Lincoln Enterprises
Formerly | Star Trek Enterprises |
---|---|
Genre | Television merchandise |
Founded | 1967 |
Founder | Bjo Trimble, Gene Roddenberry |
Successor | Roddenberry.com |
Owner | Majel Barrett |
Lincoln Enterprises, formerly Star Trek Enterprises, was a mail-order company set up by
History
Following the
At the time, Roddenberry's marriage to his first wife, Eileen, was rapidly collapsing; the couple would soon divorce. In preparation for this eventuality, Roddenberry created Lincoln and put it in the name of
The company advertised copies of the Star Trek
Nine months after the company was founded, Roddenberry fired Bjo Trimble and her husband John, who had by then built most of the mailing lists from the names and addresses they had collected from all across the country to save the show from cancellation and produced most of its sales materials. While John Trimble says it was merely a disagreement over the company's direction, Roddenberry biographer Joel Engel believes Roddenberry always intended to replace them. Their replacement, Stephen Whitfield, a marketing executive with AMT, a Michigan company that had made considerable profit from selling Star Trek-themed models, was corresponding with Roddenberry regularly about the future direction of the company before the Trimbles were fired, while working in an office across the hall where he was ostensibly researching The Making of Star Trek, a book cocredited to Roddenberry although Whitfield was the sole writer. Whitfield was paid more than the Trimbles had been; he was also still on AMT's payroll at that time.[4]
Roddenberry's letters to Whitfield indicate a plan to suggest to Paramount Pictures, which had bought Desilu, that it could make more money from Star Trek by hiring Star Trek Enterprises to replace the company that had handled the show's fan mail for a lower cost, and eventually no fee whatsoever. They would tell Paramount that the revenue from the "fan kits" sent out in response to fan letters was declining, although Roddenberry knew that interest in the show remained high. He believed Paramount's executives would "grab for pennies and forget the dollars", preferring a short-term savings to long-term profits.[4]
After the change in management, the company was renamed to Lincoln Enterprises. This name was attributed to Roddenberry's love of Abraham Lincoln.[2] Barrett would later claim that the company was far older than it was, saying it was first known as Lincoln Publishing and owned by someone else. It then transferred into the hands of Leonard Maizlish, Roddenberry's personal lawyer. She said that it was handed from Maizlish to her in the early 1980s.[7] The method of cutting the film strips changed under Barrett, as she thought it made it more authentic to have the cuts be less precise. This led to fan complaints, because cuts were taken part way through frames above and below the intended frame.[2] Other products included an "official" newsletter, Inside Star Trek, a flight deck certificate and a copy of the original pitch document for the series.[3]
The product range was increased in the early 1990s from props and technical documents to more general merchandise.
Notes
- ^ a b c Solow & Justman 1996, p. 400.
- ^ a b c d e Tilotta, Dave. "A Conversation with Bjo Trimble: Film Clips and Lincoln Enterprises". StarTrekHistory.com. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
- ^ a b Sawyer, James (September 7, 2011). "A Collector's Trek #5: Lincoln Enterprises Merchandise". StarTrek.com. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
- ^ a b c Engel 1994, pp. 122–125.
- ^ "Star Trek". Galaxy Science Fiction (advertisement). November 1968. pp. Back cover.
- ^ Solow & Justman 1996, p. 401.
- ^ a b Davidsmeyer, Jo (October 1993). "Lincoln Enterprises: A Little Piece of Star Trek". Strange New Worlds. No. 10. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
- ^ Nemecek 1997, p. 55.
- ^ "Julien's Auctions Presents: Property from the Estate of Gene Roddenberry and Property from the Collection of William Shatner to be Auctioned on Sunday June 27th, 2010 at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV". Julien's Auctions. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
References
- Engel, Joel (1994). Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek. ISBN 078-6-860-049.
- Nemecek, Larry (January–February 1997). "The Making of Trials and Tribble-ations" (PDF). Star Trek: Communicator (110).
- Solow, Herbert F.; Justman, Robert H. (1996). Inside Star Trek: The Real Story. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-89628-7.