Nasty Little Thing Productions

More Tribbles!

I got to watch the episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles" of the 1970s Star Trek Animated Series (produced by Filmation, who made the He-Man cartoons) today.  Though the animation quality was not very good, the writing was fantastic, which made for a brilliant half hour's worth of entertainment.

It's actually a sequel to "The Trouble with Tribbles" (1967), an episode of the original Star Trek series (one of the funniest Trek episodes ever!), in which we are introduced to the tribbles, which are small furry little creatures.  They're really cute, and some of them end up on the Enterprise after being bought from a trader.  The problem is that they multiply rapidly, and soon the whole ship is overrun with the creatures.

In the animated episode, the Enterprise is transporting two ships containing a supply of foodgrain to Sherman's planet, when they come across a Klingon ship.  The Klingons are firing on a small Federation shuttle, and Capt. Kirk tries to stop them.  The Klingons, however, possess a weapon that can disable the critical defense systems of a starship, which they use on the Enterprise.  But with a bit of quick maneuvering, Kirk manages to rescue the pilot of the shuttle from the Klingons (the weapon they use drains a lot of power, so they retreat in order to recharge it).

The pilot turns out to be Cyrano Jones, the trader that sold tribbles to the Enterprise crewmembers.  And he's got more of them with him, only these he claims are safe, because they are genetically altered so as not to multiply fast.  With the tribbles and the Klingons, Kirk seems to have his hands full, leading to several very funny scenes in the episode.

The story is wonderfully developed too, and it has some terrific dialogue.  Consider this piece —

CAPT. KIRK (to Cyrano): You know the law about transporting animals proven harmful!
CYRANO: Captain!  These are safe tribbles!
DR. MCCOY: There's no such thing as a safe tribble!
SPOCK: A "safe tribble" would be a contradiction of terms.  Tribbles are well known for their proclivities in multiplication.
CYRANO: And they breed fast, too.

The episode is written by David Gerrold, who also wrote the original series episode.  Wikipedia has articles on tribbles and on the original episode.

posted by Karthik Abhiram @ 3:29 PM