What Are Little Girls Made Of? // Star Trek: The Original Series Reaction // Season 1

Many years ago I was at a Trek convention and DeForest Kelly was speaking. He said his favorite episode was "The City on the Edge of Forever". I asked for his worst episode. He said "My worst is 'What Are Little Girls Made of?' Why? Because I wasn't in that one".

This episode was written by Robert Bloch, who's best known for writing the novel, "Psycho", which was adapted as a film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Ruk the robot was played by Ted Cassidy, who's best known as Lurch, the zombie butler on the sitcom "The Addams Family".

Scott is in charge of engineering, the entire operations division (all red shirts) and is the ship's second officer. He's in charge when Kirk and Spock are both gone. Since his post is not on the bridge, when Kirk and Spock both leave, usually a bridge officer takes "the conn," meaning they're in command until relieved, usually by Scotty. Scotty also often is the chief supervisor and technician of the ship's transporter, because it's the most critical and complex piece of equipment on the ship, other than the engines.

“They’re wearing red shirts. Should I be worried?” Yes. Yes, you should. 😉

Scottie's job is to tell Kirk that whatever he's asking for is impossible; then to get it done in the nick of time. He's VERY good at this!!

I still don't know what little girls are made of, but I very much appreciate whatever it took to make Andrea. Her loss is the real tragedy of this episode.

Ted Cassidy also provided the voice of Balok’s puppet in The Corbomite Maneuver, and the Gorn captain in Arena. And Sherry Jackson is one of the most, if not the most beautiful woman to appear in Star Trek. Just the definition of beauty.

Ruk is played by Ted Cassidy, the same actor who played Lurch in the original "The Addams Family." He later went on to do the voice over in the intro for "The Incredible Hulk" in the 1970's

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet but the actress that plays nurse Christine Chapel is Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the wife of the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry. She is known as the First Lady of Star Trek. She was in the pilot The Cage as Number One, and later recast as nurse Chapel. Majel also played Lwaxana Troi's mother in The Next Generation. She is also popularly known as The Computer Voice as she voiced nearly all the computers in Star Trek! From this original series through to the 2009 Star Trek movie (recording her final performance just two weeks before she passed). There has been a few surprises since as her voice was again heard in an episode in Picard season 3. Also before her passing, her son Rod Roddenberry set-up a recording studio at home and together they recorded her voice to create a large phonetically library of her voice captured in WAV files. Even long after her passing, she still has many things to share with us!

This human / machine question is explored a lot more in Trek going forward. And the cool thing is that it doesn't always come up with the same conclusions.

6:26 That is a type 1 phaser. It's the smaller and more portable Starfleet phaser. The type 2 phaser mainly seen so far is just the type 1 phaser mounted on top of a larger unit with a battery pack that forms a pistol grip. It's an extremely well thought-out modular design unlike anything ever seen in a sci-fi show at the time.

WHAT IS THAT! That is the actor, Ted Cassidy. His best-known role is of Lurch in the '60's TV series 'The Addams Family'. He was usually behind lots of make-up or a complete costume playing aliens or creatures like Bigfoot.

What's that? Actor Ted Cassidy, who played Lurch on the Adams Family TV show. He also did the narrator in the beginning credits of the Incredible Hulk TV show.

The concept of replacing parts and at what point does the replacement cease to be the actual original person is part of the Ship of Theseus paradox. Its a very interesting as a philosophical riddle. Great, deep reaction!

Ted Cassidy was a fine actor with a tremendous basso profundo voice which could inspire fear--or could be very warm. He will always be known as Lurch the butler in the television series based on Charles Addams' strange little cartoons for the New Yorker. He had a left-field hit with "Wesley", which is as far away from horror as you can get. It's on YouTube. His son, who looks like him, helps keep his memory alive.

Thank you for watching this! Its one of my favourite episodes for the questions it poses, the Ship of Thesius problem, human consciousness, what we could lose if we mechanize or digitize ourselves. The "Stalactite" scene has since been memed into legend. Also great that youve watched Ghost in the Shell 1995 and played Soma. Another recommended movie is Metropolis from the 1920s.

Yes, Bunny. That's Christine Chapel, the same woman from The Naked Time, who told Spock she loves him.

A chief engineer keeps the engines and power systems (and really anything mechanical) running properly and making repairs and/or modifications as needed, Montgomery Scott in particular is one of the best in Starfleet!

The writer of this episode, Robert Bloch, was also a member of the original "Lovecraft Circle" around 90 years ago now. These were authors H.P. Lovecraft befriended, and/or whose careers he helped get started in some cases. He makes an oblique reference to HPL with his use of The Old Ones here, and also in a later episode Bloch scripted.

“It looks like they’re having the Jello salad over dog food.” 😆