What Were Star Trek's Adorable Little Tribbles Made Of?

[TMC]

https://www.looper.com/1178852/what-...bbles-made-of/

The Tribbles were tiny stuffed pouches

Screenwriter David Gerrold's "The Trouble with Tribbles" shined a different light on extraterrestrial enemies than the Enterprise crew typically faced. "My original conception was, 'Aliens are always scary. What if they're cute, but we don't realize they're dangerous," Gerrold asked in an interview with Vanity Fair. However, creating those seemingly harmless fuzzballs was another animal altogether.

According to Vanity Fair, "[Tribbles] were merely sewn-up pouches of synthetic fur stuffed with foam rubber." Wah Ming Chang was the talented artist who designed those adorable monsters, and he also developed many of the iconic props and costumes from the show (per StarTrek.com). In addition to the foam-filled versions of the Tribbles, special effects artist James Rugg was tasked with bringing a select number of the fuzzy aliens to life.

Rugg retrofitted toy dogs with Tribble costuming to make some of them move about (per Hollywood Lost and Found), and he also utilized a squeeze bulb to simulate breathing. "Star Trek" star William Shatner also remembers some crew members tossing the Tribbles. "There was a guy in the [fly system] up there who [was] throwing Tribbles at me in one of the scenes," Shatner said in an interview on "The Rich Eisen Show." "I finally thought, 'Well, that's enough of that.' And then he hit me again with a Tribble, which made it funny." Shatner was right, as the Tribbles are remembered for their part in one of the funniest moments in "Star Trek" history.