Where No Parody Has Gone Before
When writers of sitcoms, whether they are animated or live action, are creating an episode that will contain elements of Science Fiction and/or the culture that follows it, they will try to show that they are just like us by cramming in references to every known science fiction television show and movie, especially Star Trek (particularly Star Trek the Original Series, the first and best-known part of the franchise). When dealing with a parody of Star Trek, the elements most commonly found are:
- People in Rubber Suits, Rubber Forehead Aliens or Human Aliens make up the majority of the extraterrestrial populace; these are usually male characters.
- A Green-Skinned Space Babe, to add some sexual diversity.
- Very incomprehensible Techno Babble
- A Red Shirt who will always die, no matter what.
- A pointy-eared, emotionless, alien who warns about the situation being "illogical".
- An extremely hammy captain who can only act on impulse and speak in long, drawn-out sentences.
- Very, Very, very bad visual effects.
- An uplifting musical intro, followed by the Captain's Log.
- A very surly, pessimistic medical officer, typically in his mid-forties or early fifties.
- A morbidly obese Scotsman with a sometimes incomprehensibly thick accent.
Compare May the Farce Be with You, which is the same thing, but with Star Wars. May involve Critical Research Failure if done painfully badly.
A subtrope of Stock Parodies and Whole-Plot Reference.
Examples of Where No Parody Has Gone Before include:
Anime and Manga
Film
- Galaxy Quest, an Affectionate Parody of everything Trek that borders on Take That and Deconstructive Parody.
Live Action Television
- The Big Bang Theory takes this Up to Eleven.
- Community, aside from having a semi-regular parody of Doctor Who, also has a number of Star Trek shout-outs. Pierce dressed as Captain Kirk for the second Halloween Episode, and Troy and Abed's Dreamatorium is basically a low-tech Holosuite. Troy is also known to be a long-standing admirer of LeVar Burton, albeit more for Reading Rainbow.
- The earliest known televised parody of Star Trek was on the December 4, 1967, episode of The Carol Burnett Show, in which Leonard Nimoy appeared as Mr. Spock in a sketch (during the show's original run). One of the many revivals of the show did another, more conventional parody in 1990-91.
- Saturday Night Live famously parodied Star Trek in its first season (1976), in the celebrated "Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise" sketch. John Belushi played Kirk and Chevy Chase played Spock.
- The Two Ronnies parodied Star Trek in this 1973 sketch. Corbett played Kirk and Barker played Spock.
Magazines
- What is likely the first-ever parody of Star Trek, imaginatively titled "Star Bleech", was published in the December, 1967, issue of Mad Magazine. A joke used in that issue (Spock saying "He could not believe his ears"), was actually re-used in the show itself (in the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles").
Video Games
- Space Quest usually throws a handful of Star Trek jokes into a game, but Space Quest Five sent up nearly every Trope in the classic show's playbook.
Western Animation
- Futurama is loaded with references to Star Trek, from the obscure to the well-known, to the point it is the Trope Codifier and Trope Namer. For example, the sliding door technology that was commonly used in ships in the Star Trek Universe had been adapted for everyday use in the Futurama one, although it doesn't always quite work.
- Another example comes from the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before". In that episode, the fanbase for Star Trek had grown into a full-blown religion, getting to the point where Germany recreated the planet of the Nazis. In the end, all the episodes and movies, along with mentioning the phrase "Star Trek" was banned to a distant planet.
- Recurring character Captain Zapp Brannigan has been described by David X Cohen as "half Captain Kirk, half actual William Shatner." The character makes several references to Captain Kirk including a Captain's Log (Just him dictating his experiences to his second in command Kif).
- On an early episode of Family Guy Peter became obsessed with watching television, to the point it interfered with any chance of Meg getting her driver's license and caused the destruction of Quahog's television satellite. One of the shows Peter was watching was an extremely watered-down version of Star Trek. It came as a neat bit of Foreshadowing too, when in that same episode William Shatner tried to convince Peter to watch television again after Peter had experienced a life-changing event.
- In the episode Road To Rupert Stewie's teddy bear is accidentally sold at a yard sale, prompting him and Brian to go retrieve it. At one point Stewie thinks that his bear is dead and imagines his funeral being similar to that of Spock's at the end of The Wrath of Khan, complete with Stewie and Brian playing "Amazing Freaking Grace" on the bagpipes.
- Animaniacs has an episode parodying Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- The Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Duck Trek" features Plucky as Captain Kirk and Furrball (in his only speaking role) as Dr. McCoy.
- Littlest Pet Shop also did a Trek parody.
- One episode of The Chipmunks at the Movies parodied the Star Trek movies.
- The Veggie Tales short "The Gourds Must Be Crazy", which introduces Jimmy and Jerry the Gourd twins, and Scooter the Scottish carrot.
- The Garfield and Friends episode Swine Trek.
- This trope is abused to hell and back in The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, particularly whenever the main cast travels between planets. Their uniforms have a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Starfleet insignia on their uniforms, which also share the same color scheme. Squash inexplicably gains a hairstyle that makes him look like Spock. And, to top it all off, they travel in a spaceship that is basically a souped-up U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701 model).