Star Trek References in the general culture

[S'kai]

Star Trek gets mentioned often in the general culture. List here your recent sitings, links or full references if possible. Things that refer to Star Trek events, series, fandom, etc. do not count.

My first submission is from PriusChat, a forum for Prius owners:

"RESISTANCE WAS FUTILE. YOU WERE ASSIMILATED."

http://priuschat.com/forums/newbie-forum/72205-its-offical-im-prius-owner.html

 

[Hambone]

The new Lincoln ads feature the phrase "Starships don't need keys." Not necessarily Star Trek ("starship" wasn't invented for Star Trek but I think the word is most identified with Trek).

 

[ToddKent]

I've been hearing the term "red shirt" a lot lately.

 

[S'kai]

I doubt one can get throug any issue of Wired magazine without a Star Trek reference. The Dec 09 issue, p. 112, reviewing the Jabar Halo Headset: "Those ugly earpieces give Bluetooth a bad name. Your should be able to make hand-free calls without doing a Lieutenant Uhura impresssion . . . Bridge to Ensign Dork: You've just been promoted."

 

[Rackon]

I like novelist Dennis Lehane's books Mystic River and Shutter Island (one the basis for Clint Eastwood's Oscar winning movie and an adpatation of second to be Martin Scorsese's next). So I decided to check out Lehane's noir series featuring Boston PIs Pat Kenzie & Angie Gennaro. In Gone Baby Gone Kirk and Spock get a reference about a ST episode, about a half page's worth of dialogue btween the two PIs re/Trek.

I seem to remember an Adam Sandler song/video - "Chanukah Song"?? - that listed celebrity Jews and mentioned Kirk and Spock.

I wish I had $5 for everytime I've heard "Scotty, beam me up" in life in movies or on TV! (Or, conversely, "Beam me up, Scotty.)

 

[S'kai]

This Thanksgiving my daughter brought a board/activity game called Cranium. It has a category of challenges called "mindmeld."

 

[Isis]

Media reports following the recent AMA awards:
“Lady Gaga, wearing a Vulcan-inspired head dress...”

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091123/ten-jackson-and-swift-success-at-awards-5f8abb3.html

 

[Isis]

I don't believe this. I'm sitting here watching Chris Matthews. He does this piece on presidential salutes and ends it with Obama doing "Live Long and Prosper" at state affairs. Interspersed with a photo of TOS Spock doing same. Talk about timing!

 

[Isis]

You may be thinking "Here's a woman with too much time on her hands," but here are three more:

The movie Zoolander had a character named Mugatu, played by Will Ferrell.

On a recent Dancing With the Stars, one of the male "stars" was wearing an obvious wig and the host said "Is that a tribble on your head?"

SCTV (remember that?) had one skit about a TV show called "Check Please," where Spock and McCoy own a diner. It had stuff like (and this is just a sense of it, I'm sure my memory here isn't too precise) a customer saying, "There's a fly in my soup," and Spock would ask McCoy how much extra to charge.

OK, promise to be quiet for a while...

 

[Yeoman Randi]

We've been hearing the term "The next generation" for a long time now, being used in all sorts of ways. But i do believe that it WAS inspired by TNG...

 

[S'kai]

The Obama/Spock thing has been around for a while. Fox "News" covered it thus:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/01/obama-science-buff-washingtons-mr-spock/?test=latestnews

 

[Too Much Fun]

"Hee-Haw: The Next Generation"

I think that's adorable. "Star Trek" has been parodied for years. I remember "Star Trek XII: So Very Tired" way back in season 4 of The Simpsons, but TNG isn't parodied as often, so I'm always delighted to see it referenced. It's nice to see animated caricatures of the TNG cast, both when it's funny (as in the above clip from "The Critic") and even when it isn't so inspired as on the "Family Guy" episode where Picard and Riker are making fun of Worf's head.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

SCTV (remember that?) had one skit about a TV show called "Check Please," where Spock and McCoy own a diner. It had stuff like (and this is just a sense of it, I'm sure my memory here isn't too precise) a customer saying, "There's a fly in my soup," and Spock would ask McCoy how much extra to charge.

Spock mentiones that he had told a joke about a fly in someone's soup, and that it was doing a version of the 'Klingon backstroke'. McCoy says, 'Everybody knows Vulcans aren't funny!' and tells Spock to get the anti-gravity meatballs over to Table #5.

 

[I am not Spock]

"Hee-Haw: The Next Generation"

I think that's adorable. "Star Trek" has been parodied for years. I remember "Star Trek XII: So Very Tired" way back in season 4 of The Simpsons, but TNG isn't parodied as often, so I'm always delighted to see it referenced. It's nice to see animated caricatures of the TNG cast, both when it's funny (as in the above clip from "The Critic") and even when it isn't so inspired as on the "Family Guy" episode where Picard and Riker are making fun of Worf's head.

Even rarer is when DS9 or VOY is parodied. An example is the Quark Griffin skit in Family Guy. And Comic Book Guy tries to download Janeway porn (ew) in the Simpsons.

 

[DevilEyes]

"Hee-Haw: The Next Generation"

I think that's adorable. "Star Trek" has been parodied for years. I remember "Star Trek XII: So Very Tired" way back in season 4 of The Simpsons, but TNG isn't parodied as often, so I'm always delighted to see it referenced. It's nice to see animated caricatures of the TNG cast, both when it's funny (as in the above clip from "The Critic") and even when it isn't so inspired as on the "Family Guy" episode where Picard and Riker are making fun of Worf's head.

Even rarer is when DS9 or VOY is parodied. An example is the Quark Griffin skit in Family Guy. And Comic Book Guy tries to download Janeway porn (ew) in the Simpsons.

Don't forget that The Simpsons had an episode called Deep Space Homer.

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

Saw this in a local flyer last night and got a good kick out of it...

 

[Yeoman Randi]

^ HEH! Thats GREAT! i love it!

 

[Isis]

SCTV (remember that?) had one skit about a TV show called "Check Please," where Spock and McCoy own a diner. It had stuff like (and this is just a sense of it, I'm sure my memory here isn't too precise) a customer saying, "There's a fly in my soup," and Spock would ask McCoy how much extra to charge.

Spock mentiones that he had told a joke about a fly in someone's soup, and that it was doing a version of the 'Klingon backstroke'. McCoy says, 'Everybody knows Vulcans aren't funny!' and tells Spock to get the anti-gravity meatballs over to Table #5.

Thank you, Dusty. Your memory, or the reference you're using, is a lot better than mine.

 

[Commander Rabbit]

I'm in the midst of reading Nevada Barr's newest mystery, Winter Study. She writes this about the protagonist, a middle-aged National Park Service ranger:

"Anna knew pretty close to nothing about cell phones. For much of her career, no one had such a thing, except for the crew of the Starship Enterprise."

 

[S'kai]

From the New York Times Book Review December 13, 2009, an essay on Fowler's "Dictionary of Modern English Usage," Jim Holt writes:

. . . he mocked the pains people go through to avoid ending their sentences with prepositions. When it came to the notorious split infinitive (e.g.,"to boldly go where no man . . ."), he observed that those English speakers who neither know nor care about them "are to be envied" by the unhappy few who do.