Almost 30 years ago, Jean-Luc Picard set the course for “Romance and Love”

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Patrick Stewart on Saturday Night Live

The American sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” is considered an incubator for young film and television talents. The stars who can catch some of SNL’s rise to stardom are Will Ferrell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy and the victim of “the slap that’s been heard around the world” – Chris Rock.

During the show’s 40-plus year run, there have been some references to “star trek.” This includes one-off jokes and parodies of performances by Trek’s biggest stars, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoyand Chris Kiefer. Shatner and Pine even poked fun at the franchise on the show, faking their time in the center seat aboard the USS Enterprise.

Shatner’s appearance on the show in December 1986 included one of the most famous Trek parodies of all time, known as “Trekkies”..” This would become known to fans of the franchise as the “Get A Life” sketch and would spawn a Documentary film directed by Shatner.

In recent years, SNL has picked up parodies from Millennials and Generation Zas well as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Both sketches were packaged in Star Trek.

Star Trek V: The Restaurant Enterprise

But an appearance by a Trek star often seems to go unnoticed. That star was Patrick Stewart, and he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1994 along with musical guests Salt-N-Pepa. Stewart hosted SNL on February 5, 1994, just months before Series finale of The Next Generation.”

Stewart appeared alongside SNL cast members Tim Meadows, David Spade, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers and the late Chris Farley and Phil Hartman. His opening monologue was all about his knowledge of Trek what was wrong. Another memorable sketch was when Stewart acted as the Owner of an erotic bakery. Another sketch presented Stewart with Tim Meadows as Michael Jackson.

Love Boat: The Next Generation

The skit, which “Star Trek” fans tuned into, starred Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Instead of searching for “new life and new civilizations,” this Picard ordered Mr. Data (Rob Schneider) to “set a course toward love.”

The skit combined the premise of “The Next Generation” with the ABC comedy show “The love boat.” Aside from the fact that both shows featured a bald white man as the captain, there was very little in common between “The Love Boat” and TNG.

The SNL cast assumed the roles of the TNG crew – Phil Hartman as Worf, Chris Farley as Riker, Tim Meadows as Geordi, Julia Sweeney as Troi and Ellen Cleghorne as Guinan. former Senator Al Franken played a Ferengi tourist while Melanie Hutsell “Love Boat” regular charo.

The sketch poked fun at both shows and ran for about eight minutes. Many of the jokes fell flat as the SNL cast struggled with Trek technobabble. Writer Jonathan Lane said the sketch was “absolutely terriblel,” but pointed out that actor Akira Yoshimura has returned to play Mr. Sulu. According to Lane, Yoshimura has been playing Sulu on SNL since 1976.

Remembering Stewart’s performance

Although Stewart’s time as host isn’t remembered as the best episode – most cast and writers, except for chief writer James DowneyShe would be leaving after this season – there were a few memorable things to date.

One of these was Stewart’s introduction of musicians Salt-N-Pepa (as seen above). Trek fans still smile at Sir Patrick’s enthusiasm.

Part of what made Love Boat: The Next Generation so fun were the uniforms, which combined the cruise ship’s casual look with the official TNG uniforms. Gone were black trousers; replaced by white uniforms and shorts. A group of fans keep this unique look alive today as they are known Cosplay in the classic TNG-SNL look at conventions.

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