| rdfs:comment | - In early 1980, directly pursuant the premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount Home Entertainment (then known as Paramount Home Video) released ten selected episodes on the new VHS and Betamax home media formats in the United States, in five volumes of two episodes each as part of their "Television Classics" collection: "The Menagerie, Part I" /"The Menagerie, Part II" , "Amok Time" /"Journey to Babel" , "Mirror, Mirror" /"The Tholian Web" , "The Trouble with Tribbles" /"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" , and "Balance of Terror" /"The City on the Edge of Forever" . [1] [2] Released in conjuncture, or rather as appetizers for the in October released The Motion Picture videotape formats, they together are as such the earliest known official (thereby discounting any and all possi
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| abstract | - In early 1980, directly pursuant the premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount Home Entertainment (then known as Paramount Home Video) released ten selected episodes on the new VHS and Betamax home media formats in the United States, in five volumes of two episodes each as part of their "Television Classics" collection: "The Menagerie, Part I" /"The Menagerie, Part II" , "Amok Time" /"Journey to Babel" , "Mirror, Mirror" /"The Tholian Web" , "The Trouble with Tribbles" /"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" , and "Balance of Terror" /"The City on the Edge of Forever" . [1] [2] Released in conjuncture, or rather as appetizers for the in October released The Motion Picture videotape formats, they together are as such the earliest known official (thereby discounting any and all possible previous and illegal so-called "bootleg recordings", the Original Series "blooper reels" being a prime example, and including the prior Super 8 releases) Star Trek releases in either format, or in any home media format for that matter. A bit puzzling was, that unlike its Motion Picture releases, Paramount did not endow the Original Series releases with catalog numbers or rating indicators. [3] It were these tapes that very shortly thereafter turned up as the first Star Trek productions in the VHS/Betamax rental circuit. In mid-1979, Paramount Home Video hammered out a deal with photo developer/video rental outlet Fotomat Video to release 36 titles of their backlog catalog on the new home media formats for the rental circuit, who started to do so from December 1979 onward, thereby becoming one of the very first such rental companies. [4] From March 1980 onward, Paramount gradually expanded the original agreement to 131 titles, and it was only after that occasion that all six available Star Trek videotape titles were added to Fotomat's rental catalog. Fotomat had the Paramount introductory logos, disclaimers and credits on the rental tapes, the ones habitually seen prior to the feature presentation, replaced with their own. [5] The tapes were additionally packaged in simple die-cut silver cases with black markings and the Fotomat logo on the case. The labels were black with white text. At the time a tape could be either be rented for US$12, or, at a later point in time – for those customers who had missed out on the initial chance to acquire the Paramount tapes – bought for a price in the US$40-$70 range, both rather steep for that era. [6] Ever since, Star Trek has been a staple in the rental circuit, until VHS tapes were phased out of existence in the early-to-mid 2000s, preceded previously by their Betamax counterparts over a decade earlier. A special one-off release of "Space Seed" (Paramount Gateway Video VHS 60040) occurred in 1982 to tie in with the premiere of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Starting in February 1985, the complete series was finally released in groups of ten over the course of the second half of the 1980s. Both tape formats were released in near simultaneous conjuncture with the US LaserDisc format, sharing similarly designed "transporter platform" cover art, though it should be noted that the tapes were one episode per tape releases as opposed to the two episodes per disc LaserDiscs, they therefore released in groups of five. [7] Included were both versions of "The Cage" , first with a hybrid of Gene Roddenberry's work print version and footage from "The Menagerie", along with an introduction by Roddenberry produced especially for the VHS release in 1986, and the "All-Color Collector's Edition" of the episode in 1991. The workprint version, complete with Roddenberry intro is available on Volume 40 of the original DVD releases and the TOS Season 3 DVD set. The full color version was also released in 1995 on a tape by Paramount with "Where No Man Has Gone Before" , as part of a four-tape boxed set featuring the pilots for the first four series. Paramount reissued the VHS tapes in 1993 with new packaging and collectible SkyBox International trading cards for each episode. CBS Video Library/Columbia House also issued tapes of the series in 1986, featuring two episodes per tape. For most of the run of the library releases, the introductory volume was "The Menagerie, Part I" and "The Menagerie, Part II" . Paramount fully phased out releases of the series on VHS by the end of the 1990s-early 2000s.
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