Today marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek's first appearance on the BBC back in 1969. It was initially shown on Saturday afternoons to fill the gap while Doctor Who was off the air (we were between the end of the Troughton era and the beginning of Pertwee).

Not many anecdotes about Star Treks' early years on the Beeb, except that episodes were shown in any old order and the opening theme was moved to the very start of the programme, before the teaser. I don't know about anyone else, but later on, when Star Trek videos appeared in the shops in the 1980s, I found it very odd watching the episodes properly with the teasers reinstated to where they should be before the theme.

The Beeb began their run with Where No man Has Gone Before.

I believe the original intention was for them to run the series earlier which is why the January '69 launch of the Joe 90 comic featured a Star Trek comic strip. As Lew Stringer points out in his latest Blimey! blog, when the series did start it got a run of covers to mark the event, temporarily replacing Land of the Giants which had been promoted to the cover a few weeks earlier.

Ah, Robbie, you bring back memories of reading Joe 90: Special Agent comic. Poor old Joe - almost the last thing I would read in an issue of his comic was the Joe 90 strip (there was a rather odd strip about two Eskimo sport stars that I would skip altogether). I used to turn straight to Land of the Giants near the back of the comic, then Star Trek in the centre (an order that might seem unforgivable here and now but, to be fair to myself, the Giants strip was far, far superior to the actual television show) and then The Champions. After a short run of Star Trek covers, the Giants took over again until the comic merged with TV21.

Did anyone else collect the Star Trek badges that came free with Sugar Smacks? I still have a set (plus a couple of 'swaps'), though sadly I didn't keep a box with a cover illustration of Mr Spock holding a phaser over a bowl of cereal.

Star Trek and Land of the Giants were certainly the stand-out strips with lovely colour artwork from Harry Lindfield and Gerry Haylock respectively (both would later work on Doctor Who in Countdown/TV Action). LotG first appeared on UK TV in December '68 (up against Doctor Who in some ITV regions) so was the more established of the two.

I remember badgering my mum (no pun intended) to buy Sugar Smacks for the various badge collections, including the Star Trek ones. I think Pertwee's Doctor Who followed Spock in appearing on the box.