Star Trek: 9 Ways Strange New Worlds Re-Imagined The Gorn

It's a common joke that Star Trek's aliens are mostly just humans with bumpy foreheads. When the show originally aired, that was the easiest most economical way to depict extraterrestrials; due to limited budgets, aliens with other body types, such as the apelike Mugato, were less than convincing.

The original Gorn costume was designed by puppeteer, prop maker, and creature designer Wah Ming Chang. He was portrayed by several performers including Bobby Clark, Gary Combs, and Bill Blackburn. He was voiced by Ted Cassidy of The Addams Family fame.

According to Bobby Clark, the costume was made of heavy rubber which made movement difficult. The difficulty the actors had moving fit the script's description of the creature's bulky body and awkward, lumbering movement.

Gorn hatchlings were depicted through a combination of rod puppets and what designer and puppeteer Rick Galinson called glorified hand puppets augmented with CGI. The puppeteer operating the hand puppet controls the creature's head and body movements while the creature's eyes and mouth are moved by radio controlled servos.

The adult Gorn from Hegemony was portrayed by stunt performer Warren Scherer wearing the high-tech grandson of the original rubber suit. It weighed nearly 100 pounds and incorporated animatronic elements such as moving eyeballs and fingers to make it seem as lifelike as possible.