Retro Nerd Alert: Bob Wilkins' One-Hour TV Special, The Star Trek Dream

​Though he's justly celebrated for his tenure as the host of KTVU's Creature Features, the late Bob Wilkins was never a big fan of horror movies -- certainly not as much as his Creature Features successor, John Stanley -- but he was very much a Star Trek fan.

On Sept. 24, 1975, he let his Trekkie flag fly with a one-hour special on KTVU called The Star Trek Dream.

Bob goes to a Star Trek convention in San Francisco, which attracts a then-respectable 3,000 attendees -- not all youngsters, either! And not all boys, for that matter.

Many of the not-youngsters are costumed. Here, Bob talks to a girl with the suspicious birth name of Signa as the cameraman lingers on her long, tastefully yellow legs.

Nerd Archetype No. 1 musters all his social skills to discuss his homemade props. ("Also...also...also!")

This fellow legally changed his name to "James T. Kirk." Because it's 1975, he also uses his tricked-out van to search for Bigfoot and UFOs.

Inside the dealer's room, Bob talks to the "hucksters" making "literally thousands of dollars" off the fans. Laugh all you want, but those are 1975 dollars.

Nerd Archetype No. 2 believes that everyone should check out the Star Trek computer game. A girl gets her dream kiss from George Takei (oh my!). And the blooper reel improves our self-esteem.

I'll never forgive my parents for not taking me to the Federation Trading Post at 2556 Telegraph in Berkeley. I don't care that I was 2 years old and we lived in Fresno at the time.

Much of Wilkins' special concerns rumors about a Star Trek feature film. I wonder what became of that idea?

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Sherilyn Connelly is a San Francisco-based writer. She also curates and hosts Bad Movie Night at The Dark Room, every Sunday at 8pm.

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