10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: The Animated Series

It’s easy to pillory the animated series as hardly being animated at all. It is the textbook definition of what Loony Tunes cartoon legend Chuck Jones dubbed “illustrated radio.” Even by the low standards of TV limited animation of the time, Filmation shows featured some of the least-animated content made for American TV, focused on reuse of existing animation and doing anything possible to avoid even doing lip sync. Ever wonder why you get those weird close-ups of Spock’s eye where you can’t see his mouth? That's why.

Saving money was one thing, but shortcutting could be excessive, unnecessary, and occasionally hurt the show. The poster child for this was the David Gerrold-penned episode “Bem”. The concept — originally pitched to the original series — featured a character who was a colony creature, composed of several symbiotic beings that could connect or operate somewhat independently of one another. Gerrold even sketched what this might have looked like, with BEM’s detached “graspers” (hands) walking on their fingers, etc.

Such a creature was incompatible with Filmation’s spendthrift solutions, and the episode’s design is in every way different from Gerold’s 1967 concept. Bem feels less like a colony creature and more like what he is: a stack of animation cels, head on one, torso on another, etc. So when Bem breaks its “unity” their components float around like helium balloons … which is as dumb as it sounds. How does Bem do this? Are the individual creatures full of hot air? And why does a colony creature composed of members that can float need legs at all? Given how little Bem is shown separated this was penny-pinching to the story’s detriment and unforgivable.