comedy in early TNG ?

[Emperor Norton]

Piscopo is a symbol of how out of touch with pop culture Trek has always been. Whether its ridiculous depictions of hippies on TOS or the fact that all the culture in TNG onward is classical music and Shakespeare as if nothing happened in nearly 1000 years. Piscopo was considered a major hack at the time. The only worse pick would have been Andrew Clay. It's just a sign of cluelessness from a very stodgy property.

Clay: "There once was a woman from Venus, whose body was shaped like a..."

Data:"I have heard this one."

In Classic Star Trek's defense, 1960s television on the whole was terrible at depicting hippies. Chalk it up to Hays Code censorship and whitewashing that resulted in 1960s TV having as much social development as it did during Lucy. Your average contemporary television hippie was a starving, well groomed actor, dressed in clothes designed by a 40 year old, and speaking "hip" dialogue written by a 57 year old based on what they thought the young people were speaking. And there was the frequent use of terrible, nondescript hippie music also written by a 50-something trying to do what he thought the young people were into. And it all resulted in something very stinted and awkward. The is true from Gilligan's Island to when Joe Friday informed us how the youth generation was responsible for eating babies and inviting international Communism. On the one hand, this was terrible. On the other, it helped dislodge people from how full-of-it TV was. And TOS can't really be blamed for it.

 

[Ghrakh]

Piscopo is a symbol of how out of touch with pop culture Trek has always been. Whether its ridiculous depictions of hippies on TOS or the fact that all the culture in TNG onward is classical music and Shakespeare as if nothing happened in nearly 1000 years. Piscopo was considered a major hack at the time. The only worse pick would have been Andrew Clay. It's just a sign of cluelessness from a very stodgy property.

That explains TNG's tepid ratings and ST's lack of pop culture longevity. Oh wait.

 

[Mark 2000]

That explains TNG's tepid ratings and ST's lack of pop culture longevity. Oh wait.

And that relates to my point how?

 

[kirkfan]

That explains TNG's tepid ratings and ST's lack of pop culture longevity. Oh wait.

And that relates to my point how?

It doesn't. It's like saying: "Hey, MacDonald's food is healthy, look at all the people that eat there!"

 

[Mark 2000]

It doesn't. It's like saying: "Hey, MacDonald's food is healthy, look at all the people that eat there!"

LOL!

 

[JirinPanthosa]

ST TNG has had incredible pop culture longevity, but certainly not based on Joe Piscopo or The Outrageous Okana.

I don't mind them using classical music or Shakespeare as examples as they were trying to pick things that everybody would have heard of and in 1987 we already considered to be 'Immortal'. Contemporary references wouldn't have worked, but I wish they'd made up people from the 22nd and 23rd centuries as their example of classical instead.

Joe Piscopo doesn't fall into this category. They had him on the episode, threw out the most repeated comedy memes from the 40s they could think of, and did the kind of physical gags in earnest that Krusty The Clown does in parody.

Then Guinan was sad that Data didn't think it was funny that 'You're a droid and I'm a noid'. Only, nobody in the audience did either.

And this is the same episode where they tried hard to convince us that a character was a charming rogue when he wasn't the slightest bit charming in the least. Okona won over Terri Hatcher with the least convincing pickup line ever written, then Troi went out of our way to tell us "His emotions suggest that he is mischievous, irreverent and somewhat brazen. Seriously, he's just super duper hardcore roguish and cool." Yeah, no. He's just not. The TNG writers are to Okona as Eric Cartman is to himself.

This is just an incredly badly written episode on all fronts.