DeForest Kelley Filmography: Virtual Convention Appearance

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His "Big Bird" Poems

The Big Bird's Dream (1977)
The Dream Goes On (1986)
The Dream Goes On... and On... and On (1990)

The Big Bird's Dream

I will explain that I wrote this poem called The Big Bird’s Dream in 1977 and I wrote the poem – of course, the show was folded and in limbo – and it’s more or less the story of Gene Roddenberry and his trials and tribulations in trying to sell the series to NBC and then how it only went for three years and then they dropped it. Then Star Wars came out and everyone got excited about Star Wars and Paramount thought, my God, we’ve got this property here, Star Trek, let’s do something with it. So, I wrote this thing... I really wrote it originally for myself and a couple of people heard it, and it amused them somewhat, so I read it first at a convention in Los Angeles, and I called it The Big Bird’s Dream. And it’s more or less self-explanatory as it goes along, it tells... In the meantime, we’d all gone our own way. Jimmy Doohan had bought an RV and he was rolling around the country, you know, just traveling about. George Takei – Sulu – he had a job on the Mayor’s staff, he was very heavily interested in city politics for Los Angeles. And he still had that crazy laugh, that HA-HA-HA-HA. You could hear it all over the lot. He killed a lot of takes during Star Trek II. “For godssakes, get Sulu out of here, you can hear him all the way back here.” So, he was running around. Nichelle was working for NASA. Leonard was in New York at the time doing a play. So, anyhow, I thought maybe... Would you like to hear it? [applause]

[Convention: Vulkon, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 1/17/88]

[...]it's more or less the story of Gene Roddenberry, who we referred to as the Big Bird. If something went wrong on the set, we would call and say, “Get the Big Bird down here." And he'd come down and help straighten everything out. It's more or less the story of Gene trying to sell Star Trek, so I refer to him all through it as the Big Bird.

[...]Thank you. And, you know, I first read that poem, I think it was in 1977 or 78, at the Convention Center in Los Angeles. They had a huge convention there and it was on that very day they decided to bring Star Trek back in some form. At the time, we were going to make a 90 minute show for television. They were thinking in terms of maybe doing a short series of 90 minute films for television. So it was rather ironical that I had written this thing and on the very day that I read it, they decided to go. Of course, as you know, we never did the television show. They finally struck the sets and rebuilt everything and decided that they were going into the motion picture business. And that brings us up to where we are today, too, doesn't it?

[Convention: Midcon, England, September 1986, transcribed in Guyer, 1993.]

This was also, I might tell you, that Star Wars had just come out at the time [some claps] You’re welcome, nice to have you here.

[Convention: Los Angeles, 10/24/87]

The Dream Goes On

This little poem is a follow-up to the Big Bird’s Dream. I wrote this – I went through this one to be sure it doesn’t stop in the middle – for the 20th anniversary of Star Trek and Adam Malin and Gary put on a big do down there in Anaheim when we had this big celebration for the 20th anniversary. I read the poem there and it’s kind of a continuation in a way of the Big Bird’s Dream. So, if you will bear with me, I will try to get through this with you.

[Convention: Los Angeles, 10/25/87]