Last night’s episode of Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim once again took on Star Trek, this time the character of Wesley Crusher. And what makes it even funnier is Wil Wheaton seems bummed he wasn’t asked to do the voice. Details and link to video below.
Wesley hate – the skit
The premise of the joke was how the Star Trek The Next Generation writers were going to deal with the unpopularity of the character of Wesley Crusher. The bit has the Star Trek writers introduce a new character (‘Snirkles’) that is even more annoying than Wesley. You can watch it at cliqueclack.com.
CLICK TO SEE AT CLIQUECLACK.COM
And apparently Wil Wheaton thinks it was great and wishes he did the voice. Here is a Tweet he sent out about it last night:
Holy crap, Robot Chicken! That was hilarious and awesome. Yes, I would have done Wesley’s voice in a heartbeat, if @cyborgturkey had asked.
More Robot Chicken Trek
Of course Robot Chicken has dipped into Trek many times before, most recently with the perfect Wrath of Khan Opera in January.
See our last article for more Robot Chicken Star Trek video
Wil is soooo cool about shit like this! Awesome!
Snirkle rules! Wesley drools!
Funny clip, but the WOK opera still takes the cake.
I Loved it! I was also wondering why Wilh Wheaton did not do the voice cuz I knew he woulda wanted to….haha Also they really were not skewering Wil per se just the writers who wrote the character badly—
Well, we can now add “as*srape” to the list of approved verbs.
I love Robot Chicken.
Snirkle Snirkle!
Good for Wil. He’s a class act for being down to earth enough to laugh at himself.
as above….
Snirkle Snirkle!
SNIRKLEEEEEE HE SHOULD APPEAR NEXT TO WEEBLS OR WHATEVER ON STAR TREK XII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kill Wesley Keep Snirlkes. That’s funny!
“Kill Wesley. Keep Snirkles.”
ha! Good stuff.
Snirkle for Trek 12!!
I seriously loved that Le Wrath di Khan. They should turn TWOK into a Broadway musical like that. Isn’t it about time Star Trek makes it to Broadway?
I think they need to be nicer to WHill WHeaton.
Am I the only TNG fan who… didn’t really mind Wesley Crusher? Yeah he certainly wasn’t one of the more interesting characters on the show, but I never found him overtly annoying or ridiculous or anything.
Frankly, I would have rather watched a Wesley episode than a Troi episode ANY day. I don’t think she ever got a decent episode to herself, where Wes got at least 3 or 4.
You have obviously never seen Face of the Enemy where she played a Tal Shiar operative, not just a good Troi episode but one of the best of the series.
@13
Why are you putting so much emphasis on the “WH”?
@16
I believe 13 is referencing the Cool WHip bit from an episode of Family Guy.
They Should Keep Snirkles for the Next Star Trek movie
I just watched all seasons of TNG a couple months ago and I liked His character. Hated it how when he came back 2 times and he was basically an ass. They really fowled up his character in the last couple seasons. Its a shame.
Im going through all the shows. Did TNG, im on last season of DS9 right now and then Voyager up next. Fun stuff when I can get 5 episodes in back to back lol
@DavidJ
I’m guessing the Wil Wheaton hate bandwagon was mostly ridden by the older fans back in the day. As a kid in the late 80s & early 90s, I didn’t mind Wesley Crusher, but then I’m probably the reason why the character was created in the first place: to have a connection with kids.
Rewatching the episdoes now, I can definitely see how older fans would have disliked Wesley. However, I still don’t hate the character. At times he was put to really good use, such as when Picard served as his father-type figure. But really, that has more to do with Picard’s character and the choice he made to give up the opportunity to have a family and focus on Starfleet instead (which, btw, is some of the most poignant stuff in all of TNG – The Inner Light as the prime example, among others).
Overall though, I am always impressed with Wil Wheaton and his humility over the whole thing. Seems like a good guy.
wil wheaton played guitar hero with my firends at a con once… he’s cool becuase he played longer than he had to because the line was so long.
its not your fault, wil, it was the writers…
yah the coolh whip joke-stewie did the same thing with wilh wheatons name on the tng episode of family guy-I also never disliked Wesley Crusher that much-yah they overused him as the brilliant kid deux ex machina in too many episodes but as others have mentioned there were quite a few good ones too-also Wil has written a story or two in the trek manga comics an they are pretty good…
I never even knew anyone hated Wesley before the internet came along.
Snirkles looks like the Philly Phanatic on a diet ;)
Maybe they can do a sequal replacing Snirkles with Jarr Jarr Binks.
I am ready to admit two things.
1) I really didn’t like the Wesley Crusher character too much. Didn’t hate it, just not a fan.
2)Wil Wheaton is pretty cool to take all that in stride. He got his paychecks and he’s a happy camper about it. Kudos to the guy.
And if anyone from Robot Chicken is reading this, what the hell are you waiting for? You get the actual celebrities to do their voices and you don’t ask Wheaton? And he WANTS to do the voice-overs? Are you guys mad? He’s a great sport, let him play ball for crying out loud!
Well, Snirkles is still better than Wesley. I have a hard time sitting thru TNG episodes when Wheaton is in them. He’s a lousy actor, cut and dry.
For that matter, Jar Jar is easier to watch than Wheaton as Crusher. Not sure why GR felt his character was necessary, but TNG would have been a better show without him.
You are completely correct they should add Snirkles into the next Trek movie!
Wessley was placed in the show to attract that age group of viewers. Gene said that Star Trek seemed made for the Parental age age group, and nothing for the teen group. So with family’s on the new Enterprise we need kids that grow up to make things look real to life. And Gene also said that in the Sixty’s TV was more like a Church Play than real life.
I saw this on a preshow promo I think on ET, I think it was a repeat because it was 6 days after “Encounter at Farpoint” premiered. In Denver that was in September 1989. What puzzles me is why does it say the show was made in 1987, did it take two years to produce the Movie?
And last week I got a uncut copy of the 96 minute movie.
Wesley bugged the crap out of me, but in the early seasons I found Will Riker a thousand times more irritating … he and Wesley were both Soulless Yuppies in Space, but at least Wesley had the excuse of being a kid and (more importantly) was just unselfconsciously dorky, while Riker made assorted laughable attempts to seem like a dude. Even stapling on some shoulder-pads and having him grow chin-fuzz couldn’t make that happen.
And to be clear: I have, over the years, gained a real respect for both Wil Wheaton and Jonathan Frakes as I’ve learned more about them. So, not at all a complaint about the actors, just the way they were being written and directed in character.
Plus, in later seasons, Riker finally grew some man-parts and Wesley became considerably less annoying as well. By the end of the run I enjoyed the whole cast, if not always the actual episodes.
Hmm. I wonder if shoulder-pads and chin-fuzz would help the new Kirk & Spock? And more to the point, can Orci and Kurtzman find the writing chops to do justice to Snirkles?
Sigh. Man, I need a banjo song.
#28: “Wessley was placed in the show to attract that age group of viewers.”
A tactic which crops up a lot, and always seems odd to me. When I was that age, I identified with Leonard McCoy and Han Solo and Indiana Jones and Rick Deckard and Gil Gerard’s Buck Rogers. I never wanted to identify with Short Round or Heironymus Fox, and didn’t understand why these brats were standing around obstructing my view of the action.
I detest Wesley Crusher: his character was an American TV stereotype as opposed to the archetypes that made TOS work so well.
I have a lot of time for Wil Wheaton though. He talks a lot of sense and some of the stuff he says about TNG is hilarious. I mean, if Dennis Bailey in one of his very witty reviews, were to say some of the stuff Will Wheaton says, he’s be hanged drawn and quartered by some fans!
Snirkle! Hilarious. I wish Wil had done the voice though.
#31: I never really minded Wesley as a character. I understood what Roddenberry was trying to do by having him on the ship, and just went with it. (I do, on the other hand, mind Bailey’s reviews; the ones I’ve read are more snarky than witty.)
I think it’s coll that Wil has a sense of humor about this. You know some celebrites would just get all indignat and pissed off if someone did something like this. Thanks for not being a jerk, Wil!
By all means!!! Snirkles is the best trek character created in the last 12 years!!! He beats both Janeway and Neelix!!!
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Re #30: “I never wanted to identify with Short Round or Heironymus Fox, and didn’t understand why these brats were standing around obstructing my view of the action.”
I don’t LOL often when reading posts, but that’s truth with awesome sauce, S. John. Eons ago, when I was a lad, I despised movies and TV shows about kids, because they Never Act Like Real Kids. They were either saying dopey, sappy things, or alternatively, behaving like smart alecks, showing up the hapless adults. I hated that. Like you, I identified with Steve McQueen, James West or Steve Austin — never kid characters.
Short Round … heh.
Scott B. out.
Kill Wesley.
Keep Snirkles.
OK, so did anyone notice a continuity error in this? The writers said it was Season 3, but Worf’s hair is clearly in his Season 7 pony. Ha! I love loving Star Trek.
I also was annoyed by Wesley, simply because they made him another ‘wunderkind’. If he’s been just a normal lad who was befriended by the crew, and mentored by Picard, he would have been much better.
Actually, if he had been written as a young, early, exceptional graduate from Starfleet Academy, who was in training aboard the Enterprise, the character would have been much more palatableand believable. Especially, when he was made defacto navigator.
About the only kid character in SciFi/Fantasy I ever liked whilst growing up was Will Robinson on ‘lost in space’. He was written to have a high I.Q. but still acted like a normal kid ( of course, why would a kid with a really high I.Q. hang around with a troublemaking, homicidal, potential pedophile like Dr. Smith?)
Maybe we should open a petition to add Snirkles in the Orcy/Kurtzmann script.
#41: They’d just re-imagine him as a bland, amoral yuppie Snirkles steeped in his own sense of entitlement and airbrushed to the gills for magazine covers … Sure, we could console ourselves with the fact that the “real” Snirkles still exists in the Prime timeline, but would it be worth the pain of seeing the character’s noble, heroic banjo-thrashing machismo sullied just to make a glossy new product?
I say we keep _some_ things about Star Trek sacred, and I can’t imagine any element more deserving than our buddy Snirkles.
Did Snirkles remind anyone else of the Q character?
I liked the idea of Wes Crusher, having a boy prodigy in space. Aspergers-sci-fi-nerds holla!
But did they have to give him a rainbow suit?