Trivia / Star Trek S1 E11 "The Menagerie, Part I"

• Acting for Two: Malachi Throne not only plays Commodore Mendez, he also voiced the Keeper in the original pilot. To prevent confusion, Throne's vocal track was electronically pitched up for this version.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Gene Roddenberry named this two-parter as one of his ten favourite episodes.
• The Other Darrin: The disfigured Pike was played by Sean Kenney rather than Jeffrey Hunter, as Hunter was neither available nor affordable. Pike's disfiguring scars were designed to hide the fact that this trope was in play.
• Prop Recycling: The panel in the room from which Spock issues orders to the Enterprise is a re-use of the neural neutralizer control panel from "Dagger of the Mind".
• Real Life Writes the Plot: At this point in the series' production, delays in some of the special effects shots were causing dangerous Schedule Slip, bad enough that they were risking not having episodes completed in time for their scheduled air dates. It was decided that making a two-parter, mainly using footage from the already-complete but never-broadcast pilot episode, and shooting wrap-around segments in studio, would get two episodes completely relatively quickly and give them breathing room to finish other episodes in time for broadcast.
• Recycled Set: The Starbase Operations set is a redress of the engineering room set. An opaque blue wall has been placed behind the grid to hide the forced perspective set.
• Working Title: From the First Day to the Last.

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