Was Chekov put there to make fun of Russia?

[Trekker4747]

So Star Trek comes on showing this community working in space and Russia gets upset and asks for a Russian to be on the show since Russia was the first in space and we end up with Chekov.

Then here's Chekov who's a strong Russian stereotype (though, granted, TOS was filled with ethnic stereotypes) who attributes every other thing he encounters as having origins in Russia.

Was this TPTB's way of making fun of Russia for their claims of being in space first?

 

[Christopher]

What do you mean, claims of being in space first? They were in space first. The USSR was responsible for:

The first artificial satellite (Sputnik, 1957).
The first animal in space (Laika, 1957).
The first several probes to the moon (Luna 1-3, 1959).
The first probe to Venus (Venera 1, 1961).
The first human being in space (Yuri Gagarin, 1961).
The first probe to Mars (Mars 1, 1962).
The first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, 1963).
The first spacewalk (Voskhod 2, 1965).

And various other firsts. Chekov was added to acknowledge their undeniable importance in human spaceflight, not to mock it.

Presumably his "Russians inwented it first" gag was just meant to make him a nonthreatening and sympathetic character -- yes, he has pride in his nationality, but not in a way that's intimidating.

 

[paustin]

he's right he was there to acknowledge...........the mocking came a little later

 

[James Tiberius Kirk]

Christopher said:
What do you mean, claims of being in space first? They were in space first. The USSR was responsible for:
[snip]
The first animal in space (Laika, 1957).
[snip]

Actually that was the US, who sent fruit flies into space on a V2 in 1946, followed by Albert II a Rhesus monkey in 1949, and then launched a Monkey and 11 mice into space in 1951 that survived the flight. Sorry, just a pet peeve.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I think Chekov's boasting was a general reference to Nikita Krushchev, who was a notorious blowhard and public embarassment to Russia in the early 60s. He was also inspired by the popularity of the Monkees and was a blatant attempt to appeal to their fanbase.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

Remember when Kirk played chess with him and Checkov said "I vill bury you... Keptin."

Anyway, the story about the Russians complaining is total BS. Koenig has made it clear that he was added to appeal to young, Monkee-worshipping teeny-boppers and that Russian was one of several accents he used during the audition and it was the one Roddenberry & Co. ran with. The Pravda story is no more true than Roddenberry's story of Scotty the pusher from Ellison's version of COETF.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

James Tiberius Kirk said:
Actually that was the US, who sent fruit flies into space on a V2 in 1946, followed by Albert II a Rhesus monkey in 1949, and then launched a Monkey and 11 mice into space in 1951 that survived the flight. Sorry, just a pet peeve.

It depends upon how one chooses to define "space", and Christopher is obviously using the definition of a spacecraft in an inertial orbit over Earth as opposed to a suborbital aeroballistic flight into the upper atmosphere. In any event, German engineers now appear to have played approximately as central a role in the development of the Soviet space program as they did the American one.

TGT

 

[TiberiusK]

http://startrekdom.blogspot.com/2007/05/trekdom-interviews-walter-koenig.html

Trekdom: In 1967, Gene Roddenberry told the L.A. Times that he added the character of Chekov because a Pravda writer criticized the show for ignoring the Soviet Union’s role in the space race. Yet, as many fans know, Roddenberry and others had ulterior motives, such as wanting a “Davy Jones” that appealed to young viewers. Do you believe that the writers treated the character as a serious representation of future Soviet/U.S. cooperation in space? Or, would you say that they focused more on the “Davy Jones” aspect?

Walter Koenig: "It was a sensitive time in the socio-political landscape when Star Trek introduced a Russian character. From the first, the intention was to acknowledge the Soviet exploration of space and to send a non provocative message that if the world of Star Trek was going to embrace all of mankind then certainly a Russian in its midst was appropriate to that message. However, it is also true to an even greater extent that the show wished to expand its demographic. The eight to twelve year old group might not be impressed with an Earth United but they might be drawn to a character that superficially resembled one of its pop "faves". If you needed more proof, Gene Roddenberry was quoted as saying after the casting session that "Koenig's accent sucks but I think the little girls will like him."

 

[Therin of Andor]

TiberiusK said:
In 1967, Gene Roddenberry told the L.A. Times that he added the character of Chekov because a Pravda writer criticized the show for ignoring the Soviet Union’s role in the space race.

Yes, but the journalist didn't complain in Pravda itself. In the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of TOS, Richard Arnold was assigned to track down the original newspaper article but it was never found. IIRC, Gene agreed that it may have been a conversation he once had with a Russian journalist, or perhaps something that appeared in a magazine or fanzine, but in the frequent retelling it "became" an item in Pravda.

 

[Buford]

I think it's true Roddenberry style to cast a Russian character and then to make that character appealing to the younger masses by having him sport that "groovy" monkee hair do and be "attractive". Just like his vision.... that prejudice be a thing of the past and during that time of history Russians weren't exactly our friends!

 

[Therin of Andor]

I recently read an interview with the guy who played Mallory in "The Apple". He was once asked by the ST producers if he could do accents and he said no, because he'd once been very embarrassing in a stage show doing a phony accent. He realized later that they'd been considering him for the role that eventually became Chekov. ie. They were quite open as to what accent would be featured.

 

[Basill]

^^So instead he steps on a mushroom and goes boom. Oh, the paths we choose...


(Mushroom... sponge-rock... whatever)

 

[Plum]

Rock.

 

[Vulcanian]

I think he was there just to show humanity's progress in da future.

The boasting was just for laughs.