The MeTV website recently posted this item about a so-called "lost" episode of the original Star Trek TV series, one that would have guest-starred Milton Berle. "Lost" may be overstating it since it was never filmed. What it was was a script that was commissioned from writer Norman Spinrad and then abandoned. I would guess that at least 90% of all scripted TV shows that commission individual scripts have a couple of those per season.
Several of you have written to ask what, if anything, I know about it. I don't know a thing about it and am a little puzzled as to how it might have come about. If Star Trek had been on the air a season or two earlier, the explanation would be simple. Berle was a huge star on NBC in his variety series which debuted in 1948 as The Texaco Star Theater. It was such a success that in 1951, they signed him to an unprecedented deal which they called a "lifetime contract."
This presumed that he would die at age 73 since it actually paid him to be exclusive to the network for thirty years…or until 1981. (He actually made it to age 93.) Berle sometimes claimed that the deal was for a million dollars a year but other sources say it was $200,000 — which was still a lot of money at the time.
In '51, TV was new and no one really imagined that the appeal of a weekly TV star might not be as enduring as the career of some weekly radio stars had been. In a lot less time than anyone imagined, the public tired of Berle's antics and his show was canceled in 1956. Thereafter, he was kind of "free talent" for NBC since they had to pay him anyway. He was assigned to different ventures, including a series he hosted called Jackpot Bowling, which was just what you'd expect from the title. When that was canceled, they kept giving him one-shot guest appearances but less and less of them each year.
The long periods of being off the air drove Berle crazy. He did movies (including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) and played Vegas and appeared in plays but he was a compulsive performer and had been since he first went on the stage at age five. He got seriously depressed when he went for any stretch of time without working and especially without working in front of an audience. The contract allowed him to make a limited number of appearances per year on other networks but not, for his satisfaction, enough. Whenever he found himself not being recognized sufficiently in public, he called his agents and begged them to find some way to get him back on TV in a series.
ABC was open to the idea of a new Berle show but NBC, which had him under that contract, wasn't. Finally though, what was then called the Peacock Network agreed (in late '65) to a reduced contract that paid him less — reportedly $120,000 per year instead of the old amount — and allowed him to appear wherever he wanted. ABC immediately offered him a five-year deal which essentially worked like this: He'd host their show The Hollywood Palace a number of times and if the ratings hit a specified level, he'd get a weekly variety series. If not or if it was canceled, they'd guarantee him a specified number of on-air appearances for the balance of the contract. His ratings at the Palace were strong enough that on Friday night, September 9, 1966, The Milton Berle Show debuted on ABC but it only lasted until 1/6/67, after which point ABC was now forced to find shows to put him in.
Norman Spinrad being asked to write an episode of Star Trek guesting Berle would have made sense in 1965 when NBC was still looking to place him in shows. But Star Trek debuted on Thursday night, September 8, 1966 — the day before Berle's new series. Star Trek, as we all know, ran for three seasons. Spinrad wrote one produced episode ("The Doomsday Machine") which aired in October of '67 in the show's second season. According to his telling, he was then asked to quickly write the episode for Berle…but this almost surely was when Berle was under contract to ABC. In October of '67. they had him playing Louie the Lilac, a guest villain on Batman. Why would anyone be trying to find him a spot on an NBC show then?
I can think of one answer and this is in the category of Wild Guesses. Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions, which was then still largely owned by Lucille Ball. Legend has it that when NBC wanted to cancel the show after one season, Lucy had a lot to do with convincing the network to keep it on. Maybe Berle, panicked by his recent cancellation and contractually allowed to make some appearances not on ABC, went to her and begged her to get him something on one of her shows…and Lucy called Star Trek producer Gene Roddenberry and asked him to at least try to find a spot on his television show for Mr. Television.
Is that what happened? I dunno. Like I said, it's a Wild Guess. I just can't imagine NBC, which had probably gotten sick of finding places to use Berle, trying to inject him into Star Trek. Finding places for him was ABC's problem by then. Berle loved working in drag. I wonder if they ever considered having him replace Marlo Thomas as That Girl.