Norway Corporation - Star Trek

Roddenberry developed his idea for Star Trek while working on The Lieutenant. Desilu's vice president of production, Herbert F. Solow, purchased the series concept and made a production deal with Roddenberry in April 1964. Roddenberry pitched the show as "Wagon Train in space," even though it owed more to C. S. Forrester's writings about Horatio Hornblower than to any western.

Having squandered money on a series of failed pilots over the course of the early 1960s, Desilu had become severely cash-poor and was desperate to regain its past success. Although NBC rejected the first pilot, its executives were impressed favorably enough to commission an unprecedented second pilot, which the network picked up for the 1966-67 season. Star Trek premiered on September 8, 1966. Star Trek's end credits listed the show as a "Desilu Prouduction in association with Norway Corporation."

Star Trek suffered from declining ratings throughout its three year run; from the premiere to the final episode, Star Trek's ratings had dropped more than fifty percent. Before production began on the third season of Star Trek, Roddenberry had offered to demote himself to the position of line producer and personally supervise production of the show. In return, he wanted NBC to move the series to Monday nights at 7:30PM. But at the last minute, mainly because George Schlatter would not allow Rowan & Martin's "Laugh-In" to be rescheduled from its then-current 8:00PM time slot to 8:30PM, NBC decided to move the show back to Friday nights at ten, and Roddenberry, almost completely burned out from his struggles with the network and the studio, effectively left the series.