The Google logo today pays homage to the legendary TV show Star Trek: The Original Series.
1. Meet the Trekkers Welcome to the bridge, where so much of Star Trek: The Original Series takes place. Forgive appearances – the crew is not quite itself today. Google swapped out our usual heroes for a band of alphabetical stand-ins. You may recognize the capital G as Mr. Spock, complete with pointy ears and thick eyebrows. Next, we have O playing the roll of Lt. Uhura, chief communications officer. Standing boldly in the center is Captain Kirk, with his blonde coif in perfect order. Filling out the right flank are Dr. McCoy, Sulu, and a nameless redshirt (more on him in a moment).
The Google on Friday depicts cartoon versions of the crew of the Starship Enterprise – an homage to the legendary television show Star Trek: The Original Series, which celebrates its 46th anniversary on Saturday. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Google designer Ryan Germick said he intended the doodle (pictured above) to be the ultimate geek homage.
"For me, [Star Trek] was a vision for the future," Germick said. "I think it was also that it was multicultural, pro-science, and full of curiosity and passion. I think like a lot of good science-fiction, it sort of says a lot about its present era. We can really appreciate what Star Trek did in its time. As an adult, you can appreciate how progressive it was. You learned to be compassionate towards all kinds of people – even alien creatures."
Germick is right: As a television series, Star Trek was far ahead of its time. For starters, there was the multiethnic cast, which included Asian-American and African-American actors. And then in November of 1968, there was "Plato's Stepchildren," an episode that featured one of the first interracial kisses in television history. The participants? Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, and Lieutenant Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols.
"It didn't hit me at the time until somebody told me," Nichols told The Huffington Post earlier this year. "I splashed onto the TV screen at a propitious historical moment. Black people were marching all over the South. [Martin Luther King, Jr.] was leading people to freedom, and here I was, in the 23rd century, fourth in command of the Enterprise."
In fact, Nichols later revealed in an interview with NPR, King was actually a driving force in persuading her to stay on the show when she was mulling other career opportunities. This happened in the 1960s, at an NAACP fundraiser in Beverly Hills. Nichols was approached by King, who claimed to be a "Trekkie" himself, as well as her "greatest fan."
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