10 Greatest Star Trek In-Jokes
Some of the greatest Star Trek In-Jokes
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00:00Do you get it? Do you get it? Yeah, you kinda had to be there.
00:05In-jokes are often fun if you're on the in of them, forgive the pun,
00:10whereas 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.
00:18With that in mind, I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture, and here are the 10 greatest Star Trek in-jokes.
00:24Number 10, 47.
00:2647 is 42, credited for inflation. Executive producer Rick Berman once joked,
00:30the ultimate answer might cost you more in Star Trek, but what is the question?
00:34Well, have you ever wondered why Ronan in Sobrosa, Sex Ghost, said he was born in 1647,
00:40why shields were often down to 47%, or why Captain Janeway was really from Bloomington, Indiana?
00:46The reason is writer Joe Minoski, who began his Star Trek career in season 4 of The Next Generation
00:52and has worked on Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Discovery.
00:54Minoski graduated from California's Pomona College, which, apart from excelling in the liberal arts,
01:00is known for having a thing for 47.
01:02The college even has a club dedicated to the number, the 47 Society, that Minoski was part of as a student.
01:08He then brought this university in-joke into Star Trek, and it has stuck with the writers ever since.
01:13Bloomington, Indiana, zip code 47401-47408, is more properly an homage to Voyager producer Jerry Taylor,
01:23who was born there, but there are pages of other examples of the 47 phenomenon.
01:27Here are just a small few.
01:29In Family, Picard is given the 47 Vintage.
01:31In Conundrum, there are 47 Lycian Sentry Pods.
01:35In DS9, pads are often labelled 4747, and weapons lockers 47.
01:41In Voyager, the temporal variance of the Cranum Cronaton torpedo is 1.47 microseconds,
01:47and I have just needed between four to seven Aldebaran whiskeys.
01:51Number nine, some kinds of Star Trek.
01:53Rarely is anything more meta than the time Star Trek looked through a telescope and saw itself.
01:58Star Trek First Contact is one big self-reference, a trek to the past to ensure its own future.
02:04Zefram Cochran needs some kind of Star Trek as much as it needs him.
02:07In that film, First Contact gets a direct nod, although that was far from the first or last movie,
02:13or episode title, name drop and dialogue.
02:15It hosted the Undiscovered Country in The Undiscovered Country,
02:18and Captain Janeway provided a counterpoint counterpoint in Counterpoint, amongst many other examples.
02:24Star Trek is also more subtly self-referential at times.
02:27In the next generation's 80th episode, Legacy,
02:30the Enterprise-D has to bypass an archaeological survey of Camus II,
02:34which happens to be the last planet visited by another Enterprise in its 79th and final episode.
02:40Yes, we are counting them like that.
02:42According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia,
02:44the Camus II mention was a deliberate tip-of-the-hat-to-turnabout intruder
02:48on the part of Rick Berman, Jonathan Frakes, and producer Eric Stilwell.
02:52Of course, the end of the beginning of this kind of Star Trek is a prophecy of itself.
02:56We've only postponed the invasion until, what, the 24th century?
03:04Our lovely writer Jack has already discussed television's demise in Star Trek,
03:08but it deserves a second mention here.
03:10Beyond the canonical prediction the medium didn't last much past 2040, for humanity at least,
03:15the writers clearly take great delight in having assigned television to the history books.
03:19It's the perfect in-joke.
03:20By relying on a lack of awareness of the characters,
03:23the writers can poke fun at their own industry without having to totally demolish that fourth wall.
03:28The gag is perhaps also a gentle reminder to appreciate Star Trek
03:31for what it ultimately is, a piece of television, for as long as we have it.
03:35After all, in Star Trek, nobody's watching Star Trek.
03:38After Data's revelation in the Neutral Zone, there have been a few direct references to TV.
03:43When Voyager went back to the 90s, Kess and Neelix were tasked with reviewing Earth broadcasts
03:48and became addicted to the soap opera.
03:50We still don't know if Blaine's twin brother was the father of Jessica's baby.
03:53More recently, spoiler alert, in Lower Decks, Boimler got hilariously hooked on Ferengi television,
03:58ironically unfamiliar with the commercials.
04:01Commer-seals?
04:02And the serial drama.
04:04Cop Landlords needs its own spin-off.
04:06Moreover, the title of that Lower Decks episode was itself a TV reference.
04:11Number seven, Riker.
04:13I mean, how could we not?
04:14There are plenty of reasons to love Lower Decks,
04:17and top amongst them are the Easter eggs, in-jokes, and altogether weirdly specific references.
04:22In 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.
04:30As I well know from cetacean observations, one episode alone of Lower Decks could have filled this list.
04:35But we're here for the Strange New Worlds crossover.
04:37All egg over.
04:39The episode's title is itself an in-joke,
04:41Those Old Scientists, a phrase first used by Commander Ransom to describe the 23rd century in no small parts.
04:48Then, when Boimler and Mariner are flung through a time portal to said century,
04:52they both basically become too-excited fans at the greatest-ever Star Trek convention.
04:57Actors Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome even took selfies on set during their own time.
05:01It's Ensign Boimler with the Riker maneuver in the ready room, however,
05:04that 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.
05:13On 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.
05:24The Klingons have gone through many, many changes since their original appearance in Errand of Mercy.
05:29At first conceived by writer Gene L. Kuhn as the Soviet half of his Cold War allegory,
05:34core actor John Kaleikos reportedly looked more to the likes of Genghis Khan for inspiration for the character,
05:40leading to some fairly problematic make-up choices.
05:43They certainly didn't have the budget in the original series that they did by the time the Klingons reared their ridges in the motion picture.
05:49The make-up and general look was further designed and redesigned in the films with Klingons that followed,
05:55then again and again in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, with no explanation given.
06:00As Michael Dorn knowingly commented in an interview with Cinefantastique Volume 32, Numbers 4 and 5,
06:07I guess they never thought they'd have to deal with it on screen at some point.
06:09Therein lies the in-joke when DS9 decided to tackle the changes in Klingon appearance head-on-ish in Trials and Tribulations.
06:17If you can't put ridges on it, hang a lantern on it instead.
06:19Worf's laconic, it is a long story, we do not discuss it with outsiders, was all about the answer we needed,
06:26and probably the only one we're going to get until the Enterprise explanation, which everybody loved and there's been no problems about since.
06:32Number 5, who writes for Morn?
06:34We all know Morn, the famously loose-lipped Lorian with a liking for Jumjah sticks,
06:38a small fortune in one of his stomachs, and his own seat at Quark's Bar.
06:42His name alone is an in-joke. Morn is an anagram of Norm, the permanent patron of Cheers.
06:47The character's reputation as a chatty Cathy might well precede him, but of course, Morn never actually had any lines.
06:53This was far from the plan for Morn from the beginning, however.
06:56According to the making of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, on the very first day of filming for Emissary,
07:01the man beneath the then-nameless Morn mask, Mark Alan Shepard,
07:04was 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 honeysuckle garbage poultry rimfire.
07:15Morn 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.
07:22Eventually, it was far funnier for the great Raconteur to say nothing at all,
07:26becoming what is certainly one of Star Trek's longest-running inside jokes,
07:30especially when you take into account the Cerritos' season three stop at Deep Space Nine.
07:35Number four, Okudagrams.
07:37We owe graphic designers Michael and Denise Okuda a great deal for the look, lore, and feel
07:43of Star Trek from the Voyage Home onwards, not to forget the Star Trek Encyclopedia through four editions,
07:49the Next Generation Technical Manual, and other reference books that have become veritable fan bibles.
07:54Creator of the computer screen and console graphics for Star Trek IV,
07:57and the L-Cars designs for the Next Generation and beyond,
08:00Michael Okuda's instantly recognisable work was lovingly nicknamed the Okudagram.
08:05An artistic marvel in their own right, Okudagrams have also provided plenty of opportunities
08:09for a good in-joke or two, 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 interesting results,
08:21including the first six actors to have played the Doctor in Doctor Who, Miss Piggy, and Kermit T. Frog.
08:27The Okudagram of the Enterprise-D's engineering master display features, if you stare hard enough,
08:32a duck, a mouse, an airplane, a car, and Nomad.
08:37Usually covered up for filming, these editions even made it into HD at around 38 minutes and 35 seconds of the remastered Galaxy's Child.
08:45Technically, that makes them canon.
08:47Number three, Great Birds of the Galaxy.
08:49In the far future, Miles O'Brien was, and will be, rightly in statute as perhaps the most important person in Starfleet history.
08:57Right along there with him was the less glowingly remembered Brad Boimler.
09:00History has its 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.
09:09You might well know by now that THE Great Bird of the Galaxy was Gene Roddenberry,
09:13or rather, it was the nickname given to him by producer Robert Justman early in the run of the original series.
09:19In point of fact, in The Man-Trap, Sulu says to Janice Rand,
09:22May the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet.
09:25The epithet for Star Trek's creator certainly caught on.
09:28By the time of The Next Generation, the bird began to make an appearance in graphic form.
09:32For Roddenberry's 60th birthday gift in 1987, senior Next Generation illustrator Andrew Probert
09:37painted a full-colour Roddenberry-headed Bird of the Galaxy with Command Uniform plumage,
09:42ComBadge and NCC-1701 nacelles as tail feathers.
09:46A green ocudogram 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 two, Tubes of Jeffreys.
09:58Walter Matthew Matt Jeffreys, his full name is of importance later,
10:02is the man well-known for designing the original Enterprise model,
10:06now so iconic it hangs in the Smithsonian.
10:08Jeffreys was also largely responsible for the majority of the Enterprise's interior design,
10:13as well as that of the shuttlecraft, the Klingon D-7 cruiser, the hand phaser,
10:17and a plethora of other props, sets and landscapes.
10:20As shown in the Star Trek sketchbook, the original series,
10:23Jeffreys equally designed what he called the Engineering Power Shaft in his sketch for The Enemy Within.
10:29As he recalled,
10:36Somebody hung the name Jeffreys Tube on it, and the name stuck.
10:39And Stick It did, but only behind the scenes on TOS.
10:42It wasn't until the Next Generation Season 3 episode The Hunted
10:46that the term Jeffreys Tube was said on screen.
10:48On TOS, designers also liked to add the label GNDN, for Goes Nowhere Does Nothing,
10:54to the pipes on Jeffreys Tube sets.
10:56In canon, it is generally accepted that the famous crawlways were named
11:00after Enix project designer of the 22nd century, W.M. Jeffreys.
11:08Far Beyond the Stars will forever be considered one of the best Star Trek episodes ever made.
11:12Powerhouse performances from the cast, from Avery Brooks in particular, who also directed,
11:16and the episode's brilliant narrative conceit bring the theme of racial prejudice
11:20and its harrowing consequences into sharp focus in a manner never before managed so directly in Star Trek.
11:25The episode is also notable for its use of insider references.
11:28The 1950s-style drawing of Deep Space Nine that inspires Benny Russell
11:32to write his story in the first place was a nice touch,
11:34and you perhaps noticed the original series map painting of Starbase 11
11:38on the cover of competitor magazine Galaxy.
11:41For Benny Russell's group of writers' own publication, Incredible Tales of Scientific Wonder,
11:45the front cover of the March 1953 edition sports an image of Delta Vega
11:50from Where No Man Has Gone Before.
11:52The issue then features the stories First of a New Series, The Cage by E.W. Roddenberry,
11:57The Corbomite Maneuver by Jerry Soule, illustrated by Matt Jeffreys,
12:01Journey to Babel by D.C. Fontana, Metamorphosis by Jean L. Kuhn,
12:05and Where No Man Has Gone Before by Samuel Peoples.
12:08Finally, in a memo from editor Douglas Pabst to Herbert Rossoff,
12:13apparently used as set dressing but never visible on screen, was written,
12:21The snide Principal 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 anything here?
13:05Let us know in the comments below.
13:07Thank you so much to Jack Kiley for writing the original article that this is based on.
13:10You can check that out on whatculture.com.
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