I remember my dad taking young me to the Memorial Coliseum to hear the Great Bird of the Galaxy himself, Gene Roddenberry, talk about Star Trek, which was, at the time, one of my passions. I don’t remember much about what Roddenberry said – hey, it was many years ago: 30? More? – but I do remember the Star Trek Gag Reel.
The Gag Reel was a film they showed at the end of Roddenberry’s talk, and it was made up of bloopers and funny bits from the classic Star Trek show, the original run. This was before any of the movies had been made, so classic Star Trek was the only Star Trek.
In the gag reel, I saw Scotty shoveling stuff into the warp engines (he was going pretty fast; must have been at least Warp 5); I saw McCoy and Nurse Chapel shaken around, causing the good doctor to grab Nurse Chapel’s, um, nacelles; I saw Spock break up and laugh again and again. And more. It was delightful, and a wonderful memory for this old nerd.
Kids these days don’t have to traipse off to some distant sports arena to view such things, though. They have the internet bring the gag reels and the talks straight to their iPhones and X-Boxen.
Like this one, for the recent Star Trek reboot:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfRjyRtlDOw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]
It’s a tradition that goes back decades. Enjoy.