polish the script for the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". Other popular Star Trek episodes that he wrote included "The Devil in the Dark" , "A Taste of Armageddon" and "A Piece of the Action". He is credited with much of the character development of Star Treks characters, much of the humor of Star Trek, and the "bickersonesque" disagreements between Spock and McCoy. Following arguments with Roddenberry over the tone of the installment "Bread and Circuses", partly a satire on the medium of television, Coon left the writing staff and designated John Meredyth Lucas as showrunner. After announcing to Lucas that he was leaving, Lucas, who had already written the installments "The Changeling" and "Patterns of Force" for the program, quoted Coon as saying, "Why the hell don't you take over? You produced The Fugitive and Ben Casey and that shit". Lucas suspected Coon may have been secretly diagnosed with cancer, but he never definitely learned whether this was the case. Coon contributed to four scripts for the third season under the pseudonym of Lee Cronin, as he was by then under contract to Universal Studios. Post–Star Trek Following his period with Star Trek, Coon produced the Universal Studios series It Takes a Thief, starring Robert Wagner, during which time he mentored Glen A. Larson. He also continued to write for Kung Fu and The Streets of San Francisco. In 1973, he served as co-writer with Gene Roddenberry on the NBC-TV movie The Questor Tapes. The movie was to serve as a pilot for a new series, but Roddenberry balked at a decision by NBC to eliminate the character of Jerry Robinson, Questor's human companion/mentor. (Coon died before the pilot aired in early 1974.) Although Coon turned down the opportunity to work on Star Trek: The Animated Series, he continued to work with Roddenberry, co-writing Genesis II and the proposal for Spectre. He also founded UniTel Associates, one of the earliest production companies aimed at the home video market. Coon was known as one of the fastest writers in Hollywood, and it was not unusual for him to rewrite a script for shooting overnight, or over a weekend. He had a dry sense of humor, as reflected in his two novels. After years of separation, Coon again found his first love, model Jackie Mitchell. In 1967 he divorced his wife Joy so that he could be with Jackie, with whom