- 24/05/2025
Some of the greatest Star Trek In-Jokes
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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,
00:34have you ever wondered why Ronan in Sobrosa, Sex Ghost, said he was born in 1647, why shields were
00:41often down to 47%, or why Captain Janeway was really from Bloomington, Indiana? The reason is
00:47writer Joe Minoski, who began his Star Trek career in season 4 of The Next Generation and has worked
00:52on Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Discovery. Minoski graduated from California's Pomona
00:57College, which apart from excelling in the liberal arts, is known for having a thing for 47. The
01:02college even has a club dedicated to the number, the 47 Society, that Minoski was part of as
01:07a student. He then brought this university in-joke into Star Trek and it has stuck with the writers
01:12ever since. Bloomington, Indiana, zip codes 47401-47408, is more properly an homage to Voyager producer
01:21Jerry Taylor who was born there, but there are pages of other examples of the 47 phenomenon. Here
01:27are just a small few. In Family, Picard is given the 47 vintage, in Conundrum there are 47 Lysian
01:33Century pods, in DS9 pads are often labelled 4747 and weapons lockers 47. In Voyager, the temporal
01:42variance of the Cranum Cranaton torpedo is 1.47 microseconds and I have just needed between 4 to 7
01:49Aldebaran whiskies. Number 9. Some kinds of Star Trek. Rarely is anything more meta than the time Star
01:55Trek looked through a telescope and saw itself. Star Trek First Contact is one big self-reference,
02:00a trek to the past to ensure its own future. Zephram Cochran needs some kind of Star Trek as much as it
02:06needs him. In that film, First Contact gets a direct nod, although that was far from the first or last
02:12movie or episode title name drop in dialogue. They toasted the Undiscovered Country in The Undiscovered
02:17Country and Captain Janeway provided a counterpoint counterpoint in counterpoint, amongst many other
02:23examples. Star Trek is also more subtly self-referential at times. In the next generation's 80th episode
02:29Legacy, the Enterprise D has to bypass an archaeological survey of Caymus II, which happens to be the last
02:35planet visited by another Enterprise in its 79th and final episode. Yes, we are counting them like
02:41that. According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, the Caymus II mention was a deliberate tip of the hat to
02:47turnabout intruder on the part of Rick Berman, Jonathan Frakes and producer Eric Stilwell. Of course,
02:52the end of the beginning of this kind of Star Trek is a prophecy of itself. We've only postponed the
02:57invasion until, what, the 24th century? Number 8, Carmer Seals and Blaine's twin brother. Our lovely
03:04writer Jack has already discussed television's demise in Star Trek, but it deserves a second mention
03:09here. Beyond the canonical prediction, the medium didn't last much past 2040, for humanity at least,
03:14the writers clearly take great delight in having assigned television to the history books. It's the
03:19perfect in-joke. By relying on a lack of awareness of the characters, the writers can poke fun at their
03:24own industry without having to totally demolish that fourth wall. The gag is perhaps also a gentle reminder
03:29to appreciate Star Trek for what it ultimately is, a piece of television, for as long as we have it. After
03:34all, in Star Trek, nobody's watching Star Trek. After Data's revelation in the Neutral Zone, there have been a few
03:40direct references to TV. When Voyager went back to the 90s, Kess and Neelix were tasked with reviewing
03:46Earth broadcasts and became addicted to the soap opera. We still don't know if Blaine's twin brother
03:51was the father of Jessica's baby. More recently, spoiler alert, in Lower Decks, Boimler got hilariously
03:56hooked on Ferengi television, ironically unfamiliar with the commercials. Commerseals? And the serial
04:03drama, Cop Landlords Needs It's Own Spin Off. Moreover, the title of that Lower Decks episode was
04:08itself a TV reference. Number seven, Riker. I mean, how could we not? There are plenty of reasons to
04:15love Lower Decks, and top amongst them are the easter eggs, in-jokes, and altogether weirdly
04:20specific references. In a similar vein, Strange New Worlds has delighted fans by returning to the roots
04:26of Star Trek, all 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 Worlds
04:36crossover, all egg over. The episode's title is itself an in-joke, Those Old Scientists, a phrase
04:43first used by Commander Ransom to describe the 23rd century in no small parts. Then, when Boimler and
04:48Mariner are flung through a time portal to said century, they both basically become two excited fans
04:54at the greatest ever Star Trek convention. Actors Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome even took selfies
04:59on set during their own time. It'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. In-universe, Boimler
05:10briefly served with the animated Riker on the Titan. On the set of Those Old Scientists, Jonathan Frakes
05:16was directing and Quaid improvised the Riker leg-swing pike-saddle moment in front of him.
05:21Number six, 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
05:30Jean L. 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 further
05:51designed and redesigned in the films with Klingons that followed, then again and again in The Next
05:57Generation and Deep Space Nine, with no explanation given. As Michael Dorn knowingly commented in an
06:02interview with Cinefantastique volume 32 numbers 4 and 5, I guess they never thought they'd have to
06:07deal with it on screen at some point. Therein lies the in-joke when DS9 decided to tackle the changes in
06:13Klingon appearance head-on, ish, in Trials and Tribulations. If you can't put ridges on it,
06:17hang a lantern on it instead. Worf's laconic, it is a long story, we do not discuss it with
06:22outsiders, was all about the answer we needed and probably the only one we're going to get until
06:28the Enterprise Exploration which everybody loved and there's been no problems about since.
06:32Number five, who writes for Morn? We all know Morn, the famously loose-lipped Lurian with a liking for
06:37Jumja Sticks, a small fortune in one of his stomachs and his own seat at Quark's Bar. His name alone is an
06:43in-joke, Morn is an anagram of Norm, the permanent patron of Cheers. The character's reputation as a
06:49chatty Cathy might well precede him, but of course Morn never actually had any lines. This was far
06:54from the plan for Morn from the beginning, however. According to the making of Star Trek Deep Space
06:58Nine, on the very first day of filming for Emissary, the man beneath the then nameless Morn mask, Mark
07:03Alan Shepard, 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 honeysuckle
07:14garbage-polstery rimfire. Morn made it into the pilot, but evidently the joke did not. Later,
07:19lines that were planned for the character were written out before shooting. Eventually, it was
07:23far funnier for the great raconteur to say nothing at all, becoming what is certainly one of Star Trek's
07:28longest running inside jokes, especially when you take into account the Cerritos' Season 3 stop at Deep Space
07:34Nine. Number four, Okudagrams. We owe graphic designers Michael and Denise Okuda a great deal
07:41for the look, lore and feel of Star Trek from the voyage home onwards, not to forget the Star Trek
07:46Encyclopedia through four editions, the next generation technical manual and other reference books that
07:51have become veritable fan bibles. Creator of the computer screen and console graphics for Star Trek 4
07:57and the Elkar's designs for the next generation and beyond, Michael Okuda's instantly recognizable work
08:02was lovingly nicknamed the Okudagram. An artistic marvel in their own right, Okudagrams have also
08:07provided plenty of opportunities for a good in Joker 2, often never intended to be visible on screen
08:13and mostly replaced in the remasterings. For example, Troy's search for a family tree in the neutral zone
08:18pre-remaster gives some very interesting results, including the first six actors to have played the
08:23Doctor in Doctor Who, Miss Piggy and Kermit T Frog. The Okudagram of the Enterprise D's Engineering
08:30master display features, if you stare hard enough, a duck, a mouse, an airplane, a car,
08:36and nomad. Usually covered up for filming, these editions even made it into HD at around 38 minutes
08:42and 35 seconds of the remastered Galaxy's Child. Technically, that makes them canon.
08:47Number three, Great Birds of the Galaxy. In the far future, Miles O'Brien was and will be rightly
08:53in statute as perhaps the most important person in Starfleet history. Right along there with him was the
08:58less glowingly remembered Brad Boimler. History has its own effect. On Boimler's forever memorialised
09:03left arm was one of the Great Birds of the Galaxy, an in-joke which has a history in itself. You might
09:09well know by now that THE Great Bird of the Galaxy was Gene Roddenberry, or rather it was the nickname
09:14given to him by producer Robert Justman early in the run of the original series. In point of fact,
09:19in The Man Trap, Sulu says to Janice Rand, may the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet.
09:25The epithet for Star Trek's creator certainly caught on. By the time of the next generation,
09:29the bird began to make an appearance in graphic form. For Roddenberry's 60th birthday gift in 1987,
09:35senior next generation illustrator Andrew Probert painted a full colour Roddenberry-headed bird of
09:40the galaxy with Command Uniform Plumage, Combadge and NCC-1701 nacelles as tail feathers. A green
09:46Okudogram sketch version of the painting was then used on screen as part of the rapid computer searches
09:52carried out by Data in The Naked Now and Conspiracy. Number 2, Tubes of Jeffreys.
09:58Walter Matthew Matt Jeffreys, his full name is of importance later, is the man well known for
10:03designing the original Enterprise model, now so iconic it hangs in the Smithsonian. Jeffreys was
10:09also largely responsible for the majority of the Enterprise's interior design, as well as that of the
10:14shuttlecraft, the Klingon D-7 cruiser, the hand phaser and a plethora of other props, sets and landscapes.
10:20As shown in the Star Trek sketchbook, the original series, Jeffreys equally designed what he called
10:24the Engineering Power Shaft in his sketch for The Enemy Within. As he recalled, we needed a space
10:30where Scotty could fix things without taking up too much room, so I made a tube with all kinds of
10:34complicated looking stuff in it. Somebody hung the name Jeffreys Tube on it and the name stuck. And
10:39Stick It did, but only behind the scenes on TOS. It wasn't until the Next Generation season 3 episode
10:45The Hunted that the term Jeffreys Tube was said on screen. On TOS designers also liked to add the
10:50label GNDN for Goes Nowhere Does Nothing to the pipes on Jeffreys Tube sets. In canon it is generally
10:57accepted that the famous crawlways were named after NX project designer of the 22nd century W.M.
11:04Jeffreys. Number 1. The Writer and the Principal. Far Beyond the Stars will forever be considered one
11:09of the best Star Trek episodes ever made. Powerhouse performances from the cast, from Avery Brooks in
11:14particular who also directed, and the episode's brilliant narrative conceit bring the theme of
11:19racial prejudice and its harrowing consequences into sharp focus in a manner never before managed
11:23so directly in Star Trek. The episode is also notable for its use of insider references. The 1950s
11:29style drawing of Deep Space Nine that inspires Benny Russell to write his story in the first place
11:33was a nice touch, and you perhaps noticed the original series matte painting of Starbase 11 on the cover of
11:39competitor magazine Galaxy. For Benny Russell's group of writers own publication, Incredible Tales of
11:44Scientific Wonder, the front cover of the March 1953 edition sports an image of Delta Vega from Where
11:50No Man Has Gone Before. The issue then features the stories First of a New Series, The Cage by E.W.
11:56Roddenberry, The Corbamite Maneuver by Jerry Sowell illustrated by Matt Jeffreys, Journey to Babel by DC
12:02Fontana, Metamorphosis by Jean L. Kuhn, and Where No Man Has Gone Before by Samuel Peoples. Finally,
12:08in a memo from editor Douglas Pabst to Herbert Rossoff, being played by Armin Zimmerman, apparently
12:13used as set dressing but never visible on screen, was written, no one would believe that a cheerleader
12:19can kill vampires. The snide principal Snyder might also have been but a writer's dream.
12:25Hello, I'm Duncan Rillick, no relation, and my friend Sean Blass has been rushed to Starfleet Medical,
12:29so he's asked me to tell you about Squarespace. Squarespace allows you to build your own
12:36fantastic website like he did for GTN. It's state-of-the-art template designer allows you to
12:41build what works best for you. Anyone can use it, even people like me, who may not be the sharpest
12:45hypo in the spanner box. If you would like to try this deal, you should go to squarespace.com
12:50forward slash trekculture and you get 10% off your first purchase. Cheep,
12:53cheep, when you go, tell them Rillick sent you, no relation. Good luck Sean Blass,
12:57hope everything goes okay with the toenail.
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
13:13at trekculture, on Instagram at trekcultureyt, on bluesky at trekculture and TikTok at trekculture as
13:19well. Make sure that you are subscribed, we are getting very very close to 300,000 subscribers,
13:24you absolute legends. You can follow myself at Sean Ferrick on the various socials as well. Until
13:29I'm talking to you again, look after yourself, stay safe, stay calm and stay logical if you can,
13:35you are awesome and wonderful. Thanks very much, bye.
Recommended
12:04
|
Up next
11:30
11:37
2:31
10:16
11:14