Gene Roddenberry decided to become a producer as a direct result of his frustrations with his work as a television writer and the difficulty he faced in adding anything substantial to his stories.
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 lost 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.
In 1972, Roddenberry was approached by Filmation Studios about the possibility of an animated version of Star Trek for Saturday mornings.
Premiering on NBC in 1973, Star Trek: The Animated Series was a joint production of Norway Corporation, Filmation Associates, and Paramount Television.
Although Roddenberry served as Executive Producer on both the film and series, there is no evidence that he did so using Norway Corporation as his production company.