- 14 hours ago
Some shows were certainly subtler than others with their references, but each surely left a huge smile plastered across the face of any fan watching...
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00There is absolutely no denying that Star Trek is a pop culture juggernaut. It has been around
00:05for over 50 years and managed to imprint itself upon nearly every corner of sci-fi, not to
00:12mention having been lovingly homaged, referenced and parodies in all types of TV, movies, video
00:19games, books and music. But outside of its own canonical universe, Trek has been showing
00:24up on other TV shows for literally decades at this point. Some shows were certainly
00:29subtler than others with their references, but each surely left a huge smile on the face
00:35of any fan watching. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Trek Culture and here are 10
00:40times Star Trek appeared in other TV shows. Number 10, The Simpsons. It is no secret that
00:48The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his writer's room are big fans of Star Trek, which has been
00:54continually referenced in more than 50 episodes of the animated sitcom. But the most memorable
01:00of them all was a more involved parody of the original series in 1992's season 4 episode
01:06Itchy and Scratchy the Movie. The episode begins with a mocking faux trailer for a new Star Trek
01:12film entitled Star Trek 12 So Very Tired, with an over the hill Captain Kirk monologuing
01:18Captain's log, Stargate 6051. Had trouble sleeping last night. My hiatal hernia is acting up. The
01:25ship is drafty and damp. I complain but nobody listens. The trailer narrator assures audiences
01:31the film will be the crew's latest greatest adventure, all while Sulu is seen sporting a
01:36cane and Scotty is too overweight to reach the control panel. This was quite clearly a lampooning
01:42of the later Trek film starring the original series cast, particularly 1991's Star Trek
01:496 The Undiscovered Country, where William Shatner and co were clearly starting to show their age.
01:55Fittingly, The Undiscovered Country was the final film to feature all of the original Enterprise crew,
02:01likely enlarged due to sentiments like this being made by fans and critics alike.
02:07Number 9, Black Mirror. Black Mirror may be best known for its blackly comedic social satire,
02:14though writer Charlie Brooker managed to roll this into a pin-sharp Trek parody in the Emmy-winning
02:20Season 4 episode USS Callister. The episode follows video game programmer Robert Daly, who,
02:27in order to take out his frustrations against his unappreciative co-workers, creates a modded
02:32version of the game and inserts digital clones of his co-workers into it by surreptitiously obtaining
02:38their DNA. The modded game, modelled off Daly's favourite sci-fi TV show Space Fleet, bears a blinding
02:45resemblance to Trek's original series, right down to the costumes, hairstyles and design of the USS Callister.
02:53The scenes set within this modded game also adopt the stylistic tropes of classic Trek, the 4x3 aspect ratio,
02:59use of Dutch angles, and by the episode's end, a shift towards the sleeker, widescreen style of the
03:05JJ Abrams reboot series. Jesse Plemons even worked with the vocal coach to approximate the delivery style
03:12of William Shatner. In addition to winning four Emmys, this episode was widely acclaimed by critics
03:18and Trek fans alike, praising its clear admiration for the franchise and its impressive attempts to recreate
03:25its style and tone. Number 8, Family Guy. The Family Guy team are clearly also huge Trek fans,
03:33as evidenced by the dozens of episodes which have even a mere passing crack about the show. Though there
03:40are lots of good ones, such as the entire cast of The Next Generation playing themselves in Season 7's
03:46Not All Dogs Go to Heaven. Easily the single most iconic Trek reference in Seth MacFarlane's irreverent
03:52animation has to be, its outrageous portrayal of William Shatner. Season 1's I Never Met the Dead
03:58Man features a number of cutaways depicting a hilariously exaggerated version of Shatner's
04:04performance as Kirk, characterised here by idiosyncratic, nonsensical line delivery and excessive
04:10gesticulations. As luck would have it, Shatner then knocks on Peter's door after getting a flat tyre,
04:16and the two go to an Oktoberfest-style event together. At episode's end however, Meg accidentally
04:22hits Shatner with the car and kills him. Shatner's physically implausible movements and disjointed
04:28line delivery, as impersonated by Seth MacFarlane, just might be the single greatest pop culture
04:34reference in all of Family Guy. Number 7, Mad Men. Though most of the TV shows on this list are
04:41unsurprisingly animations and sitcoms, there is a little room for some solid gold prestige TV drama
04:49too. Mad Men, of all shows, managed to pull off one of the most memorable nods to Trek's original
04:56series in the season 5 episode Christmas Waltz. With Mad Men being a 60-set period show, this episode
05:03takes place in Christmas 1966, while the original series was midway through its first season. One of
05:11the episode's subplots involves the re-emergence of ex-copywriter Paul Kinsey, who meets with former
05:16colleague Harry Crane at a coffee shop to catch up. Among other developments, Paul hands Harry a
05:22script that he wrote on spec for Star Trek, hoping that Harry would pass it to the right people and
05:27get it seen. The episode was called The Negron Complex, and focused on a race of white people
05:32who were subservient to a race of colour. The script was, by Harry and Peggy's declaration,
05:37quite terrible, prompting Harry to try and gently let Paul know that he didn't have a future in
05:42screenwriting. There is some additional amusing context though. The Negron Complex bears a similar
05:48resemblance to an episode that did get made, Season 3's Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. As a result,
05:56though Harry did manage to persuade Paul not to sell his script, this suggests that he did indeed
06:01persevere and get his script bought, which was then heavily rewritten into Let That Be Your Last
06:07Battlefield. Who knows?
06:10Number 6, Futurama. Back to Matt Groening now, who aunts up the Star Trek references considerably
06:17in his glorious sci-fi comedy Futurama. All in all, there are close to 100 separate Star Trek references
06:25across Futurama, but arguably the piece de resistance, is Season 4's episode where no fan has gone before.
06:33This widely acclaimed Nebula Award-nominated episode reveals that Star Trek is banned on Earth after it
06:39became a global religion in the 2200s. And in the wake of the bloody Star Trek Wars, the remaining tapes
06:47of the show and movies were jettisoned into space. And so, with the help of Leonard Nimoy's head,
06:53Ben DeFry and company set off on a mission to recover the tapes, bringing them into contact with
06:59almost every major cast member from the original series. The exceptions are James Doohan, whose agent
07:05flatly refused, and DeForest Kelly, who had passed away a few years prior and so only appeared in likeness
07:12form. With his loving array of homages to Trek, while also making light-hearted fun at the fans'
07:18obsessiveness, there is arguably no single better sustained parody of Trek than this. Certainly not
07:26in animated form, that is. Number 5, The Orville. Further proof of Seth MacFarlane's love for Star Trek
07:34can be found in his live-action parody homage series, The Orville. When it first launched,
07:39Star Trek fans were enormously sceptical, feeling that MacFarlane would just relentlessly be making
07:45fun of Star Trek without much affection. And though the first season was certainly more of a parody
07:50than a dew-eyed homage, season 2 received considerably more acclaim from critics and fans for its more
07:57earnest, sincere storytelling that veered away from outright parody. But the single most interesting
08:03thing about The Orville? Star Trek actually exists within its universe. Well, sort of.
08:10The first season's fifth episode shows the crew watching a clip of Seinfeld. And considering that
08:15there was a number of Star Trek jokes made in Seinfeld, we're left to conclude that Star Trek
08:20actually exists as a TV show within the world of The Orville. Genius.
08:25Number 4, South Park. This one's both subtle and really, really weird. To be fair, Star Trek has
08:34been referenced in more than 30 episodes of South Park, but there's one that stands tall above all
08:41the others for its hilariously deranged specificity. In the season 4 episode Something You Can Do With
08:47Your Finger, the boys plan to form a boy band. But when Randy finds out what his son Stan is up to,
08:53he throws a fit of rage, screaming, NO, NO, and headbutting the glass doors of the nearby living
08:59room cabinet, smashing the china plates inside. You could easily miss it, but the sound effects are
09:05actually sampled from Star Trek First Contact, namely the scene where Picard smashes his own glass
09:11cabinet with a gun during an intense argument with Lily Sloan. It's such a bizarre way to reference
09:17such a memorable moment from the film, and yet the sound effects are just vague and brief enough that the
09:23more casual Trek fans might just miss it. Number 3, The Big Bang Theory.
09:29Love or hate The Big Bang Theory, there is no denying the love it's writer's harbour for Star Trek,
09:35given that the four central characters are all shown to be major fans of the franchise and are even
09:40fluent in Klingon. Trek is by far the most commonly referenced franchise in the series, and it has even
09:47enjoyed cameos from the likes of Will Wheaton, Brent Spiner, George Takei, and William Shatner.
09:52But the single greatest invocation of Trek occurred in the season 6 episode The Bakersfield Expedition,
09:59where the guys dress up as the next generation characters Worf, Data, Picard, and a Borg drone
10:04respectively, to visit a comic book convention in Bakersfield. The boys end up stopping off at the
10:10iconic Vasquez Rocks, where numerous Trek episodes have been filmed, including Kirk's infamous encounter
10:16with Gorn. But their car and clothes are stolen in the process, and so they never end up making it to
10:22the convention, and are instead forced to walk to a nearby diner to call the cops. Incidentally,
10:28this was the first episode of the series to cross the 20 million viewer mark, seemingly confirming how
10:35much everyone loved the Trek homage. Number 2, Robot Chicken.
10:40Believe it or not, Robot Chicken is still on the air today, and even celebrated its 200th episode
10:46last year, proving the unexpected viability of a stop-motion animated series made with toys,
10:53action figures, and plasticine. While it's fair to say that it has parodied Star Wars far more
10:58extensively, even releasing three Star Wars specials, Robot Chicken has delivered more than 15 skits,
11:05making fun of Star Trek, too. There are a ton of hilarious ones to choose from, though the easy
11:11winner is the Season 7 skit Star Trek The Sext Generation. Patrick Stewart lends his voice to
11:17portray Captain Picard, who exits the bridge to be relieved by the Enterprise's night crew, led by Captain
11:23Jake, who just so happens to be voiced by Chris Pine, of all people. As it turns out,
11:28Captain Jake is a beer-swigging meth head without any real leadership capabilities,
11:32as becomes a major problem when the Borg attack. Jake tries to defuse the situation with a keg party,
11:38but the Borg simply tell him, partying is futile. Yet, when they attempt to assimilate him,
11:44his beer-filled blood sends the Borg into a beer-chugging frenzy. Back on the Enterprise,
11:49a seemingly angry Picard arrives to relieve Jake from his shift, only for Picard to then ask for a beer
11:54and start partying with the crew himself. The fact that Patrick Stewart agreed to play the part
12:00himself makes this a truly legendary parody. 1. Boston Legal
12:06William Shatner spent five seasons playing the legendary attorney Denny Crane on the legal comedy
12:13series Boston Legal. And it goes without saying that the writers simply couldn't resist making
12:18Star Trek references every now and then, but then simply went past mere wink-nudge nods and damn near
12:24implied that, somehow, Denny and Kirk were the same person. In the Season 2 episode Finding Nimmo,
12:31Denny and Alan take a fishing trip to British Columbia, where Alan reads a book that describes a
12:36type of sea lice as cling-ons, hilariously prompting Denny to pause and ask, did you say cling-ons?
12:42Later in Season 2, the episode The Cancer Man Can, has Denny open up his new flip phone,
12:48which makes the exact same sound as the personal communicators on the original series.
12:53In other episodes, Denny talks about beaming himself to Boston every morning, refers to himself
12:58as the captain of the ship, and even flat-out tells reporters that he was once the captain
13:03of his own spaceship. There comes a point where the Metanus is stretched beyond snapping point,
13:08and Boston Legal pretty much got there. You love to see it!
13:12And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in the
13:16comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like, and subscribe, and tap that
13:20notification bell. We are on the road to 200,000 followers here on YouTube, and with your help,
13:25we can meet that goal by the summer. Just don't forget to hit the subscribe button.
13:30Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias,
13:34just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Trek Culture, I hope you have a wonderful day,
13:39and remember to boldly go where no one has gone before.
13:43Thanks a lot.
13:45Thanks a lot.
13:47I'm, I'm happy to finish this video.
13:51I'll be able to see you next time.
13:53I'm happy to see you soon, to see you soon.
13:55You go ahead and wrap me up here.
13:57I'm happy to see you soon.
13:59I'm happy to see you soon.
14:01But my head, we'll see you soon.
14:04I'm happy to see you soon.
Be the first to comment