I’ve been rewatching TOS recently, and I noticed that Chekov’s hair had a mind of its own for a while. I took a few screenshots, looked up the story behind it, and made this really quick for anyone like me who wasn’t aware.
Roddenberry wanted Chekov to bring in the youth audience, so they gave him a wig to try to make him look like he’s from the Monkees or the Beatles… absolutely hilarious.
Why would preteens care about his hair?
It was considered counter-culture at the time to have “long” scruffy hair like that as a guy. It was a little bit of youthful rebellion when the Beatles or The Monkees did it, so kids loved it.
I like his performance as Mr Bester on Babylon 5. He did a great job.
His hair was very thin by then
When I think of Walter Koenig, I don’t think of Chekov. I think of Bester, he was great.
Back when I was a wee kid, I loved watching TOS reruns. At that time Babylon 5 was first aired and my older brother was a huge fan. I remember walking into the living room one day during an epic crew roasting of Alfred Bester and not realising it was a different show, my first thought was:
“Wow, why’s Chekov so mean all of a sudden?”
Checkov was the original Wesley Crusher.
Somehow I didn’t notice until this rewatch! I had to pause for a bit to figure out wtf they were thinking.
I thought all the comments about “Bester” were about Bester from the Firefly episode “Out Of Gas”. Guess I need to check out Babylon 5.
