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[PREVIEW] Star Trek Sketches (Patreon Exclusive)

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[PREVIEW] Star Trek Sketches (Patreon Exclusive)

This special Patreon-only episode of *It's All Been* features a detailed exploration of classic comedy sketches from influential shows like Silent Live, SCTV, Carol Burnett, MadTV, and Living Color. The hosts focus on individual sketches rather than rankings, offering thoughtful analysis and personal reflections. A key highlight is the Silent Live sketch "The Last Voyage," which humorously and poignantly captures the emotional aftermath of Star Trek’s cancellation in the 1970s. The sketch, originally conceived by John Belushi—a passionate Star Trek fan—was initially met with skepticism but ultimately proved to be a standout, showcasing his distinctive comedic timing and emotional depth. The discussion reveals Belushi’s personal connection to the franchise, including a documented friendship with Force Kelly, who admired the sketch and was deeply affected by Belushi’s passing. The hosts also reflect on how revisiting these sketches today—after decades of exposure to both Star Trek and modern comedy—offers new layers of meaning and emotional resonance. This episode not only celebrates the history of comedy and fandom but also underscores the lasting cultural impact of Star Trek on 20th-century entertainment.

Transcription

998 Words, 5199 Characters

English
(soft music) - Thank you, Basheon members, and glad you're here for this special bo-bo-bo-bo-bo bonus episode. That's, hopefully that's what you're here for, and not to mention the I, it's all been a rare, and all that stuff. But enough of me, thank you, thank you, thank you, for what you do for us. We love you. - Clearly you love us. - Let's talk comedy. Let's do it. Star Trek, sketch. Boom, it's all been truck before. - Welcome out to another episode of It's All Been. We're very, very special episode for Patreon Only Donors. We appreciate your support. Your regular hosts are all here. This is Steven. - Hey there, Roeva. Come on over. - That was cute. This is Jimmy Jerome, and this is our sketch, is episode. So we watched so like 20 sketches, from Silent Live, SCTV, Carol Burnett, MadTV, and Living Color. And we're gonna talk about each one, which means we're not gonna do a first impression. We're not gonna do a lot of our rankings that we normally do. We're just gonna talk through each of these individual sketches because there's so many, and we wanna get through 'em. Let's talk first about the Silent Live sketches. That's by far the longest list we went through. The first Silent Live sketch was called The Last Voyage, and it was like a essentially like end of season three, early season four episode of TOS, where they were just smelling the sets around them, because they got canceled. - Yeah. - Yeah, this is-- - 1970's SNL. - Yeah, '76. And I think, I know it's seen Star Trek before I started watching SNL, but I probably got more deep in SNL before I got deep into Star Trek. So I think I started watching SNL the season after this one. So this was on the, I think the last episode of, maybe the first season of SNL. It was near the end of the first season, yeah. - Yeah. - So it's spring of 1976. So seven years after Star Trek was canceled? - Maybe it was another year later. '77, I think I started watching every week. We were allowed to stay up and watch it. Or I actually started watching it instead of watching L, just movies or whatever. Anyway, so yeah, I just missed it, but this is the classic. I think it's really smart. It's amazing to me. This one, and there's a couple of other ones that are like 12 minutes long, which I don't think they do 12 minute sketches on their, even the Jom and Laney musical sketches speaking of another bonus patch on episode. I don't even think they're that long. But I read about this in some of my read, which was, it didn't dawn on me until just now, until, you know, we watched this. But for a while, this was the last Star Trek fans had. You know, this is before the movie was announced. You know, so because Star Wars hasn't come out yet. You know, and somebody tongue in cheek was like, yeah, this is why I Rod and Mary decided to come back and make movies 'cause of this. Yeah, but this was always referenced as, you know, whenever they talked about, well, you know, never executives or idiots. And then how could Star Trek have been canceled? And I just thought it was really smart. There's some, there's some, some of the cliche things that I think are better done here than later. And you got a great cast. - I agree. As far as the better done here than in some of the later things. - Yeah, and I think I even think, you know, Belushi doing some of the shatter, but I think he's even, and for somebody like Belushi who was supposed to be big of Mario, is someone he does that has the taking chatter, but a lot of it's little subtle things. And I really like that too, Ben. - Belushi was a Star Trek fan. He really wanted to do the sketch. This was like Belushi's brainchild. And even in the run through, they didn't think he was doing a good enough crime, but they almost pulled it. - Yep, yep, yep. They didn't go on personal. They didn't feel like he had it yet. And then, but they got it. They said, and they later years, they always compared Chris Florida, Belushi too, for a number of reasons, but they were like, you know what, we think when the lights are on, he's gonna pull it off and he did, obviously. An interesting thing, I read that I had never, knew before it was Belushi and the force Kelly had offices, like in the same studio building somewhere. And so Belushi told her about, and the force Kelly was like, I gotta see this. And so he showed it to him. And so they, they were kind of buddies to a point. So when Belushi passed away, the force Kelly was really, really broken up about that hit him hard. So I never knew that those two, and I don't know that they hung out all the time, but obviously they had some kind of friendship, which is kind of cool. - Well, I mean, there's several things I wanted to say about this conceptually, which are, I mean, from this list, there's maybe one or two of these things I hadn't seen before at some point. This is one of the ones I probably popped up a lot. And I just watched a lot of the reruns, the certain point was religiously watching us know for a while. The, a lot of these are hitting much differently now than they were when I first saw them when I was a kid. And certainly much differently now that I've been watching much more Star Trek. And it,

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The episode features a deep dive into various comedy sketches from classic shows like Silent Live, SCTV, Carol Burnett, MadTV, and Living Color, with a focus on analyzing individual sketches rather than ranking them.
  2. A standout sketch from Silent Live, “The Last Voyage,” mimics the end-of-season tone of Star Trek, capturing the emotional and nostalgic reactions of fans after the show’s cancellation in the 1970s.
  3. John Belushi, a known Star Trek fan, created the sketch as a personal project, and despite initial doubts, it became a celebrated piece of comedy, reflecting his deep admiration for the franchise and his unique comedic style.

Summary:

This special Patreon-only episode of *It's All Been* features a detailed exploration of classic comedy sketches from influential shows like Silent Live, SCTV, Carol Burnett, MadTV, and Living Color. The hosts focus on individual sketches rather than rankings, offering thoughtful analysis and personal reflections. A key highlight is the Silent Live sketch "The Last Voyage," which humorously and poignantly captures the emotional aftermath of Star Trek’s cancellation in the 1970s.

The sketch, originally conceived by John Belushi—a passionate Star Trek fan—was initially met with skepticism but ultimately proved to be a standout, showcasing his distinctive comedic timing and emotional depth. The discussion reveals Belushi’s personal connection to the franchise, including a documented friendship with Force Kelly, who admired the sketch and was deeply affected by Belushi’s passing. The hosts also reflect on how revisiting these sketches today—after decades of exposure to both Star Trek and modern comedy—offers new layers of meaning and emotional resonance.

This episode not only celebrates the history of comedy and fandom but also underscores the lasting cultural impact of Star Trek on 20th-century entertainment.

FAQs

It's a tribute to the end of Star Trek, imagining the crew reacting to the show's cancellation in 1976. The sketch is considered a clever and poignant piece of comedy that resonated with fans at the time.

Yes, John Belushi was the original creator of the sketch and had a deep passion for Star Trek. He even showed it to his friend, Force Kelly, who appreciated it.

Yes, Belushi and Force Kelly were friends who shared a studio building and had a mutual appreciation for each other’s work, which deepened after Belushi shared the sketch with him.

It captures the emotional tone of Star Trek's cancellation with humor and authenticity, and it predates the Star Wars release, making it a unique cultural moment in 1970s comedy.

Some sketches, like 'The Last Voyage,' are around 12 minutes long, which is longer than typical SNL sketches of that era.

They initially thought it wasn’t strong enough to go on air, but they eventually approved it, believing Belushi would deliver a standout performance.

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