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Just rewatched the SNL skit "Get A Life!": what are the episode numbers supposed to be? And does this question make me a nerd parodied in the skit?

Oh! As Emily Litella, also of that SNL era, would say, "never mind!" :)
Emily Litella was about 10 years removed from this era of SNL. Emily Litella was a character of Gilda Radner's from the original cast era of 1975-1980. This sketch aired on December 20th, 1986, as Star Trek IV was in theaters.

The Shatner episode, BTW, would be my pick for the best ever episode of SNL. (And I know whereof I speak, since I've been co-hosting the SNL Nerds, a podcast about SNL, since 2018.)
It's just about exposure to legal risk; I'm still surprised that the skit used the actual titles.
I've never heard this idea that TV shows aren't allowed to mention episode titles from other TV shows, and I don't think there's a shred of truth to this. I can't imagine how you'd go about enforcing such a rule, anyway. I'd imagine that you'd need a trademark on each individual episode title in a series to even begin to have a case for infringement, and that's not something studios are going to bother doing, especially when many television shows don't even show the episode titles onscreen.
Even if there was some weird rule against name-checking an episode it wouldn't matter anyway as SNL is parody or satire, they use real world trademarks all the time including names, logos, uniforms, slogans, etc.
Exactly. The basic rule of parody is that once is okay, but if it crosses the line into multiple uses, it's infringement. The cartoonist Dave Sim did a parody of the Marvel Comics character Wolverine in his self-published comic Cerebus that he called Wolveroach, which was fine, but when Sim featured Wolveroach on three Cerebus covers in a row, Marvel sent him a Cease & Desist letter.

BTW, the last time I can remember SNL even having a hint of a lawsuit directed towards them (excepting thin-skinned blowhard politicians on Twitter who object to any parodies or imitations of them :rolleyes:) was seven years ago when they did a fake ad for Safelite Autoglass that had the technician intentionally breaking a customer's windshield so he could hit on the customer's daughter. Safelite objected to the sketch on Twitter, and SNL removed it from reruns, pulled it from their YouTube channel, and have kept unauthorized copies from popping up elsewhere. But even there, there was never any official threat of legal action.

BTW, SNL varies how close they get when they parody Star Trek directly. When Chris Pine hosted seven years ago, they duplicated the TOS uniforms pretty closely but didn't bother making the bridge look very much like the show. But when they did another Star Trek type sketch in 2021, they got even further away from the TOS look, probably because there was no reason to get that close.
True, and for example, in less than a year, Batman and TOS had episodes with "A Piece of the Action" as their titles. It just happens from time to time.
There's also a 1972 Columbo episode titled "Dagger of the Mind." There, of course, both shows were borrowing from William Shakespeare
 
But when they did another Star Trek type sketch in 2021, they went even further from the TOS look, probably because there was no reason to get that close.
And even then, they still name-check Paramount+, Star Trek, Starfleet Academy, and used a commercially available Enterprise to make their ship. Because they can. ;)

BTW, the last time I can remember SNL even having a hint of a lawsuit directed towards them (excepting thin-skinned blowhard politicians on Twitter who object to any parodies or imitations of them :rolleyes:) was seven years ago when they did a fake ad for Safelite Autoglass
There was a thing with a bank in the last few years where SNL ended up replacing their logo (after the inititial live show) presumably because the bank didn't like having their name used for a sketch where it didn't need to be their bank.

Edit: It was Chase Bank. I went looking for stuff on the bank sketch and funnily enough Captain Disillusion did a thing on it just one week ago.

Edit edit: I shouldn't imply there was a sniff of a lawsuit on this one. I don't know if Chase contacted them or what, but clearly someone at SNL decided not to risk it.

 
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There was a thing with a bank in the last few years where SNL ended up replacing their logo (after the inititial live show) presumably because the bank didn't like having their name used for a sketch where it didn't need to be their bank.

Edit: It was Chase Bank. I went looking for stuff on the bank sketch and funnily enough Captain Disillusion did a thing on it just one week ago.
Huh. I hadn't heard about that, since I typically watch the show live or the day after, and that alteration was likely done sometime after that.

That Captain Disillusion video is horrible, BTW. His persona is obnoxious and he padded about two minutes of content to take up nearly ten. I'm glad I never heard of him before and if he ever pops up on my feed, I'll be sure to block him.
 
There's also a 1972 Columbo episode titled "Dagger of the Mind." There, of course, both shows were borrowing from William Shakespeare.
Space: 1999 had an episode called "The Immunity Syndrome," I think knowingly named after the Star Trek for some reason.

But there's no way Batman was thinking about Trek when they named "A Piece of the Action." Their titles were crafted as rhyming couplets when the show was airing twice a week.
 
Luckily, I am not him. ;)
I never thought you were. :)
But there's no way Batman was thinking about Trek when they named "A Piece of the Action." Their titles were crafted as rhyming couplets when the show was airing twice a week.
Yep. And I can remember without checking that the second part was titled "Batman's Satisfaction." The second title would usually refer to the villain's defeat in some way.
 
Took me a moment, but my first thought was that this post was in relation to:


So anyhoo, what @Greg Cox had said makes the most sense - episode number* rather than episode name as it's fewer syllables to spit out.

* Having even more fun, is the number pertaining to when the episode was produced or aired? :devil:
 
Took me a moment, but my first thought was that this post was in relation to:


So anyhoo, what @Greg Cox had said makes the most sense - episode number* rather than episode name as it's fewer syllables to spit out.

* Having even more fun, is the number pertaining to when the episode was produced or aired? :devil:
In 1986 did people even know production number?
 
But there's no way Batman was thinking about Trek when they named "A Piece of the Action." Their titles were crafted as rhyming couplets when the show was airing twice a week.

I do not believe anyone implied that. By the way, the Batman scriptwriter (Charles Hoffman) certainly did not think of the TOS episode because the Batman episode was written in late 1966, and eventually aired on March 1, 1967. TOS' similarly titled episode aired on January, 12, 1968.
 
In 1986 did people even know production number?
Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance and Allan Asherman's The Star Trek Compendium had both come out by then, so possibly. But the episode numbers given in the SNL "Get a Life!" sketch had no relevance to the real production or airdate numbers of TOS. Just think of them as a shorthand code for "These are really obsessive fans."

Or maybe when you put all the numbers together, 51-25-37, they reveal the actual combination to Captain Kirk's safe in Episode 25. ;)

BTW, you might recognize the names of the SNL writers who wrote that sketch... Bob Odenkirk & Judd Apatow. :)
 
...BTW, SNL varies how close they get when they parody Star Trek directly. When Chris Pine hosted seven years ago, they duplicated the TOS uniforms pretty closely but didn't bother making the bridge look very much like the show. But when they did another Star Trek type sketch in 2021, they got even further away from the TOS look, probably because there was no reason to get that close.
They got close to the TOS Bridge and uniforms in the SNL sketch where John Belushi played Captain Kirk as the NBC execs. came out to cancel the show.
 
They got close to the TOS Bridge and uniforms in the SNL sketch where John Belushi played Captain Kirk as the NBC execs. came out to cancel the show.
Not as much as you might remember. It had the Captain's chair in the center, and consoles encircling it, but it was basically a simplified version of the TOS bridge, since the final gag of the sketch had
them taking apart the set because NBC had canceled Star Trek.
 
Not as much as you might remember. It had the Captain's chair in the center, and consoles encircling it, but it was basically a simplified version of the TOS bridge, since the final gag of the sketch had
them taking apart the set because NBC had canceled Star Trek.
Yeah, in my memory it was much more accurate than the reality. Perhaps aided by it being on broadcast TV on an average sized set. (as were the Star Trek episodes I watched). :lol:
 
The Trek concordance makes that a very distinct possibility.
I bought every ST book there was in those days, and production order came my way in The Star Trek Compendium (1981) by Allan Asherman. He got the filming dates from buying a vast number of 35mm workprint clippings from Lincoln Enterprises. They included clapboard shots. I think that was our first look at production order, to be followed later by the numbered VHS tapes Paramount put out.

I also have the Star Trek Concordance, the first mass-market edition from 1976. The book does not include anything about production order. It's arranged in air date order and it gives the stardates. The text is almost entirely based on what you could know from taking notes in front of the TV, because that's what the author did, very extensively. It's still a great book today, and when it came out it was stupendous.

Edit: I forgot something: the first published list in production order I saw was in the Star Trek Giant Poster Book, which came out after the Concordance but well before the Compendium. Allan Asherman was behind the Poster Book as well, and it made extensive use of his 35mm frames, printing them in color.
 
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After the Compendium established the production numbers, Paramount tended to syndicate them in that order from 1982 on. HEROES AND ICONS still follows the Concordance order.
 
After the Compendium established the production numbers, Paramount tended to syndicate them in that order from 1982 on. HEROES AND ICONS still follows the Concordance order.
In early October 1979, a station in my market picked up syndicated Star Trek reruns after an absence of three years. This station aired them in production order later popularized by the Compendium and the VHS releases.

When Me-TV picked up Star Trek Remastered ca. 2010, they too used the Compendium production order for a few years before switching mid-run to airdate/Concordance order several years ago.
 
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