Product Details

• Actors: Majel Barrett
• Directors: Bill Reed
• Format: Animated, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount Home Video
• VHS Release Date: July 20, 1994
• Run Time: 48 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630132031X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,145 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two great episodes from the second (and final) season, December 22, 2004

By 

BENJAMIN MILER (Veneta, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Star Trek - The Animated Series, Vol. 10: The Pirates of Orion/ The Practical Joker [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It's really too band that the animated Star Trek from 1973 and '74 is so criminally overlooked. Probably because it was slated on the Saturday morning cartoon lineup, many adult fans of Star Trek probably dismissed it thinking it would be for kids, while the subject matter was likely a bit over the heads of the kids. If this was aired during prime time, the story might have been a bit different. Regardless, while I wasn't around to see the originally run of the animated series in '73-'74 (I was only one year old when it was first aired in the fall of '73), I did catch it as reruns, during Saturday morning cartoons in the early '80s, and then again on Nickelodeon at the end of the '80s/beginning of the '90s. I loved how the series ended with Hal Sutherland's signature and Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott's name rotating in a circle (which was normal to see on any Filmation production of the time). Then I never saw the animated Star Trek again, until I got them on VHS. And the great thing about owning these series on VHS is the pleasure of seeing them without commercials!

These animated series was produced by Filmation, the same animation company that gave us Fat Albert, the Archies, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Ghostbusters (not to be confused with the cartoon adaptation of the 1984 movie by the same name entitled the Real Ghostbusters), and even non-animateds like Ark II.

This set includes The Pirates of Orion with The Practical Joker, which consists of two episodes from the final season, from the fall of 1974. It's a bit strange that Orion, in this case would be pronounced "or-ee-on", instead of "or-eye-on", make me wonder why it wasn't called "The Pirates of Oreon". This episode involves Spock contracting a fatal disease (at least to Vulcans) that require strobolin, which can only be found on a few planets, only to have a cargo ship (the Huron) carrying the strobolin be hijacked by the Orions.

The Practical Joker is the attempt to put humor on this particular episode. The Enterprise was ambushed by Romulans, then passes through an energy field to escape the Romulans only to find out this energy field causes the Enterprise to pull practical jokes. This was also the very first Star Trek episode to premiere the holodeck (they called the recreation room here), beating Star Trek: The Next Generation to it. Perhaps the most hilarious part involves Kirk's uniform, which you gotta get this tape to see for yourself! As this episode progresses, you'll find out the practical jokes started getting less funny and more dangerous.

These are two well-written and solid episodes, and I highly recommend this VHS.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Privateers in space and an amusing then annoying practical joker, March 9, 2007

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Animated Series, Vol. 10: The Pirates of Orion/ The Practical Joker [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In the first episode, Spock is suffering from a fatal disease and will soon die without receiving a specific medication that is not on the Enterprise. A message is sent out and the Enterprise is scheduled to rendezvous with another Federation vessel that has the medication. Everything seems to be going smoothly and there appears to be plenty of time until the other vessel is hijacked by Orion pirates. When the Enterprise arrives at the rendezvous point and the ship is not there, they set out to find the pirate ship, which is easily done.
Orion is officially neutral so the captain of the Orion ship is under orders to self-destruct rather than compromise their neutrality. Since that would lead to the death of Spock, Kirk must be very careful when negotiating with the Orion captain. Kirk's obvious willingness to compromise makes his situation difficult, but by agreeing to meet with the Orion captain on the surface of a planet, he is able to meet him face to face. When it is clear that the Orion captain has a suicide pack on, Kirk is able to defuse it by beaming the contents to the Enterprise. The Orion captain is then captured and the Orion ship is surrendered.
The second episode begins with the Enterprise being pursued by several Romulan ships. In order to evade them, Kirk orders the Enterprise to enter a strange energy cloud. This tactic works, but suddenly the computer begins acting strangely. It has become an incredibly annoying practical joker. My favorite was when Spock looks into a binocular viewer and when he turns around, he has black circles around his eyes. The loss of computer control continues to get worse, so Kirk pretends to be terrified of the thought of re-entering the energy cloud. Thinking that it will play another joke on Kirk, the computer steers the Enterprise into the cloud. This time, the condition is reversed and when they emerge, the computer is back to normal. However, the pursuing Romulans are now suffering the same fate and the story ends with the crew of the Enterprise laughing at the Romulan's predicament. Kirk promises to send them the solution after an appropriate period of time.
The first episode is probably a precursor to what will happen if humans encounter other beings in space. Those that are not as technically advanced will resort to whatever tactics they need to in order to acquire wealth and technology. Privateers have been a part of human existence on Earth since the development of sailing ships and there is no reason to believe it will be any different in space.
The second episode is amusing, although it takes too long for the Enterprise crew to figure out what is going wrong. Secondly, it is absurd to believe that there would not be a way for the Enterprise crew to simply reboot the Enterprise computer from protected storage. Nevertheless, it was funny to see Spock with black rings around his eyes.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The forgotten "Star Trek", October 23, 2000

By 

Stan "SW Fan extreme" (East Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek - The Animated Series, Vol. 10: The Pirates of Orion/ The Practical Joker [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Two excellent pieces of Star Trek lore, lost in the "official" history of Star Trek.

Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the entire classic cast live on in these episodes. I wasn't even around when these episodes were produced for NBC in 1973-1974, but managed to catch the series in reruns. Some of these stories were so good, they could have been produced as live action episodes. But unfortunately, they suffered from the fact that they were meant to be kiddie fare. I recommend purchasing these eleven volumes for your Star Trek collection.