Star Trek's Gene Roddenberry was a Big Hippie

And Star Trek is All the Better for It

Star Trek was born of the 1960's. We'd all do well to remember that fact.

Despite psychedelic colors, fashionable go-go boots and Lt. Uhura's groovy mini skirt; we may forget the most beloved science fiction television show ever debuted in 1966. It's pilot was filmed the year before. Star Trek's core values remain firmly rooted in that turbulent age of peace, love and hippie sensibilities.

Captain Kirk may have commanded the Enterprise, but Gene Roddenberry was head hippy in charge of everything else.

Star Trek isn't the only sci-fi game now or back in the day. Landmark shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, even Lost In Space made space travel intriguing, if not somewhat bizarre. However when Roddenberry's "Wagon train to the stars." warped along, that game rose a level or two. As hyperactive chef Emeril Lagasse might yell, "Bam! Kick it up a notch, Spock!"

I wince when South Park hellion Eric Cartman screams "Die Hippy!" Cartman as one of the cuddly, curse belching, video game obsessed nerdy kids of Comedy Central's funniest show worships Star Trek. If this acerbic kid born of the 90's, knew Roddenberry was a hippy, he'd change his mind.

"Live Long & Prosper, Hippy Creator! Screw you other omnipotent deities! I'm going home!"

Why care that Star Trek is a product of the 1960's? What does it matter that the United States was embroiled in the Vietnam war or that civil rights protests raged across America? It's science fiction. It's about the future. It's about exploring strange new worlds, cool gizmos - all that speculative stuff. Yeah, but not entirely.

Like all intellectual sci-fi, Star Trek addresses more. Alien races substitute for ethnic groups or special interest groups. Those alien worlds stand in for other parts of our world or other times where slavery was never abolished, or animals are still slaughtered for sport.