I was watching some episodes of the Twilight Zone recently. Specifically two episodes: "Third from the Sun" and "Elegy". Both of these spacecraft have sounds on them that are very clearly the same noise you hear on the background of the Enterprise bridge (the ding-ding-DING-ding-ding that is always softly in the background). Does anyone know the story behind this?
Bridge sounds
- Thread starter Captain_Koloth
- Start date
There was some discussion of the bridge sounds in this recent thread.
A lot of stock sound effects have been around for decades. I've heard the same electronic whine that was used for the miniaturizer unit in Fantastic Voyage in a dozen other movies and TV shows, both before and since. The sound of the alien spacecraft in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (actually a distorted recording of the pumps at a sewage treatment plant) has shown up in more than a few films. Just about every jungle movie ever made has a laughing kookaburra on the soundtrack. And then, of course, there's the famous Wilhelm scream.
I remember a singled out communicator chirp (just one chirp) being used as the sound all the control buttons made on the Filmation live-action Saturday morning series "Space Academy". I mean every button. On the station, on the ships, on their communicators where you'd expect it, everything. And they carried over the sound when they turned the series into "Jason of Star Command".
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
In addition, the sound the door opener scanner made was a monitor ping from Sickbay. A couple of FX we now consider uniquely Trek (phaser fire and torpedo fire) were actually stock sounds going back to the 50s. The door "shwock" quickly went on to become ubiquitous in animation, as did part of the transporter sound fx.
The TOS phaser sound effect was a sped-up version of the sound used for the Martian War Machines' levitation rays in War of the Worlds. (And the torpedo sound was created using the same principle as the Martians' green disintegrator bolts, striking a high-tension metal cable, but isn't exactly the same sound. However, in the 1988 War of the Worlds TV series premiere, they mistakenly used the Trek torpedo effect instead, and omitted the levitation warble.)
Don't remember the door opener scanner. I just remember that even as a young boy, I thought Pamelyn Ferdin was attractive. Imagine my shock shortly after the show (Space Academy) premiered when I saw 'And the Children Shall Lead' on afternoon syndication and realized the little girl in that episode was the same young woman from Space Academy. Made me realize Star Trek was in fact not a new show, once and for all.
^Brian Tochi of Space Academy was also in "And the Children Shall Lead." And he later played a conn officer on TNG.
Yeah, but I like girls. Always have, so I didn't notice it was him until many years later when it was pointed out to me.
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