Monster of the Day #81

Updated on August 4, 2010 By Ken Begg 16 Comments

Man, I don’t ever remember this one, but then I wasn’t the show’s biggest fan.  I’m sure someone will fill us in.

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  • Ah yes, the aliens from Savage Curtain the Abraham Lincoln in Space episode. A quick google search says that they are called Excalbians.

  • Jim

    That alien was the only good thing about the episode.

  • John Campbell

    Is it me or does that thing look like it’s sitting on the toilet. Just put a newspaper in it’s claws and you’ve got sci-fi comedy goodness.

    I never knew their names. I remember abraham linciln, and the vulcan who started the logic movement, and some bad guy drom earth’s past (future to us), and a klingon.

    Always some damn dirty alien toying with us!

  • Ericb

    That episode ot the origin of the frequent MST3K riff ” Help me …. Spock.”

  • Ericb

    Ghengis Khan was in the episode too. They sure could have done better with “evil from Earth’s past” with that choice. Khan waa more of a barbarian than actually evil. I guess Stalin and Hitler would have been too much.

  • Yeah, but watching Kirk punch Hitler in the face would have been awesome.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Not one of the better episodes to be sure, the aliens’ scheme suffers from a flawed premise. Only Kirk and Spock were “real,” the others were just more Excalbians play-acting.

  • Charles Goodwin

    I believe that the pictured Excalbian was named “Yarnek”, and was portrayed by Janos Prohaska, who was kind of an upscale George Barrows… he was famous for playing the cookie-loving bear on the Andy Williams Show, as well as some of the more famous/infamous monsters on Star Trek (TOS) (e.g., the yeti with the unicorn horn from A Private Little War, and the Horta from Devil in the Dark). Sadly, Mr. Prohaska was killed in a airplane crash while filming a series on “Primal Man”, in 1974.

    And yes, it does look like Yarnek is relaxing on the porcelain throne (only in his case it would appear to be made out of bedrock). The way his voice was electronically modified to make it sound “alien” also made it sound like he was really straining at the, er, stool, so it made for much hilarity for us pre-adolescents at the time.

  • Ericb

    He kind of looks like the alien in the “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” episode of The Outer Limits.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Janos Prohaska also worked on the Outer Limits, for example as the “germ” on the episode called “The Probe.” Incidentally, the “germ” later came back as the Horta in “The Devil in the Dark.”

  • Rock Baker

    I think his most famous face was the chimp suit he wore quite frequently during the 60s. Off the top of my head, it was seen in ‘The Sixth Finger’ episode of The Outer Limits, as Clyde in Bikini Beach, and as Gladys -and several others- on Gilligan’s Island. While on Gilligan’s Island, he also brought out a scary-looking oraguntan suit. I assume it was also he who played the occasionally seen black gorilla (one of TVs better ape suits, truth be told).

  • Marsden

    This episdoe was great! One of my favorites. I love
    Col. Green. Ghengis khan was a poor choice, and he didn’t too to well, running away. Stalin or Hitler or Kennedy all would be better choices for the evil bunch. I love that this is the episode that introduces “Kahless” into Star Trek and he’s absolutely nothing like what they show later.

    I never though of him being on the toilet. But, speaking of Star Trek and toilet in the same sentance, Voyager is the original flying toilet seat.

  • Rock Baker

    I remember liking this episode quite a bit, one of the earlier episodes I saw on the tube, when Star Trek wasn’t aired every day (if you can imagine that).

  • Gamera

    I guess I’m weird since I liked the episode too. I love the scene where a large paper macre (sp???) glows red-hot though the magic of animation and forms into Yarnek. Kirk rushs him and goes to punch or grab him and recoils with a burnt hand.
    Does Kirk really need Doctor McCoy along to tell him: ‘Don’t punch the red-hot rock creature Jim!’

    And I’ve heard the German translation changes Kahless the Klingon -Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao all rolled into one into a guy who married elderly widows and knocked them off to steal their money…

  • sandra

    Thanks to Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek Concordance ( now falling to pieces ) I can tell you that the episode is The Savage Curtain. Oddly enough, when I picked up the book, it fell open at the correct page ! :-)

  • sandra

    Ken – Somebody DOES punch Hitler in the face in the movie ZONE TROOPERS.