'Star Trek: very Short Treks' Animated Shorts Coming On Star Trek Day

The shorts were teased at San Diego Comic-Con and celebrate 50 years of The Animated Series

Hey! Would you like to see non-original series Star Trek characters like Riker, Quark, and Neelix in the style of Star Trek: The Animated Series? To celebrate that series’s 50th anniversary, and thus the franchise’s voyage into animation CBS Studios is making it so by launching Star Trek: very Short Treks, a series of five new animated promotional spots in said style, adding to the Star Trek Day festivities with the first episode.

As announced at San Diego Comic-Con, the very Short Treks will feature fan-favorite characters from across the Star Trek universe, all reprising their live action roles. This includes including icons Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker, Doug Jones as Saru and Armin Shimerman as Quark, who were revealed at the convention, as well as Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, Ethan Peck as Spock, Celia Rose Gooding as Nyota Uhura, Bruce Horak as Hemmer, Connor Trinneer as Enterprise’s Trip Tucker, Noël Wells as Lower Decks’s Tendi and George Takei as Hikaru Sulu.

Star Trek: very Short Treks comes from Casper Kelly, best known for his work at Adult Swim including Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell, last year’s The Fireplace and the viral smash hit Too Many Cooks. He’s also worked on Star Trek: Short Treks. The first spot, titled “Skin a Cat”, will launch on Star Trek Day, September 8, exclusively on the franchise’s website StarTrek.com and the official YouTube channel. The four remaining spots will be released on Wednesdays at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT, continuing on September 13 with “Holiday Party”. September 20 sees the release of “Worst Contact”, followed by “Holograms, All the Way Down” on September 27, and wrapping up on October 4 with “Walk, Don’t Run”. All five shorts are bold, brief, and especially non-canon.

Kelly will also release a new comic book with current rightsholder IDW Publishing, titled Star Trek: The Animated Celebration Presents The Scheimer Barrier. The first chapter of the comic will debut digitally on StarTrek.com on Star Trek Day as well. Physical copies will be available at New York Comic Con in October. Subsequent chapters of the comic will roll out identically to the very Short Treks, down to the release times.

Star Trek: The Animated Series was the initial avenue of revival for the original series, with most of the cast reprising only leaving behind Walter Koenig’s Chekov. 22 episodes aired over two seasons from September 1973 to October 1974. It was the first Star Trek series to win an Emmy Award when the second season won, as it was called then, the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Entertainment – Children's Series.

Source: Star Trek