On last night’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the host paid homage to Glenn Beck who is departing his show at FOX, and in so doing brought a certain sci-fi franchise into the mix identifying Star Trek as part of a vast conspiracy. Watch the Hulu clip below.
John Stewart spots the vast Star Trek Conspiracy
Watch the clip (via Hulu – USA only, sorrry).
Two weeks ago TrekMovie reported how FOX’s Glenn Beck used Star Trek to demonstrate a point about Good vs. Evil. But clearly this Star Trek connection goes much deeper. While he didn’t mention it by name, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart used his chalk board to get to the truth about Trek. Apparently there is some kind of conspiracy that involves Worldwide Communism, The Nielsen Company, the U.N., The French? (represented by the croissant), Burger King and Star Trek! The real question us Trekkies need to ask is: how did he find out?
Star Trek exposed as part of vast conspiracy
Thanks to Joshua for the tip
Just frakkin’ awesome. I have my issues with Jon Stewart, but when he’s on his game, there’s none better at deflating the pretensions of posturing nitwits. Thanks, Mr. Stewart!
Oh, Anthony, you ought to just close the comments down now….the s*** storm is swelling as we speak….
Ok. I have to ask that question as well. How did he find out about Trek being involved. Trek Movie. We have a Traitor and this Person or Persons need to be found and then brought to Terran Empire Justice. I can vouch for Harry and Aj that they are not involved and also for Anthony. So who could it be. 100,000 Bars of Gold Pressed Latinum.
3. Well the short answer is that JS and GB are entertainers first, and journelists never. I suspect they watch each others shows…
2–Phil–It should be starting any minute now:)
There should be 3 forbidden subjects on these boards–
1-politics
2-religion
3-Rick Berman
Stay away from those 3 and we should be allright.
Oh oh. Beck again. Better watch the comments folks. It might get us shut down again. I love the Daily Show and Jon Stewart is always funny when doing his Glenn Beck. Hey, not only is Stewart a Trekker but his Comedy Central partner Stephen Colbert is also one. Check out the TrekMovie story with Colbert and J.J. Abrams below. Colbert appears as a Romulan with Abrams in the first video. And it’s funny.
TrekMovie story with Colbert and Abrams video segments.
https://trekmovie.com/2009/09/29/jj-abrams-gives-a-star-trek-sequel-update-calls-in-to-colbert-report-video/
I agree with Mike. We’ve all worked very hard at this for years. 4,5 decades to be exact.
STAR TREK created:
Mobile Phones
iPad/tablets
Inter-racial sex
Interplanetary homosexual sex (K/S)
Talking female computers
Green uninhibited women
The Heisenberg compensator
Budweiser Classic
Something for George Lucas to directly rip off for “Bespin”
Beck’s favorite Excalbian Rock monster
It’s funny. Now the Excalbian has been finally mainstreamed in Tea Party circles.
“The Savage Curtain” ranks near “The Empath” and “Alternative Factor” in terms of re-watchability. Yet, it produced the concepts of Surak, Kahless and Colonel Green.
awesome!
@ 7 AJ
Funny AJ. Hey, a Star Trek writer pointed out that “The Empath” demonstrated the great affinity that Kirk, Spock and McCoy had for each other. Remember how McCoy knocks out Spock so he could be the one to be tortured. Couldn’t agreee more with that writer. We need more of the trinity in the next Star Trek film. That means more McCoy.
#7
Interracial sex?
Pretty sure that existed long before Star Trek.
10–I think he meant inter-species sex.
#5
RICK BERMAN!!!!!!! I knew he was part of it all along… I should have seen it coming!!
hahah
11. At least back to Thomas Jefferson….
Ah, here we go again. Another Beck related article on its way to Closed Commentsville.
well these comments are going to be closed faster than you can say “government shutdown” …
zing!
I predicted this back on post 2. And for my next trick, the winning lottery numbers will be 6,17,24,39,41, and the mega number is 4.
Please feel free to send me 10% of the winnings….
@ 7
“The Savage Curtain” ranks near “The Empath” and “Alternative Factor” in terms of re-watchability. Yet, it produced the concepts of Surak, Kahless and Colonel Green.
Well I’ll agree with you on “The Empath” and “Alternative Factor” but I’ve always liked “The Savage Curtain”. Yes, some cool back story history on Earth and Vulcan and a super cool Kirk Fu moment of Kirk having Colonel Green fall back on his own knife. But then again I’m the guy who gets a kick out of “The Way to Eden” and I’m the guy, who as a kid, never thought that Adam West’s portrayal of Batman was campy. Nor did I ever think a thing about the original Star Trek’s original special effects as being bad. Guess I took my heroes as they were.
This post is about some silly fun. So i am going to try to keep this open.
but any political trolling, flaming, partisan bickering or the like will just get deleted and earn the poster a week long ban
So have fun or just skip it
But can I comment on my own tip?
20. Original Trek’s effects weren’t bad at all! They were state of the art for their day and I prefer watching them over the remasters.
Actually, The No Money Federation is a communist society, Their logo looks sort of like the UN symbol, the captain of their flagship in the 24th century is French and eats croissants for breakfast, and Burger King did a Star Trek movie tie in within the last two years… so they all really are related in some sort of uber-Trekkie Conspiracy!
20 – I took it all in. Mediocre Trek eps, Lost In Space, Dark Shadows, until my mind was Silly Putty… which I also liked.
I actually liked it when “Alternative Factor” rolled through the rotation. “Savage Curtain,” too. “Empath,” and “Mark of Gideon” were the dull ones.
Anyhoo — Love Jon Stewart, even when I don’t agree with him. Really love Stephen Colbert’s Trekkie or LOTR nerdiness.
It isn’t funny.
lol. Lets not allow this one to get out of hands ladies and gentlemen. Else, Anthony will have to suspend democracy and shut down the message boards.
i love jon!!! so awesome!!! he’s talked Trek b4! gonna miss glen beck.
I see arrowhead logos EVERYwhere…so that got right by me. Good on “Joshua” and AP!
The Federation.
An organization of intelligent societies committed to self preservation, alien rights and the exploration of the Galaxy. There is no money, so man can devote himself to a field based on his/her interests and helping the race as a whole as opposed to padding his personal wealth. If that’s Communism, sign me up!!!
Live long and prosper Commie-Trek
@ 17 Andy On Adam West’s Batman and The Empath
Hey, Andy, as a kid, I thought the Adam West Batman was serious too. And then I became a teenager and saw it. I thought, “Hey they’re not taking it seriously!”
“The Empath” grew on me. The spartan sets probably due to budget, the sappy score and the lack of action may have intially soured me on this show. But as the years wore on, the more I got it. The idea of sacrifice. The spartan sets make it seem more like a play about ideas. And of course, McCoy’s absolute devotion to Spock even though he fought bitterly with him.
“An organization of intelligent societies committed to self preservation, alien rights and the exploration of the Galaxy. There is no money, so man can devote himself to a field based on his/her interests and helping the race as a whole as opposed to padding his personal wealth. If that’s Communism, sign me up!!!
Live long and prosper Commie-Trek”
Where do I sign?
Oh, gee. Just like it’s a good idea to not get into too much detail about warp drive, it’s not a good idea to get into any detail about this economy of the future, either. Communism is an abject failure, so it’s hard to see that working in the future if it doesn’t work now. The problem with helping the race as a whole begs the question Mike Rowe would be proud of, who does the dirty jobs? Sewage will still need to be processed, roads fixed, machines repaired. Let me guess…..robots!! Oh, wait, who builds them…
#30
I’m sure they would have robots building other robots. But, of course the robots would need to organize and have a voice in government…
Droids of the World Unite!
;)
Seriously though, I don’t see Trek’s “economic future” as socialism, capitalism or communism. I mean, wouldn’t the invention of the replicator and the transporter and the great social changes they would bring pretty much push aside all previous economic theories? Or as Picard said: “The economics of the future work differently. We work to better ourselves.”
A good enough explanation for me. :D
I thought the Nielsen’s didn’t exactly like Star Trek.
;D
@32.
I’m not disagreeing, but that’s not so much a explaination as it is a description. 150 years ago 100 farmers could produce food for 200 people. So, if your community grew to 400 people, you needed 200 farmers. Science and technology, though, allowed those 100 farmers to produce food for 400,000 people, thus freeing up all those others to work to better themselves. The advent of transporters and replicators might allow those same 100 farmers to feed the entire planet, but at the end of the day, someone still has to be that farmer. Or that welder putting the good ship Enterprise together. Or the expendable redshirt. If the Federation is embracing the freedom that Picard so frequently lectured about, how is it that the betterment of some seems to take priority, without some assignment of value?
I’m just asking the questions, as I said earlier, some things are better left unexplained. There ain’t no easy answer.
It is extremely challenging to pin down the economics of the Star Trek future. It would be something akin to the USSR, where everyone had access to cheap sausage, cabbage and vodka (when it was available, and not stuck in a warehouse due to endemic laziness/bureaucracy, or on a back-road because there were no highways), but on a much uber-higher level. The USSR, however, did have a ruling class which benefited greatly, and bribery & corruption, like today, was still very much part of the ‘shadow’ economy.
I think the transformation to such an economy offers more of an intellectual and moral challenge to humans than anything. As Vultan said in #32, a replicator and a transporter are game-changers. If any of us woke up in the ’24th century,’ would we be like Daffy Duck in that Arabian treasure cave, “happy misers,” replicating everything we ever wanted? Or would we be happy knowing that everything is available, and go read a good book?
I prefer Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” as a vision of the future: orgasmatrons, smoking cigarettes and giant fruit.
35. You have hit the nail on the head. Gold becomes worthless if you can create all you want. A replicator may not be the game changer you think it it, you cannot create something from nothing. Likewise, in a closed system you cannot recycle everything into perpetuity, this makes a replicator a perpetual motion machine – another impossibility. Replication requires power (lots of it) , raw material and a construct to manipulate it. Human raw material is not a lot different, you will get different results depending on how it’s manipulated. A redshirt can be trained for his job in a few weeks, a doctor, several years, a leader, a lifetime. How do you assign value to this?
@28
@28
I too watched a ton of TV as a kid.
I interviewed Adam West for a children’s show ten years ago. The room was filled with reporters and other people and I kind of sucked the air out of the room by not having more fun with him and doing something like my Riddler impression for him. I just took him so seriously like I had as a kid. I kept thinking, “this is Adam West”!
Regarding “The Empath” I can appreciate it more these days. Hated it as a kid. I believe DeForest Kelly cited it as a favorite.
As spock said (something like) “For each, according to his desire, by each, according to his ability”
Modern attitudes of greed and gluttony and tribal thinking (aka Patriotism) are enforced by our education systems.
Federation education seems pretty enlightened. If people are educated without a lot of our biases, without wage differences to separate them from their peers, and with the comfort that comes from a society of sufficiency (with the replicator a fundamental part), then working on the land becomes a matter of pride. Working to improve sewage systems becomes a matter of service to a community of people you like and respect. There is value in every “dirty” job, and there is technology (which is already largely built by robots today) to make those jobs easier and cleaner.
I think the Federation, and the societies that make it up, are so fundamentally separated from today by the technology that underlies them, that to attempt to understand them using modern attitudes towards politics, ideology, and human (or alien) nature is folly.
We have a pretty low opinion of our own species. Most of the people we interact with, we regard as stupider than we are. This shows up in intractible political debates like the one on the Glenn Beck article.
I really believe education is the key to putting that right. We are all valuable, whether we can produce art, or sing a song, or write a spreadsheet, or shovel shit, or shear a sheep.
We need to start telling our kids that they are just as good as every other human being, and that everyone should work for the betterment of the species as a whole, not a few self-interested parties.
This is what people call wishy-washy. I think that’s a symptom of the problem. The entrenched belief that there’s no hope for the betterment of the species, so we shouldn’t try, and instead re-inforce the boundaries between the haves and the have nots for fear of what might happen if everyone could compete for resources on an equal footing.
The croissant doesn’t represent the French, at least not just the French. It’s a play on the idea that Glenn Beck saw the crescent symbol in the Nuclear Summit logo last year. It resulted in the epic Daily Show parody here: http://www.mediaite.com/online/fox-and-friends-highlights-obamas-curious-crescent-logo-controversy/
Leslie Moonves must surely fit into this theory somehow… He’s pretty much the root of all evil on American Television.
#38–sounds like you are describing religion now!
Romanticizing communism is like romanticizing Nazism only like 5 times worse from the standpoint of how many bodies it piled up around the world. It is a totalitarian cousin to fascism and Nazism, and admiring it does not speak well of those who do.
By the way, there’s money in communism as well. Where did any of you historically ignorant geniuses get the idea that there was not?
Or, as the old Yakov Smirnoff joke goes:
“In America, you put ‘In God We Trust’ on your money.
In Russia, we have no money!”
38. Bren (Destructor!!!) – April 9, 2011
How do we have a low opinion of our species? This is an age of wonder that we live in, the sum knowledge of man at our fingertips? Freedom has given everyone the opportunity to grow, to better themselves now. Through libraries and the internet, all the instructions exist that can allow anyone, yes anyone, to learn and acheive whatever they want. Learn, work hard, and youo can have what you want. And you know something, most people never, ever take advantage of it. I’m not going to comment on socialism, communisn, or fascism because economic Darwinism has already passed judgement. The best will survive because they work, untill something better comes along. Like it or not, the spread of freedom has done more to ensure prosperity for the world then any other alternative. My suggestion would be to find ways to make it better, not destroy it.
Please, could someone post a link to the vid, Its unavailable in the UK
43: “I’m not going to comment on socialism, communisn, or fascism because economic Darwinism has already passed judgement.”
The tragedy is that the judgment can be easily reversed. As evidenced by this site, many who think they are enlightened are ignorant of basic facts of history and as the saying goes — who forgets history repeats it. There is unfortunately no failsafe against the sort of widespread ignorance that leads to the kind of insanity Einstein defined i.e., doing the same thing and expecting different results. Which dooms us to cycles of repeated failure, violent and bloody.
That is definitely not the future Star Trek shows us.
45. Agreed.
Why is beck leaving? Low ratings?
Jeez, dmduncan. I’m fully aware of how many bodies Mao, Stalin and Hitler piled up during the last bloody century–I actually lost me some relatives to the latter two, thank you very much. The undeniable fact of Communism’s historical failure does not require, however, that I ignore the brutal subjugation of labor by capitalists and oligarchs since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (which likely piled up a body count that in terms of sheery human misery and premature death would rival Stalin’s), or simply trust in Margaret Thatcher’s triumphal assertion that There Is No Alternative. (According to Spock, there are always alternatives.) Nor must I buy into the absurd notion that any political/economic system which, on some level, places value on the commons over unbridled self-interest must inevitably bring forth the jackboots, as though the outcomes in Nazi Germany and Sweden were for all intents and purposes the same. Please.
When he was interviewed by David Gerrold for his book The World of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry mentioned that a couple of the subjects he wanted to tackle in a possible revival of the series were the pros and cons of unions, and of socialism. I’m sorry we never got to see those stories, but If you truly value the study of history as you say, less hyperbole and more thoughful reflection of the type Roddenberry envisioned would be welcome. And for the historical record, Einstein spent his entire life as an unabashed socialist.
We are not immune.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave
Whoever deleted my post: Shame on you. I know it was NOT inflammatory because I didn’t feel inflamed when I wrote it. Shame on you. I am very disappointed. I expected a little bit more out of the moderators on this site.