Our first entry in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide today is a great gift for fans of Star Trek who loved the Animated Series, but always felt it didn’t get enough attention. This is also great for any fan of Star Trek, or anyone interested in animation in general.

Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series
by Aaron Harvey (Author), Rich Schepis (Author), Saturday Morning Trek (Draft Writer)
Weldon Owen
ISBN-13 : 978-1681884219
$34.99 (discounted at Amazon)

This is the first and only guide to the beloved and star-studded Star Trek: The Animated Series, the in-canon (mostly) continuation of the iconic Star Trek: Original Series.

Star Trek was left for dead in 1969, after the cancellation of The Original Series (TOS). However, even though new adventures of the Enterprise and its crew were not being produced, it remained in the zeitgeist due to syndication and fan-run conventions. As a result, Star Trek became more popular and led to Gene Roddenberry and Filmation Studios continuing the Enterprise’s original five-year mission on Saturday morning television.

Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS) was a critical success, airing 22 episodes over two seasons and earning the franchise its first Emmy Award in 1975. The show featured the voices of almost the entire original cast, including William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, along with TOS writers Dorothy Fontana (“Journey to Babel”), David Gerrold (“The Trouble with Tribbles”), acclaimed science-fiction author Larry Niven, and many more.

This book is the first officially dedicated to TAS, and provides fans with behind-the-scenes production documents, never-before-seen art, and all-new interviews with the people who produced the Enterprise’s new animated adventures.

Star Trek: The Official Guide to The Animated Series reveals the efforts it took to translate TOS into animated form, includes a Databank encyclopedia of new and returning characters, ships, and planets, as well as trivia, bloopers, and TAS’s connections to other Star Trek shows.

This intense look at the first successful Star Trek spin-off is long overdue. Available from any bookseller, using the ISBN code, or at a discount from Amazon.