Many decades ago, six-year-old Dennis Green was channel-surfing (three channels, didn’t take very long). He landed on KMTV, the Omaha NBC affiliate, just in time to see this creature fill the TV screen, all twelve inches of it.

Scared the shit out of me.

Years later, like all young geeks of the era, I started watching Star Trek reruns after school, and saw the creature that had given me a week’s worth of nightmares again, the famous Salt Vampire from the fifth Star Trek episode filmed, “The Man Trap.” Or the sixth, depending on how you want to count “The Cage.”

Still later, I learned that the network suits chose this episode as the Star Trek premiere.

It’s possible I watched a rerun. Although this was before they were common. I do remember that by six-year-old standards, it was very, very late at night, perhaps eight o’clock. And a school night. Wikipedia tells me the premiere episode aired on a Thursday from 7:30-8:30pm Central Time, which tracks. Therefore,  I choose to believe that I watched the Star Trek premiere on September 8, 1966.

At least fifteen seconds or so of it.