page_title: The Trouble with Tribbles
section_title: Filming
hierarchical_section_title: The Trouble with Tribbles / Production / Filming
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of William Shatner as Captain Kirk from the television program Star Trek. Español: Fotografía publicitaria del actor William Shatner caracterizado como el capitán Kirk de la serie de televisión Star Trek.
context_page_description: "The Trouble with Tribbles" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by David Gerrold and directed by Joseph Pevney, it was first broadcast on December 29, 1967. In this comic episode, the starship Enterprise visits a space station that soon becomes overwhelmed by rapidly-reproducing small furry creatures called "tribbles".
  It is claimed the short story "Pigs Is Pigs" by Ellis Parker Butler inspired the episode, but strong similarities to sections of the novel The Rolling Stones led the producers to seek a waiver from author Robert A. Heinlein.
  The original episode has had several produced follow-ups. The first, "More Tribbles, More Troubles", was originally pitched for the show's third season but not accepted; it was ultimately produced for Star Trek: The Animated Series. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Trek in 1996, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" used digital techniques to insert the Deep Space Nine actors into the events of "The Trouble with Tribbles".
context_section_description: The use of live animals to represent the tribbles was immediately ruled out. According to Gerrold's account, the inspiration for the form of the tribble instead came from a fluffy keyring owned by Holly Sherman. Sherman's Planet in this episode was subsequently named after her. The design came from Wah Chang, but they were individually sewn by Jacqueline Cumeré. She was paid $350 to sew five hundred tribbles from synthetic fur and stuff them with foam rubber. Six ambulatory tribbles were made using the mechanisms of walking toy dogs, which were quite noisy and required the dialogue to be looped in during editing. Other tribbles were created by Jim Rugg out of beanbags for when it was required for one to sit on a person or object, and the breathing tribbles were hollow with surgical balloons inserted. Some of these tribbles were later displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. in 1992. The sale at Christie's auction house in 2006 included tribbles from this episode as part of a larger Star Trek sale. Because of the synthetic fur technology of the 1960s, relatively few original tribbles exist as of 2010 because the fur fell out over time and they went bald. An original tribble was sold at auction in 2003 for $1,000.
  Filming began during the second week of August 1967. Three temporary sets and a portion of corridor were constructed for specific use in this episode, which included the large trading post set. The chairs in that set were a problem, as the set designers wanted 24 matching chairs and decided that folding ones would not do. John M. Dwyer sourced them from a local company, but the numbers required meant that they had to be pulled out of showrooms from all over the county. When it came to the fight scene in the episode, Dwyer warned director Joseph Pevney not to damage the chairs. That scene was filmed twice after a cameraman with a handheld camera wandered onto the set. The scene where Kirk is covered with tribbles in the grain container needed to be filmed eight times, using all five hundred sewn tribbles. Gerrold had expected that scene to be cut at some point during production, as he thought that William Shatner would not agree to it. He said that Shatner was the "consummate professional and I believe he was eager to show off his comic abilities".
  Pevney was pleased with the outcome of the shoot, calling the episode "a delightful show from beginning to end". In addition to directing, Pevney also sourced some of the parts to create the tribbles and was directly responsible for the casting of Stanley Adams. He had pushed for the episode to be made as he recalled that there was some resistance at the time against making a comedy-style episode. These types of episodes were unusual for the series, as only "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Piece of the Action" were considered to be comedic episodes from season two. Pevney was one of the two most prolific Original Series directors alongside Marc Daniels, and directed fourteen episodes of the show. The cast responded favorably to the script. Nichelle Nichols was particularly pleased as it allowed Uhura to be a woman and took her off the bridge. It was one of her largest roles in any single episode in the series.
caption: During the course of filming, William Shatner was covered with five hundred tribbles on eight occasions.
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