SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE spoofs Star Trek (again!) AND billionaire astronauts…

Saturday Night Live has never shied away from parodying Star Trek…starting way back in their first season (1976) when JOHN BELUSHI, CHEVY CHASE, DAN AKROYD, and ELLIOTT GOULD brought viewers the unforgettably hilarious “Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise.” Since then, their parodies have been somewhat hit-and-miss, with mixed reviews on such sketches as “The Restaurant Enterprise,” Love Boat: The Next Generation,” “Emergency Room/Worf, M.D.” and the recent “Lost Episode” featuring CHRIS PINE as Captain Kirk and BOBBY MOYNIHAN as Spock’s vulgar half-brother from Queens, Spocko. Now THAT’S a Star Trek!

The last one was also the latest parody of Star Trek until this past Saturday night when SNL kicked off its 47th season (c’mon, you’ve GOT to have a Star Trek sketch when the season is 47!), with host OWEN WILSON. Take a look:

As Homer Simpson would say, “It’s funny because it’s true.”

Now, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to make two editorial observations…

First off, billionaires have been getting MUCH more interesting lately! Granted, none of them are dressing up like a bat at night and fighting crime in Gotham City or designing suits of flying armor and leading a team of superheroes. But even still, building rockets to take civilians and other payloads into space is pretty darn cool. I mean, a century ago, a “typical” billionaire looked like this:

John D. Rockerfeller, Henry Ford, and Andrew Mellon

These guys were certainly impressive and all—successful businessmen, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, patrons of art and science, and even one a secretary of the treasury. But were they fun? I mean, no complaints about making automobiles affordable to the masses or starting a top notch university…but fun?

Billionaires became more fun with this fellow:

That’s WILLIAM RANDOPH HEAST…the man built a frickin’ CASTLE on the central California coast, fer gosh sakes!!! And then he would invite famous celebrities, political leaders, and brilliant minds from all over the world to come and stay there, asking only that they attend communal dinners and certain other gatherings to share their thoughts, ideas, and perspectives with each other and with him. Seriously, if you ever have a chance to visit Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, and learn its history, it’s totally worth the visit. It’s fascinating!

And who could forget this guy…?

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AKIRA YOSHIMURA reprises his role as SULU on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE…41 years later!

Does a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE sketch count as a Star Trek fan film?  Aw, who cares?  This is still a really fun story…

The earth date was May 29, 1976, and Saturday Night Live (SNL) was about to air the 22nd episode of their first season.  The cutting-edge sketch comedy series had become a late night TV hit, and Elliott Gould was the host for that week’s show.  The writers had come up with a clever skit (that has since become a true classic) entitled Star Trek: The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise.  The legendary JOHN BELUSHI played an over-the-top, Shatneresque Captain James T. Kirk.  CHEVY CHASE played a perfectly deadpan Mr. Spock.  And the awesome DAN AYKROYD played both Dr. McCoy and provided a voice-over of Scotty on the com from Engineering.

During the skit, the Enterprise is chased by a 1968 Chrysler Imperial with a tinted windshield, registered to a 20th century corporation known as “NBC” (which, according to the ship’s computer, used to manufacture cookies).  The starship is boarded by Elliott Gould and Garrett Morris, two executives from the network announcing that Star Trek has been canceled due to low Nielsen ratings.  Hilarity ensues…mostly thanks to the brilliant performances of the main actors.

DORIS POWELL as Uhura, CHEVY CHASE as Spock, John BELUSHI as Kirk, and AKIRA YOSHIMURA as Sulu.

There was only one problem at the time: SNL didn’t have an Asian comedian or actor available to play Sulu.  Rather than leave the helm seat empty (which wouldn’t work anyway, as Kirk orders evasive action during the sketch), the producers grabbed one of the production designers, a Japanese-American named AKIRA YOSHIMURA, to play Sulu.  There also wasn’t a black woman available to play Uhura, so a production assistant named DORIS POWELL was put into a red uniform (with the wrong rank braids).  Both people were given a bit of of dialog to speak, although Yoshimura got nearly a dozen lines (and flubbed two of them)…but hey, at least he was willing to be on camera in front of millions of people!

Flash forward to May 6 of 2017.  Actor CHRIS PINE (who plays James T. Kirk in the rebooted Star Trek movie series) was the SNL host, and the writers decided to once again feature a Star Trek skit.  There was only one problem: it was four decades later and Saturday Night Live STILL didn’t have an Asian comedian or actor available to play Sulu!

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