's possible, possible the show could have been canceled before the first season is done. That's typical in television. You know, it could have just disappeared. It could not, it might not have been picked up for the rest of the season. That was a big turning point. It always is when you're, when you're doing new shows. So they started advertising in the fall for different trade shows. This spaceship model, they called it a spaceship and they showed a picture of the Enterprise. They didn't even connect it to Star Trek, it was just spaceship. One of the first ads with a number next to it and a price for the dealers. It was a dollar fig. You know, you could buy this thing for $1.50. So they took this a tremendous gamble. And as we all know, the gamble paid off. Because as the series progressed, even during the first season, that model kit became a record breaker not only for AMT but for the industry as a whole. That kit sold over a million copies in less than the first year of production. And I've heard that rumor prior to going into research that, that, that, that was the case. And I was hesitant to believe it until I started finding documentation to the effect. And yes, they produced over a million kits and sold over a million kits of that thing because the model kit came out in the summer of 67. Okay, so there was enough time for the series. You know, it started in September of 66 and ran through June of 67. And the model kits came out about that time and they just flew off the store shelves. So they struck gold. That kit was extremely popular and because of the popularity of that, they reasoned, let's do another kit. And so the Klingon ship was negotiated. They wanted to do a bad guys ship. And so the Klingon ship was negotiated in the fall of 67 and then that model kit came out in 68. And of course there was a connection to that too, to the original series. Because the series, series in during, especially during the third season, which is what we're talking about now, didn't have. They had even less money than they did during the first season. And it shows in some of the episodes. They said, well, in exchange for introducing the ship, the Klingon ship, because the Klingons were introduced prior to the third season as a bad people, you know, as the enemy of the Federation. But nobody had knew what their ship looked like because they couldn't afford to do a ship of it. So AMT produced a model, a filming minute. They actually did two of them in exchange once again for the rights to a plastic model kit of it. So it was AMT's faith in the show that gave us the Klingons, you know, the Klingon ship which we finally got to see infested with Romulans during the Enterprise incident in the fall of 68. Because even though it was filmed with Elan of Trois as being introduced, it wasn't shown in the order that they were filmed. When fans started to see the Klingon ship, they saw it infested with Romulans and so they were confused. And it wasn't until later episodes that it finally was clear that yeah, it definitely was a Klingon ship and it can be infested with Klingons. So yeah, we owe quite a bit to AMT Corporation in helping to carry on interest in Star Trek because the model kits were so interested to people. Bottom.
