Before DS9 there was the Adam Quark who was commander of the United Galaxies Sanitation Patrol Cruiser. In Space no one collects your garbage! Except for Adam and his crew. I have recently scanned a bunch of great pics from this show which I found in a box, mostly in B&W but a few were in color as well!

More pictures added to the gallery. I have decided to put the four most recent ones at the top of this page to make them easy to find.

There were some great fan written short QUARK stories. Many appeared in The Clipper Trade Ship (still in occasional publication ) before issue 40. If there is interest I could put the address and a listing of which back issues have stories in them of interest. This show was partially created by Buck Henry fresh from his stint on Saturday Night Live and originally one of the big wheels behind Get Smart. QUARK managed to parody just about everything both current and old during the limited run on NBC.

The main character, played by Richard Benjamin, as Adam Quark, was as heroic as you could be and still be a garbage collector. He was in charge of the United Galaxies Sanitation Patrol cruiser, which strangely enough had no name. He also has a pet, a ball of protoplasm named Ergo, which appeared in the original pilot and later on in the Vanessa episode. Ergo seemed intent on digesting his creator in the pilot, but mellowed out during his/her only other appearance. In the regular series he claimed that he built Andy out of spare parts.

The original pilot episode features Dr. O.B. Mudd (sp?) as a one eyed old/mad/scientist/Doctor McCoy clone who knew little about science or medicine. In this picture from the pilot he can be spotted as the one with the eye patch. He evidently lost his eye when he fell asleep while looking into a microscope. His character was a sort of senile McCoy rip-off. In the pilot he claimed the honor of designing the robot Andy.
He was played by Douglas V. Fowley.

When the show was picked up Mudd's character was replaced with that of Ficus Pandorata (sp?) a vegaton plant/Spock like clone. Who was an absolute joy to watch. In one episode The Good, the Bad, and the Ficus We see evil counterparts from an anti matter universe of all the crew members, however Ficus is exactly the same in both the matter and anti-matter universe and just as frustrating to the crew in both!
What little fan fiction that was written around this show seemed to revolve around Ficus.

Gene/Jean a transmute (played by Tim Tomerson of the Jack Deth series of Trancer movies) had the peculiar problem of possessing a full set of both male and female chromosome. Severe personality changes occurred when her/his usual masculine self got in touch with his/her feminine side.
Most recently Tim played a general in the pilot episode of Crusade (the sequel to Babylon 5)

Betty 1, Betty 2 were two identical clones. Well one of them was a clone. Which one was never revealed. Both were in love with Adam Quark, but Adam only seemed to care about the original. Since he could never tell which was which he was never very interested in either.

Andy was the servo mechanism designed and built by Adam Quark. Andy was always ready to turn Quark and his crew over to the enemy if it meant he might be spared. Andy had something going on with another servo mechanism back on Perma 1 by the name of Mandy. Mandy (or the mechanism anyhow made an appearance on a later episode of Fantastic Journey) Andy was also engaged to the 'load control box' in the pilot episode.
Andy was played by Bobby Porter who stared in many Disney movies and Cesar's son in the last Planet of the Apes movie. He also made an appearance in Fantastic Journey (also shown on NBC). On the series QUARK he also played the roll of Dink, one of the constant fuzzy thorns in the side of Otto Palindrome. Come to think of it Andy's 'girlfriend' Mandy also showed up in an episode of Fantastic Journey and on an episode of Wonder Woman set at a science fiction convention.

Otto Palindrome, whose first name is a Palindrome, was in charge of operations on the United Galaxies space station Perma 1.
Otto is often helped by a Cousin IT clone called Dink. I do not have a picture of Dink.

In this picture form the original pilot Otto is shown on the right addressing delegates at a historic meeting aliens. The alien with the cigar (the one closest to him) is Buck Henry.

The Head evidently was the ruler of the United Galaxies. He was a good thinker but relied on Otto to do most of the work as he was only a head on a screen. He was often generous in bestowing upon Adam Quark the honor of making him the focus of his latest experiment. The head was prone to stress related headaches. Even though he had a lot of power the worst he could personally do was bite you.

I don't have a picture of this yet. Use you imagination! Gene/Jean often drew pictures of Gorgons. Actually he drew pictures of Gorgons with no heads and he drew them in purple. That is why he was kicked out of Sunday School!

The Gorgons were the dreaded enemies of The United Galaxies. They were a bit of the Klingon with the royalty of Ming the Merciless thrown in for good measure. Their leader, the High Gorgon, was shown only in the second pilot (May the Source Be With You) although his half brother turns out to be Emperor Zorgon (Zorgon The Malevolent).

In the original pilot the United Galaxies is celebrating 100 years of peace. When a giant cloud of ... something.. is going to digest the galaxy. The nearest ship happens to belong to Adam Quark. Adam is no stranger to action. One time he was captured by a unit if mildly animated semi-inteligent vegetables! Since his ship is the closes the Head orders Quark to sacrifice himself. Meanwhile Andy has fallen in love with the lad control box. As he professes his undying love to the machine it expels tons of compressed space trash. The cloud of whatever eats the trash and goes home happy.

The Source can not be seen but the Source is everywhere!

May the Source Be With You High Gorgon played by Henry Silva, voice of the source provided by the very talented Hans Conreid When Quark pursues a ship it turns out to be a lot bigger than the thought. Death Star sized actually! In this parody of Star Wars Quark is entrusted with The Source. An all knowing presence kept in "The Orb" and only brought out on special occasions. Unfortunately the Source is a bit rusty after 500 years inside the orb. A very cute Star Wars parody.

The Old and the Beautiful Princess Carna: Barbara Rhoades

Another Star Trek parody this time combining two different episodes. Quark is order to have an intimate romantic interlude with a princess. Unfortunately he gets a bit to close to a space phenomena and starts to rapidly age. The fate of a bunch of people are at steak.. so there is a lot riding on Quark for this to go over well. Fortunately, for Quark and the United Galaxies, she likes older men. During the interlude Quark gets his youth back.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ficus Admiral Flint: Geoffrey Lewis

An excellent Star Trek episode where the crew of the UGSP cruiser meets themselves from a "Mirror Mirror" universe. In this mirror reality Quark is evil, Gean/Jean is evil. the Betty's are evil, Andy is evil, and Ficus... well Ficus is the same. Sort of a bit like the Arena episode of Star trek too. "What is that thing in your ear Ficus?"

Vanessa 38-24-36 Dr. Cheryl Evans and Voice of Vanessa: Marianne Bunch

Quark is becomes the Head's latest experiment. His ship is the first to receive this experimental computer. This new computer " Vanessa 38-24-36 " is programed with it's creators personality. It immediately becomes jealous of the Bettys. It is annoyed that Quark is on the ship. As a 2001 parody this episode is pretty good. At the end Quark and Ergo (yes he is in the regular series) take a space walk and re-enter the ship through the garbage hatch. Ergo has a way cute space suit. In the end the Vanessa computer is ejected into space where it sings "Born Free" as it drifts away.

I finally have a slide from this show,, but it was lost in a recent crash!

I will be re-scanning it soon!

Goodbye, Polombus Zoltar the Magnificent.. Denny Miller

My favorite Quark episode of all time. Quark is ordered to the planet Polombus. A planet from which previous expeditions have been sent but none have returned. When Quark beams down strange things start to happen. Ficus meets a female mathematician, the Bettys cant stop dancing with two mysterious partners. Gean/Jean is assisted in a battle by a comic book hero. And Quark is confronted by a beautiful woman. As all this is going on Andy (who was left to mind the store) is talking to his girlfriend Mandy (another robot at Perma 1) as he does not hear the commander's calls for help. At the end it turned out a device planted by the Gorgons was manipulating their minds and had enslaved the 'mud people' living on the planet. The princess of the mud people is so grateful she gives Quark a nice hug.

All The Emperor's Quasi-Norms aka Zorgon The Malevolent a two part episode shown in some areas as a one hour special. Emperor Zorgon played by Ross Martin (You remember him from Wild Wild West!), Princess Libido played by Joan Van Ark

Dick Durock (who later went on to become the Swamp Thin in the USA series) played a Lizigoth in Zorgon the Malevolent.

This episode was very much in honor of Flash Gordon. Of special note is the pollination sequence between Ficus and Princess Libido

The picture at the side shows the Bettys trying to instruct Ficus on the ways of love. They seemed to think that Quark would make a good example too.

Gean/Jean has some good parts in this episode where he impersonates a scientist giving a lecture on "IT", something which he knows nothing about.

Also check out this way cool QUARK page with sound clips and TV Guide clippings! The Web's very first QUARK page!

Also please visit:

http://users.50megs.com/antiwolf//index.html

Includes a Quark mailing list!