The first appearance of the Ferengi was a painful one. These feral creatures hopped and cavorted like misshapen misanthropes straight out of a 1930's Hammer horror film. They hissed, spluttered (because of the prosthetic teeth the actors were forced to wear) and lusted after every clothed human female they saw. They originally wore animal skins, stole technology and punctuated their conversations with crouching and hunch-backed scurrying. The sight of Riker striding amongst them like a colossus towering above as they tumbled underfoot beneath him gave the audience a major superiority complex. Even their weapons were laughable. Energy whips? Come on this is the 24th century, people. Can't we get with phaser rifles or disruptors? The idea was to make these creatures look as base and primitive as possible, without a thought for their longevity. Eventually, the Ferengi were to get a reprieve, as, for some reason, the audience seemed to like these creatures and they wound up getting a complete make-over and became a race that completely changed from its original concept of a cowardly, shallow collection of second-rate villains to one that had depth, character and a very complicated, yet still laughable social system. There was no comparison to the initial appearance of these creatures to the Ferengi that showed up later who became actually entertaining; still not a threat, but kind of kitschy. These creatures were weird, silly and hardly dangerous when they first appeared, but give one of them a bar on Deep Space 9, and they became downright palatable. Of course, maybe the alcohol had something to do with that.