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Some of the greatest Star Trek In-Jokes
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00:00Do you get it? Do you get it? Yeah you kind of had to be there. In jokes are often fun if you're on
00:07the in of them, forgive the pun, whereas if you are not they can be about as much fun as dry rot.
00:14None of these actually count as that though. Dry rot I mean, they all count as in jokes. With that
00:18in mind I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and here are the 10 greatest Star Trek in jokes.
00:24Number 10, 47. 47 is 42, credit for inflation. Executive producer Rick Berman once joked,
00:30the ultimate answer might cost you more in Star Trek, but what is the question? Well have you
00:34ever wondered why Ronan in Sobrosa, Sex Ghost, said he was born in 1647, why shields were often down
00:41to 47%, or why Captain Janeway was really from Bloomington, Indiana? The reason is writer Joe
00:47Minoski, who began his Star Trek career in season 4 of The Next Generation and has worked on Deep Space
00:539 Voyager and Discovery. Minoski graduated from California's Pomona College, which apart from
00:58excelling in the liberal arts, is known for having a thing for 47. The college even has a club dedicated
01:04to the number, the 47 Society, that Minoski was part of as a student. He then brought this university
01:09in-joke into Star Trek and it has stuck with the writers ever since. Bloomington, Indiana, zip codes
01:1547401-47408 is more properly an homage to Voyager producer Jerry Taylor, who was born there, but there
01:24are pages of other examples of the 47 phenomenon. Here are just a small few. In Family, Picard is given
01:29the 47 vintage. In Conundrum, there are 47 Lysian Sentry Pods. In DS9, pads are often labelled 4747 and
01:39weapons lockers 47. In Voyager, the temporal variance of the Cranum Cranaton torpedo is 1.47 microseconds,
01:46and I have just needed between 4 to 7 Aldebaran whiskies. Number 9. Some kinds of Star Trek. Rarely
01:53is anything more meta than the time Star Trek looked through a telescope and saw itself. Star Trek First
01:58Contact is one big self-reference, a trek to the past to ensure its own future. Zephram Cochran needs
02:05some kind of Star Trek as much as it needs him. In that film, First Contact gets a direct nod,
02:09although that was far from the first or last movie or episode title, name drop and dialogue. They
02:14toasted the undiscovered country in the undiscovered country and Captain Janeway provided a counterpoint,
02:20counterpoint in counterpoint, amongst many other examples. Star Trek is also more subtly
02:25self-referential at times. In the next generation's 80th episode, Legacy, the Enterprise D has to bypass an
02:31archaeological survey of Caymus II, which happens to be the last planet visited by another Enterprise
02:37in its 79th and final episode. Yes, we are counting them like that. According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia,
02:43the Caymus II mention was a deliberate tip of the hat to turnabout intruder on the part of Rick Berman,
02:49Jonathan Frakes, and producer Eric Stilwell. Of course, the end of the beginning of this kind
02:54of Star Trek is a prophecy of itself. We've only postponed the invasion until, what, the 24th century?
03:00Number 8. Carmer Seals and Blaine's twin brother. Our lovely writer Jack has already discussed
03:06television's demise in Star Trek, but it deserves a second mention here. Beyond the canonical prediction,
03:11the medium didn't last much past 2040, for humanity at least, the writers clearly take great delight in
03:16having assigned television to the history books. It's the perfect in-joke. By relying on a lack of
03:21awareness of the characters, the writers can poke fun at their own industry without having to totally
03:26demolish that fourth wall. The gag is perhaps also a gentle reminder to appreciate Star Trek for what
03:31it ultimately is, a piece of television, for as long as we have it. After all, in Star Trek, nobody's
03:36watching Star Trek. After Data's revelation in the Neutral Zone, there have been a few direct references
03:41to TV. When Voyager went back to the 90s, Kes and Neelix were tasked with reviewing Earth broadcasts and
03:47became addicted to the soap opera. We still don't know if Blaine's twin brother was the father of
03:51Jessica's baby. More recently, spoiler alert, in Lower Decks, Boimler got hilariously hooked on
03:56Ferengi television, ironically unfamiliar with the commercials. Commer-seals? And the serial drama,
04:03Cop Landlords Needs It's Own spin-off. Moreover, the title of that Lower Decks episode was itself a TV
04:10reference. Number seven, Riker. I mean, how could we not? There are plenty of reasons to love Lower Decks,
04:16and top amongst them are the Easter eggs, in-jokes, and altogether weirdly specific references.
04:21In a similar vein, Strange New Worlds has delighted fans by returning to the roots of Star Trek,
04:27all the while pushing the franchise forward. As I well know from Cetacean Observations,
04:32one episode alone of Lower Decks could have filled this list. But we're here for the Strange New
04:36Worlds crossover. Leg over. The episode's title is itself an in-joke, Those Old Scientists,
04:42a phrase first used by Commander Ransom to describe the 23rd century in no small parts. Then,
04:48when Boimler and Mariner are flung through a time portal to said century, they both basically become
04:53two excited fans at the greatest ever Star Trek convention. Actors Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome
04:58even took selfies on set during their own time. It's Ensign Boimler with the Riker maneuver in
05:03the ready room, however, that will surely go down, up and over, as the in-joke to end all in-jokes.
05:09In-universe, Boimler briefly served with the animated Riker on the Titan. On the set of Those Old Scientists,
05:15Jonathan Frakes was directing and Quaid improvised the Riker leg-swing, pike-saddle moment in front of him.
05:21Number 6. Smoothing Things Over. The Klingons have gone through many,
05:26many changes since their original appearance in Errand of Mercy. At first conceived by writer Jean
05:31L. Kuhn as the Soviet half of his Cold War allegory, core actor John Kalikos reportedly looked
05:37more to the likes of Genghis Khan for inspiration for the character, leading to some fairly problematic
05:42makeup choices. They certainly didn't have the budget in the original series that they did by
05:46the time the Klingons reared their ridges in the motion picture. The makeup and general look was
05:50further designed and redesigned in the films with Klingons that followed, then again and again in
05:56The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, with no explanation given. As Michael Dorn knowingly
06:01commented in an interview with Cinefantastique volume 32 numbers 4 and 5, I guess they never thought they'd
06:07have to deal with it on screen at some point. Therein lies the in-joke when DS9 decided to tackle
06:12the changes in Klingon appearance head-on-ish in Trials and Tribulations. If you can't put ridges on
06:17it, hang a lantern on it instead. Worf's laconic, it is a long story, we do not discuss it with outsiders,
06:23was all about the answer we needed and probably the only one we're going to get until the Enterprise
06:29explanation which everybody loved and there's been no problems about since. Number 5. Who writes for Mourne?
06:34We all know Mourne, the famously loose-lipped Lurian with a liking for jumjus sticks, a small fortune in
06:39one of his stomachs and his own seat at Quark's bar. His name alone is an in-joke, Mourne is an
06:44anagram of Norm, the permanent patron of Cheers. The character's reputation as a chatty Cathy might
06:50well precede him, but of course Mourne never actually had any lines. This was far from the
06:54plan for Mourne from the beginning however. According to the making of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, on the very
06:59first day of filming for Emissary, the man beneath the then nameless Mourne mask, Mark Alan
07:04Shepard, was asked by director David Carson to tell the funniest joke in the universe, and he did.
07:08We won't spoil it for you, but it involves a coconut concertina cosmological argument and a
07:13honeysuckle garbage-polstery rimfire. Mourne made it into the pilot, but evidently the joke did not.
07:18Later, lines that were planned for the character were written out before shooting. Eventually it
07:23was far funnier for the great raconteur to say nothing at all, becoming what is certainly one of
07:28Star Trek's longest running inside jokes, especially when you take into account the
07:32Cerritos' season three stop at Deep Space Nine. Number four, Okudagrams. We owe graphic designers
07:38Michael and Denise Okuda a great deal for the look, lore and feel of Star Trek from the voyage home
07:45onwards, not to forget the Star Trek encyclopedia through four editions, the next generation technical
07:50manual and other reference books that have become veritable fan bibles. Creator of the computer screen and
07:55console graphics for Star Trek IV and the Elkhars designs for the next generation and beyond,
08:00Michael Okuda's instantly recognisable work was lovingly nicknamed the Okudagram.
08:04An artistic marvel in their own right, Okudagrams have also provided plenty of opportunities for
08:09a good in Joker 2, often never intended to be visible on screen and mostly replaced in the remasterings.
08:15For example, Troy's search for a family tree in the neutral zone pre-remaster gives some very
08:20interesting results, including the first six actors to have played the Doctor in Doctor Who,
08:25Miss Piggy and Kermit T Frog. The Okudagram of the Enterprise D's engineering master display features,
08:31if you stare hard enough, a duck, a mouse, an airplane, a car and nomad. Usually covered up for filming,
08:38these editions even made it into HD at around 38 minutes and 35 seconds of the remastered Galaxy's
08:45Child. Technically that makes them canon. Number three, Great Birds of the Galaxy. In the far future,
08:50Miles O'Brien was, and will be, rightly instatued as perhaps the most important person in Starfleet
08:56history. Right along there with him was the less glowingly remembered Brad Boimler. History has
09:01its own effect. On Boimler's forever memorialised left arm was one of the Great Birds of the Galaxy,
09:06an in-joke which has a history in itself. You might well know by now that THE Great Bird of the Galaxy
09:11was Gene Roddenberry, or rather it was the nickname given to him by producer Robert Justman early in the
09:17run of the original series. In point of fact, in The Man Trap, Sulu says to Janice Rand,
09:22May the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet. The epithet for Star Trek's creator certainly caught
09:28on. By the time of the next generation, the bird began to make an appearance in graphic form. For
09:32Roddenberry's 60th birthday gift in 1987, senior next generation illustrator Andrew Probert painted a
09:38full colour Roddenberry headed bird of the galaxy with command uniform plumage, combage and NCC-1701
09:44nacelles as tail feathers. A green okudogram sketch version of the painting was then used on screen
09:50as part of the rapid computer searches carried out by data in The Naked Now and Conspiracy.
09:56Number 2. Tubes of Jeffreys. Walter Matthew Matt Jeffreys, his full name is of importance later,
10:02is the man well known for designing the original Enterprise model, now so iconic it hangs in the
10:07Smithsonian. Jeffreys was also largely responsible for the majority of the Enterprise's interior design,
10:13as well as that of the shuttlecraft, the Klingon D7 cruiser, the hand phaser and a plethora of other
10:18props, sets and landscapes. As shown in the Star Trek sketchbook, the original series, Jeffreys equally
10:23designed what he called the engineering power shaft in his sketch for the enemy within. As he recalled,
10:29we needed a space where Scotty could fix things without taking up too much room, so I made a tube
10:34with all kinds of complicated looking stuff in it. Somebody hung the name Jeffreys Tube on it and the
10:38name stuck. And Stick It did, but only behind the scenes on TOS. It wasn't until the Next Generation
10:43Season 3 episode The Hunted that the term Jeffreys Tube was said on screen. On TOS, designers also
10:50liked to add the label GNDN for Goes Nowhere Does Nothing to the pipes on Jeffreys Tube sets. In canon,
10:56it is generally accepted that the famous crawlways were named after NX project designer of the 22nd century,
11:03W. M. Jeffreys. Number 1. The Writer and the Principal. Far Beyond the Stars will forever be
11:09considered one of the best Star Trek episodes ever made. Powerhouse performances from the cast,
11:13from Avery Brooks in particular who also directed, and the episode's brilliant narrative conceit bring
11:18the theme of racial prejudice and its harrowing consequences into sharp focus in a manner never
11:23before managed so directly in Star Trek. The episode is also notable for its use of insider references.
11:28The 1950s style drawing of Deep Space Nine that inspires Benny Russell to write his
11:32story in the first place was a nice touch, and you perhaps noticed the original series matte
11:36painting of Starbase 11 on the cover of competitor magazine Galaxy. For Benny Russell's group of
11:42writers' own publication, Incredible Tales of Scientific Wonder, the front cover of the March
11:461953 edition sports an image of Delta Vega from Where No Man Has Gone Before. The issue then features
11:52the stories first of a new series, The Cage by E. W. Roddenberry, The Corbamite Maneuver by Jerry
11:59Soul, illustrated by Matt Jeffries, Journey to Babel by DC Fontana, Metamorphosis by Jean L. Kuhn,
12:05and Where No Man Has Gone Before by Samuel Peoples. Finally, in a memo from editor Douglas Pabst to
12:10Herbert Rossoff, being played by Armin Zimmerman, apparently used as set dressing but never visible
12:16on screen was written, no one would believe that a cheerleader can kill vampires. The snide
12:21principal Snyder might also have been but a writer's dream.
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13:02That's everything for our list. Do you reckon we missed any in here? Let us know in the comments
13:06below. Thank you so much to Jack Coyney for writing the original article that this is based on,
13:10you can check that out on whatculture.com. Make sure you're following us over on Twitter
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13:29I'm talking to you again, look after yourself, stay safe, stay calm and stay logical if you can. You
13:35are awesome and wonderful, thanks very much, bye.
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