Happy Birthday, Jonathan Frakes + Remembering Gene Roddenberry

Today, August 19th, is a big day for Star Trek. It is the birthday for the Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first officer Jonathan Frakes who is turning 58, and TNG’s one season chief medical officer, Diana Muldaur. It also happens to be the birthday of the man who started it all, Gene Roddenberry.
 

 

Happy Birthday, Jonathan Frakes

Four seven seasons and in four feature films, Jonathan Frakes’ William T. Riker brought served as the loyal first officer for the Next Generation of Star Trek. Frakes also became one of Trek’s most prominent actor-turned-directors, helming many episodes and two Trek feature films.

Frakes is also known for bringing a lot of fun to the set of TNG, and in honor of that, here are some fun Frakes/Riker videos, starting off with a collection of Riker bloopers.

As for today, Jonathan Frakes is now working regularly as a TV director, recently working on shows like Chuck, Persons Unknown, The Glades, Leverage, V, NCIS, Castle and more. Frakes recently directed an episode of The Good Guys, and here is a special web feature from that show on "Two Takes Frakes".

Happy Birthday, Diana Muldaur

Today is also the birthday to one of Frakes’ TNG co-stars, at least for one season, Diana Muldaur, who is turning 72. Muldaur had a couple of guest spots on the original Star Trek and played Dr. Pulaski as a series regular on The Next Generation, replacing Gates McFadden for TNG’s second season. Here is a second season promo announcing her addition to the cast.

Remembering Gene Roddenberry

August 19th is also the birthday for Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation creator Gene Roddenberry, who passed away in 1991. What else can be said about Gene? His vision is what made Star Trek possible, which led to inspiring millions to believe in a hopeful future.

To honor Gene today we present a brief video of Gene which demonstrates his vision, and his belief in a better humanity, and his love for the Star Trek fans.

 

 

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Frakes always strikes me as a warm down-to-earth individual when he’s chatting with fans!

Happy Birthday, Mr Frakes! Best TNG film director ever!

Happy Birthday to one Capt William T Riker of the U.S.S Titan. Oh ok. Happy Birthday to Johnathon Frakes. May you have many more and Live long and Prosper. Also. keep up the great work on your Directing. Loved what you did on N.C.I.S and the other great shows.

Happy Birthday to all on this day.

Happy Birthday to Number One, and Number One!!

It’s also Diana Muldaur’s birthday. I remember these because it would also have been my grandfather’s 82nd today.

Happy Birthday to Jonathan Frakes and Diana Muldaur today. May both of you and all those who are celebrating on your special day. I just turned 36 on August 9th of this year. This will go down as One of my greatest birthday celebrations ever. What a way to bring this Post-Millennial Decade to a close.

All my best wishes for the year ahead and many more as we move on to the 2nd decade of the 21st Century and of this new Millennium.

LLAP,

Andrew

Frakes is a true Star Trek legend.

To all a happy birthday both on earth and in the big sky

Happy Birthday to Frakes, Maldaur, and to the Great Bird!

Surprise birthday party time!

Happy Birthday to all those mentioned above. :)

I share a B-day with Frakes and Roddenberry :-)

Happy Birthday to Jonathan, Diana, & The Great Bird of the Galaxy!

Um, just a few typos here… You’d think I wrote it…

“Four seven seasons and in four feature films, Jonathan Frakes’ William T. Riker brought served as the loyal first officer for the Next Generation of Star Trek. Frakes also became one of Trek’s most prominent actor-turned-directors, helming many episodes and two Trek feature films.”

Happy Birthday john frakes.

I dunna’ know which eppie-sode o’ “Tha’ Glades” Frakes directed, but it be a fun show ta’ watch and each show be done quite well. At first I thought it wuz’ only aboot’ air freshener… I mean them gators do reek.

“First Contact” wuz’ on telly today… truly be Frake’s masterpiece.

Only, I ne’er saw any real “contact” in it… and Data wit’ tha’ Bjorg Queen woulda’ not have been his “first contact.”

Well, Frakes, mind yer’ beard as ye’ blow oot’ yer’ candles.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

Its my birthday too. Happy Birthday Frakes and Great bird.

It’s Bill Clinton’s Birthday today too. Wow.

Happy Birthday Mr. Frakes!

Make it so!

Thank you for being such a great, down to Earth guy!

Happy Birthday Mr. Franks. :]

Oh, to have been born just five days later and share such the day with these wonderful folks. Happy birthday to all of ye.

Meanwhile, there was some serious spazzing-out on that old TNG promo. I was getting a little dizzy there.

I find his talk about how they were trying to fight racism by portraying so many different races somewhat funny, considering almost everyone in the original pilot was white.

Happy Birthday Mr Frakes! My favourite Trek movie director. :)

And many happy return to Ms Muldaur.

To all of you Jonathan,Diana,and to you Gene up there. Give my best wishes. To Majel. A wonderful blessed Bday to all of you! Thank you for putting together a dream or should I say a goal for all of mankind to work for and hopefully to reach. You showed us a great way to live our lives. We still have a lot to do . I guess we are a work still in progress. I was 14 years old when we met. I believed now as I did years ago. We can evolve above hate,greed,selfishness,cruelty,and to learn by hard work and softcaring. Accepting each other for our differances. To celebrate them IDEC. Thank you all for trying to show us out of the dark, and into the light of being the best we could be. God bless all of you and just plain Happy Bday! PS its a shame SYFY could’t have run a trek marathon to honor your special day. Oh well! Have fun!

That promo announcing Diana Muldaur reminds me mostly of how great the late Ernie Anderson was who’s the voice over announcer on that one. Great voice. “This Saturday night…on The Love Boooooat”

Happy B-Day, Jonathan, and congrats on directing an episode of the Glades.

Happy bday to Gene n Diana n Jonathon—Gene Roddenberrys birthday was noted by none other than Majel Barrett herself back on Saturday August 19th as a huge sold out crowd held up champagne glasses as we celebrated Treks 40th Anniversary in 2006 at the Creation Convention in Vegas–the one and only convention I have been able to attend-will never forget Majel and Rod and Adam toasting Trek-Majel mentioned that Adam forgot that was Genes birthday–Now she is with Gene-IDIC indeed—As we all remember Genes vision of hope for the future may we all help to make it so—

Gene, Trek has lived long and has prospered.

its given us all hope and been there for us when times have been bad, we have used it as a tool to bring hope to our lives and used it as a way of seeing past racial differences.

May the great bird of the galaxy continue on its journey….

2nd star to the right…. Straight on till morning…..

oh and Jonathan Frakes rocks!!

Jonathan Frakes is the coolest :D

Happy birthday, Gene, Jonathan and Diane.

Happy Birthday, Gene!

May we all work hard and do what we can to acheive your vision.

As a birthday present, let’s put him in charge of Trek on TV by giving him the producer’s chair for a TNG miniseries on SyFy!!

Happy birthday to all!

Happy birthday to both, but especially to Frakes. Nothing against the venerable Ms. Muldaur, but Riker’s always been my favorite character on TNG. Such a sense of fun, a healthy ability to question the rules, and one of the greatest grins ever to grace the small screen. I think, if we ever see Caffrey’s dad on White Collar, they should definitely cast Frakes. He should also get another movie role one of these days. He’d be great as the new J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man reboot. Or, in another comic book role, he could be the new Riddler. Best of luck to such a fine actor on getting a good part in something.

That’s funny. The promo mispronounces “Data.”

It’s a perfectly acceptable way of pronouncing the word, but it’s pretty clearly established that Data in TNG is pronounced ‘Day-tuh’, so the announcer must have just looked at the word and thought, ‘I’ll read it how I tend to think of that word’, not, ‘that’s a character and I should make sure I get it right.’

That entire promo had me laughing though. I was born barely a year prior, so the method used in making it is really, really outdated to me. It was hilarious and almost gave me a seizure all at once.

Happy birthday to Jonathan Frakes and Diana Muldaur and to Gene, the legend that started it all.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan and Gene!
It’s an honor to share a Birthday with you!
Live long and prosper! :)

Happy Birthday to JF! He’s a great guy.

lol – Jonathan Frakes always reminds me of my granddad because of the beard and even his personality when playing Riker on TNG. Happy Birthday Mr. J. Frakes!

I may be in the minority on this, but despite the fact that her character was conceived as a carbon copy female “Bones”, I actually liked Diana Muldaur’s Doctor Pulaski much better than Crusher (it’s too bad the studio didn’t). As someone who’s spent a lengthy (and unfortunate) amount of time in hospitals, I found her much more believable as a Doctor. Crusher always seemed a little too ‘new age/spacey’ for me; and her and Wesley never really connected as mother/son IMO. Not to mention Crusher’s practice of medicine bordered on incompetent at times.

And, of course, Muldaur was a doll in her TOS episodes (“Return to Tomorrow” especially so)!
; )

Happy (belated) Birthday to Diana Muldaur, Johnathan Frakes and of course, the guy responsible for all of this, the late Gene Roddenberry!

to #35, just a little note…

in the “Bible” for TNG, written when the show was being developed… it is very clear that Data’s name was pronounced “THAT-a”… they spell it out phonetically there. It was one of the things that I questioned when I heard Picard say “DAY-ta” in his first line… I guess they changed it at the last minute.

I worked with Frakes briefly as a concept artist on the movie “Clockstoppers”… he was congenial and friendly… but I was a bit disappointed when he started badmouthing the direction on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (I had told him about the Director’s Edition that I had just finished working on at the time) and he was starting out with snide remarks about the camera movement in the film… not very cool…

But I wish him a happy birthday nonetheless.

And a belated Birthday wish to the memory of Gene Roddenberry… A flawed man who showed us how good we could be.

HAHAhaha that promo is hilarious!! Staaaaaaaaaaar trk, to boldly go where none went, starring whoopi goldberg as…some person!! and introducing a brand new room!! wooooooooo!! Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar trk… ( seizure )

^ That Promo was put together by the syndication folks & boy is it cornball to the nth degree & then some.

Nowadays promos cut to the chase & are a lot shorter, due to short attention spans from the current generation of advertising on TV.

This season on LOST [ buncha random images flash on the screen ]

Like the promos made any more logic then the show itself did
[ heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh ]

You say it’s your birthday (music), Well it’s my birthday too yeah (8-19-1966; born on the exact day they recorded the music for the first airing episode of Trek).

Happy Birthday, JF!

My Favorite Director!

This is pathetic. They need to spell check these articles more carefully. Or do they spell check them at all? It says “Four seven seasons and four feature films…” Seriously? It’s “For seven seasons”! And then it says “he brought served…” Just “served,” not “brought served.”

Honestly, you need better spell checking. It’s very unprofessional.

Frakes should of been Rett Butler in the Mini series Scarlet, not Timothy Dalton.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU FRAKES!!! You are truly the best Star Trek Director ever!!!

feliz santoyo, muchachones,

Happy Birthday, Johnathan Frakes, Diana Muldaur and of course Gene, the master who started it all!