I admit it; I tried to play it cool. I tried not to go all fanboy. But after about, oh, one-and-half minutes I was as a giddy as a seven-year-old feasting on birthday cake and ice cream.

But, like I told my wife,  it was a work thing. And yeah, she just rolled her eyes too.

As a part of my day job as an Assistant Professor at Ithaca College, I teach the Practicum Class for the MBA candidates. It’s a unique program focusing on entertainment, media and live events.  So for this program, unlike, say, Wharton’s or even Cornell’s, we graduate fewer Investment Bankers and more brilliant/innovative creatives who work for entertainment or sports companies.  I wish this type of MBA program existed for me back in the day.

And one of the annual trips in this program is a trip to the Adirondacks, where the students meet a plethora of entrepreneurial start-ups and volunteer at a live event. It’s a fantastic way to get some hands on learning, a hallmark of the Ithaca College School of Business.

This year, while in Ticonderoga, NY we participated in The Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.  It was arranged by our friends at ANCA (the Adirondack North Country Alliance) and TACC (The Ticonderoga Area Chamber of Commerce).

Have you heard about this unique tourist attraction before? RetroFan #4 featured a long article about it, and in issue #50 one of our writers revisiting it for the 60^th anniversary of Star Trek.

Here’s the official description:

It’s the fantasy of pretty much every Star Trek fan across the galaxy: to have stepped on to the sets of Star Trek: The Original Series while the show was in production between 1966-1968. Those sets, sadly, are a thing of the past, just as Star Trek remains so much a part of the future. But now, thanks to the dreams, tenacity and – he’ll be the first to admit – obsession of one man, those sets, or remarkable recreations, are alive again and ready for fans to experience in the present.

That man is James Cawley, resident of Ticonderoga, New York, lifelong Star Trek fan (with a unique connection to Trek legend William Ware Theiss, who provided the blueprints that eventually inspired the Set Tour) and veteran Elvis Presley impersonator. Yes, you read that right: Elvis impersonator. He a pro and makes his living it; he’s been complimented and kissed on the cheek by Priscilla Presley and performed all over the word, even touring with the Jordanaires. And that building is an old supermarket – Cawley bought Trek comic books there as a kid — that’s been converted into Stage 9 at Desilu, where TOS rolled camera.

“The idea,” Cawley explained, “is to make visitors feel like they’re working on the show. This is Stage 9, with the Enterprise bridge and everything on it: Kirk and Spock’s quarters, sickbay, engineering, a Jefferies tube, the transporter room, the bridge. Fans can sit in the captain’s chair. They can look up into the Jefferies tube. We’ve made it as interactive as possible.” 

On our tour, we were paired up with super-fan, and super-cosplayer, Jason Saville. I know Jason from our mutual hometown and the Cosplay Invades Auburn event I created.  (It was bolt-on to the old Salt City Comic Con.) Back then, I learned that Jason has the most extensive closet full of authentic looking Federation outfits you could ever imagine.

And so his pivot to becoming a guide at the Ticonderoga Original Series Set Tour made all the sense in the world.  He’s a passionate fan, and has the unique talent to make it all come alive, during his tour, for both the hardcore Trekkers and the most casual fans.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, my cool veneer quickly melted away on this set tour.  We entered The Enterprise not by beaming aboard, but through whooshing doors that don’t whoosh. As I recalled from a New Voyages short story I must’ve read in 1979, cast members never heard that iconic pneumatic audio signature. It was added in during post by Glen Glenn Sound.

And there we were – in the rounded hallway of The Enterprise. It was as if you had read a fairytale your whole life, and then one day found yourself actually in the story! Every detail is perfect. Even the lighting is vintage Trek-future… by way of the late 60s.

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS WE WON’T SOON FORGET

• The Galileo Seven shuttlecraft had just landed in Ticonderoga. Jason told us the tale about how it was abandoned and used in the playground of a nursery before a fan finally found it and restored it. It looked glorious, ostensibly in the hangar bay. Best of all, there were no giants from Taurus II throwing spears at us.
• One of my co-workers is a pal named Jonathan Chalmers. He’s an expert at career development and a big Buffalo Bills fan (normal things), but he’s also film buff and knows his pop culture. In fact, it was his vision of using the trip to teach the intersection of entertainment, fandom, and entrepreneurism. And we both shared a laugh as he pondered a three-dimension chess game from the original prop from the series.
• I just loved seeing Lucy’s portrait and a Desilu brand stamped on the inside of a prop wall. She really is the unsung heroine of it all.
• Jason, our tour guide, explained that he didn’t do this for every tour group (although I bet he does), but when we were in Kirk’s quarters, he tapped a familiar code and a panel mysteriously rose up. Hidden behind the panel, build into the wall, was the Tantalus Field from the Mirror Universe.  Wow!

I explained to Jason, and to my students, that one man can’t summon the future, but that one man can change the present.

Probably the best thing I’ve taught all semester.