So, it's Star Trek's 40th birthday. Big deal.

Or, at least, maybe you may feel that way by now, a month later. Those of us around at the time remember how it was with the U.S. Bicentennial festivities of 1976-which, unfortunately, actually got underway around 1971-72. By the time the big July 4th finally arrived, most people's celebrations were all the more remarkable given that they were all red-white-and-blued out over it all for months-not to say they were unpatriotic, just human.

So, yes, Star Trek's current unaccustomed status as the "underdog" -- at least in the mainstream media-and the recent revival news under hot! young! producer! JJ Abrams has been a good thing for both the faithful fanbase and the public perception that this "dead" franchise is anything but.

Meanwhile, everyone and their dog has analyzed and celebrated Star Trek up one side and down the other for weeks. We have just about seen it, read it and heard it all by now-like the Bicentennialists of the mid-70s, right?

Maybe not. As a fresh angle, let's look at the "anniversaries" of the past-and what they say about Star Trek as a little fan movement, a big corporate moneymaker, a worldwide phenomenon, and everything in-between. Whenever it was that you jumped aboard this incredible moving train of passion, futurism and at times sheer outright duckiness, grab your seat for a purely subjective rehash of the whole ride-as seen from those snapshots taken every five years.

1971--5th

A five-year increment for these confabs, of course, means we begin with Sept. 6, 1971. History records that, uh, the very first Star Trek convention was held in New York City in January 1972 and was planned for some 500-600 fans of this dead TV show-and then only 3,000 showed up. Thus, technically there was no big party the fall before -- although it can be shown that the gears were already turning. As Joanie Winston writes in The Making of the Trek Conventions (Doubleday, 1977), NYC fans like Elyse Pines and Devra Langsam suggested the idea of a Trek-only con around March 1971, after that year's LunaCon in New York and yet another case of feeling "slighted" by mainstream fandom.

So, on anniversary weekend 1971 -- if anyone even thought of it that way -- the big news was Trek fans getting their own convention, much less their beloved old show back. Fanzines, the undergound of fandom in this pre-Internet era, were already making the rounds- but the Variety story that promo'd the convention, and the infamous March 25 TV Guide follow-up that first mentioned the word "Trekkie," were still four months away.

1976--10th

One animated series and a zillion remake rumors later, Paramount still had no real clue about actually bringing back the series-and the lightning bolt of Star Wars was still nine months away. Oh, Gene Roddenberry had a deal in 1975 to produce a small, $3-$5 million budget movie, but his script did not find favor and everything had been postponed for a year while everyone from Harlan Ellison to Ray Bradbury was invited to pitch ideas -- to no avail. Delays became longer delays, so Gene decided in 1976 it was high time to start the party anyway -- and in a year of big-time celebrating across the country, his own Lincoln Enterprises company -- the precursor to today's Roddenberry.com -- proclaimed the new year in its catalog to be the "Star Trek-tennial."

Yes, for the 10th anniversary Gene and Majel not only parroted the Bicentennial moniker but also offered, in the true marketing of the time, an official "Trek-tennial" medallion and other souvenir goodies. The abortive movie-turned-series-turned-movie-again was still months away, as was its script -- but fans were already building on the sense of history and permanence of it all.

1981--15th

Star Trek's 15th anniversary will go down in history as the last of the non-marketed, non-hyped birthday bashes. The Motion Picture had been a huge if not totally satisfying hit, and the next films had been placed under the TV division and Harve Bennett, with Gene demoted to "executive consultant" over it all ... and a little script, the Aug. 24 revised final draft of The New Star Trek (formerly Star Trek: The Movie II) had just begin the rewrite process Sept. 4, due to stretch into April for a shoot and then release the next summer.

1986--20th

What a difference four years makes.

By the time of Star Trek 20, Gene's baby was on an upswing and Paramount was on a high. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, otherwise known as "the whale one," was still two months away from release, but everyone already knew it was a hit. So much so that Paramount was finally waking up to the star power of its franchise and threw a Sept. 8 birthday party for 1,500 guests on one of the ST IV soundstages, complete with cake and all of "the" (still just one) cast.

There's a personal side to the anniversary as well.... a reporter in the university-city paper in Norman, Oklahoma, would take his first out-of-state trip to St. Louis as "entertainment press" to cover both the convention there, Space-Trek IV, and its place in Star Trek's 20th anniversary. For the piece I wrote and offered to AP, the fourth paragraph actually began, "There's really not a lot left to say about Star Trek..."-referring to how it had finally crossed over from cult status into the mainstream, just as much as Mickey Mouse or Superman.

Oh well -- no good pronouncement ever goes un-updated. Barely a month after the anniversary bash, on Oct. 10, 1986, came the public announcement from Paramount of a "new" Star Trek with *gasp* all-new characters...the phenom that would become Star Trek: The Next Generation. And the beginning of a little more fodder for the fans and franchise alike.

1991--25th

The TNG boom of the early 1990s had already piggybacked Star Trek's zooming popularity with a mass of "official" licensed goods, so it's not surprising that the souvenirs of the 25th anniversary were boldly going where none had gone before. Official small-scale pewter ship replicas ... official 25th anniversary Columbia House video tape set ... official 25th anniversary signet rings,,,an official 25th anniversary postal cachet (still without stamp-the longtime push for such would come finally in 1999). And -- shades of the Star Trek-tennial! -- there was even a 25th anniversary Pure Silver Commemorative Coin Series set of three -- just $115. On the more conventional side, Paramount commissioned a two-hour TV special, "The Star Trek 25th Anniversary Special," available for syndication broadcast and then later sold as a VHS tape; Creation Entertainment, of course, hosted a 25th anniversary convention in Los Angeles for the occasion.

Number 25 would also bring to fans "Sit Long and Prosper," a marathon of all five films at the time, starting at noon in 44 cities around the U.S. and Canada a day "early", on Saturday. Unreserved seats were $20 a ticket, which included a special 9-7-91 Trek pin and a chance at a discount $12.50 Marathon T-shirt-as well as the first-ever preview of ST VI: The Undiscovered Country due out that Christmas. (I recall the biggest decision for our group, having driven down to Dallas from the Oklahoma City area, was whether to really return after dinner and sit through poor ST V one more time).

Fortunately, the first big Star Trek exhibition of ships, props and costumes was set to open at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in February 1992 -- with suitable aplomb and opening huzzahs by Gene and Majel, and the entire original cast -- before moving on to New York City's Hayden Planetarium by fall. A landmark of Star Trek's mainstream status, it would be followed by many such tour shows in coming years.

1996--30th

By now ST is turning the big 3-0 and Paramount is all over it. In fact, Star Trek is all over the front page of the Viacomments employee newsletter for August 1996, with plenty to crow about. Two 30th anniversary "valentine" installments of both Voyager ("Flashback," a tangent off the Excelsior and Sulu from ST VI) and DS9 (the even more beloved "Trials and Tribble-ations") are just around the corner, and just the beginning; while not specifically tied in to the party, First Contact is set to open Nov. 22 and, like a decade before with the whales, everyone knows it's already a hit.

But this year there's more: the obligatory TV special is now a live UPN charity gala, a month "late" on Oct. 6 but filmed from a stage built on huge soundstage 15 (where Picard and Worf had just fought off the deflector-stealing Borg only months earlier) and featuring all the actors from all the casts on stage at once in a mass pose. "Star Trek: The Special -- 30 Years and Beyond" was planned as a Kennedy Center Honors-type format, and was later sold on VHS tape. I watched the entire thing from the "green room" set up in adjoining Stage 16, TNG's (and Voyager's) notorious "Planet Hell" stage for swing sets -- my most memorable memory chatting with Siddig el Fadil in his tuxedo as he rocked newborn son Django, away from the crowds and microphones, as he took turns sitting in the audience across the alley with mama Nana Visitor. That, and the 100-degree heat that greeted all the similarly tux'd entertainment press for the red-carpet arrivals of so many notables.

On the fan side, Paramount Licensing -- by now called Viacom Consumer Products -- decided it too could mount a convention as easily as any fan group or promoter, and "Star Trek 30: One Weekend on Earth" was the result. All casts and crews were on hand, as were displays from all the major licensees and even several astronauts. But while the US Space and Rocket Center and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center were cool sites in theory, no one realized the trouble in flying to Huntsville, Ala. from Los Angeles -- or the city's overwhelmed facilities. (It did seem that the event acronym OWOE was too ironic.) Still, this was also the launch site of the ultimate Star Trek pop culture crossover, apparently (not counting the Ninja Turtles/Star Trek comics): Mattel's Barbie and Ken in TOS-era uniforms. And MSN's good ol' "Star Trek: Continuum" pay site on MSN -- the original format of startrek.com -- tackled the event as its first big project, streaming many events live.

If nothing else, Huntsville would be the last time all eight original series cast members would be on stage together, with DeForest Kelley succumbing to cancer almost three years later. It would also be the last time Star Trek's licensing arm would ever again attempt to mount its own convention.

2001--35th

By the coming of Year 35, Las Vegas of all places had become a Star Trek mecca. The opening of Star Trek: The Experience in January 1998 had been its own mega-event, and finally somebody realized it would be perfect for an anniversary bash. At the time there were hinky legal worries about "non-official" conventions (as all of them were) and so the "35th anniversary convention" mounted by Dave Scott's Slanted Fedora company was not held at the Las Vegas Hilton adjoining the attraction-aside from occurring over the "actual" Sept. 8 birthday weekend. It was still a hit, featured the first convention appearance of Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan...and drew fans from all over the globe.

Those were the very same fans who, just two days later on their extended Vegas vacations, found themselves grounded when all air travel was halted after the terror attacks of "9/11." That stacked up the scramble for rental cars, as fans and actor guests alike trying to get back to Los Angeles discovered.

2006--40th

No series! No movie! No fan club! No magazine! And, very nearly, no website!

So, here we are for Number 40.

For the first time since 1976, there was no Star Trek on the horizon as the anniversary year dawned, and both fans and corporate Star Trek -- what remains of it, under the CBS banner now since the Viacom TV/film split that opened the year -- wondered what would happen next. But give them a new producer for a new "retro" movie in J.J. Adams (and his self-designed teaser poster), an enhanced CG slew of original series episodes, the explosion of fans films (the fanzines of the 21st century) and I'm betting the old girl will be around for a few five-year increments more.

BY THE WAY:

I realize this is about like making the old point that Jesus probably was not actually born on December 25, much less the wintertime at all.... So I don't suppose this is the time to point out that Star Trek was actually around a lot further back than 9/8/66? As in, NBC agreed to commission the first pilot, "The Cage," in June 1964 ... or that the first draft of the series' format memo was dated March 11, 1964? OK, just lettin' you know ....