As part of their celebration of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Animated Series CBS Studios has launched a new series of (non-canonical) animated promotional spots in the style of TAS featuring characters voiced by familiar Star Trek celebs. From the mind of Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks), Star Trek: very Short Treks celebrates the bold, the silly, and the unusual across the animated universe of Star Trek.
“Skin a Cat”
As teased earlier in the week, the first very Short Treks cartoon has been released as part of Star Trek Day 2023. It features the voices of comedian Pete Holmes and Ethan Peck as Spock.
Release schedule
The remaining four cartoons will be released weekly on Wednesdays through Oct. 4 at 10:00 A.M., PT/1:00 P.M., ET.
Sept. 13 – “Holiday Party”
Sept. 20 – “Worst Contact”
Sept. 27 – “Holograms, All the Way Down”
Oct. 4 – “Walk, Don’t Run”
Keep up with news for the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Apparently I am the first to comment. Hmmm. It’s cute, not laugh out loud funny but cute.
I am VERY interested in whether this is considered (wait for it) CANON!
My answer would be, Canon, but not in a universe we ever heard of with NO danger or crossing over into the mirror/prime/Kelvin universe ever.
A very happy Star Trek Day to all!
They’re not canon. I updated the article to be explicit.
Several posters asked why these shorts weren’t canon and now we see why lol. They seem to be very silly and out there where literally anything can happen like the ship getting blown up. I actually thought this is the kind of thing Lower Decks was going to be like when it was originally announced, but happy it isn’t.
And happy Star Trek day to you too Matt!
As opposed to the non-silly, non-canon LOWER DECKS, where literally anything can happen, like God being a koala bear?
*”Non-silly, but canon”
Still can’t edit articles…
We don’t know if the Koala is God though, only that he helps balance the universe on his back and can see everything. Wow, maybe he is God now that I’m thinking about it? But you know how it goes, until someone definitively say he is God, we can’t just assume that, right?
And I’m an atheist, so believing in any God, Koala or not, is all non-canon in my book. ;D
I was actually hoping LDX would be more like this. Funny. It is supposed to be a comedy….
Yeeeeesss dude, I know, you don’t think LDS is funny. But I do. ;)
No way it could be. Kirk’s hair is parted on the WRONG side…pffft…:-)
“Spock, this is silly. This can’t be CANON!”
“How dare you!”
“Sorry, Ensign C’non.”
What a load of crap to bear the name “Star Trek”.
Move along home is pure Shakespeare compared to this.
I love it.
Move Along Home is so much more than Shakespeare :-)
Well, ummm, that was dreadful.
Glad I wasn’t the only one to think so! Instead of celebrating Star Trek’s inclusivity, the short POKED FUN at it. It seems like a short made by someone who hates Star Trek’s progressive attitude. Yuck!
That is exactly what came to my mind.
I’m really not sure how you’re getting that. I don’t think this really had any kind of message, good or bad.
No, it poked fun at people who mistake victimization and hyper-offendedness for inclusivity.
I share those values, but really don’t see much problem with making fun of the notion of inclusivity if it’s taken to such an extreme. There’s a lot these days to weep over, which makes being able to laugh at ourselves even more important.
I was hoping for something genuinely fun or cool in the style of TAS. That was painful to watch.
Whereas I thought this short was rip-roaring belly laugh funny (especially Ensign Knickers threatening to go to HR) — something LOWER DECKS hasn’t accomplished in four years.
My thoughts exactly. This little short did something LDX has failed at. Be funny.
Yeah, I mean, I am happy to see TAS acknowledged and to see M’Ress and Arex again, but makes zero sense why species who were taught at Starfleet Academy – on EARTH – would be unfamiliar with human idioms or take offense. Also, whoever the guy voicing Kirk was, he sounded nothing like him, more like a nervous wreck. Honestly, if you want to see a good parody of TAS, the short animated show bits of Space Heroes did a much better parody of that show, including not-Kirk always undermining not-Spock and slapping not-Chekov. :D
The character isn’t meant to be Kirk. Official voice-cast lists have him simply as “Captain,” played by comedian Pete Holmes… and he’s drawn to look like Holmes.
Genuinely three and a half minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Awful stuff.
I had a good chuckle. Thank you.
I think this was horrible. SNL kinda funny, but still horrible being an official Trek release. Canon or not, it’s nothing that deserves the official brandname on it.
It was very very funny, and the pearl clutching about “official Trek releases” sailed back when the Cerritos launched.
None of these projects are truly canon, in my mind, but at least this one wasn’t a waste of 3.5 minutes.
Well, the difference is, Lower Decks is still trying hard to prove it is canon. I mean after the crossover to live action, it probably is, though of course, that was with a show that completely broke canon about the Gorn, or Nurse Chapel and Spock, already…
I thought it was perfect honestly lol hardest a Trek production has made me laugh in a good long while
Well I laughed. And it was nice to have Peck voicing Spock. But it’s obvious these things won’t be for everyone.
Probably not for everyone but some people are going to get way too uptight about it.
I laughed. Looking forward to the others.
I actually kind of liked it. It knows what it wants to be, and is not trying pretend like it’s meant to be taken seriously like some of the stuff we are seen on the other series’
I don’t know if you can even call yourself a Star Trek fan without being uptight about something. ;D
Really looking forward to both the LDS and Riker shorts! I think those will be a lot of fun assuming they are not the same one.
“What if–Marvel Studios made Star Trek?”
It’d have obnoxious Marvel humor with every sentence being a joke even in dramatic situations.
Painfully bad a one sentence joke stretched way too far
Sorry but that was bad.
I did laugh at the Knickersonian. Then the joke went on too long. Animation was delightful though.
If you’re going to take on Star Trek, keep to it. Don’t let it fall apart into a crappy contemporary stand-up routine that happens to take place on the bridge.
All of a sudden people don’t to consider the “Trek silly stuff” to be canon? Given all the other silly and questionable stuff that we must accept as canon now, I say to P+ just be consistent and call all this stuff canon.
I frankly don’t see much of a difference other than this show not trying to hide behind a façade of seriousness like some of the other stuff.
Canon fodder.
Yep!
No one’s forcing ‘we’ to accept anything as canon. We get that you don’t like LD. This isn’t meant to be canon. It’s a bit of fun. Something you seem incapable of and have to remind people of on EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE this site posts.
Paramount gets to state what is can on and what is not. And yes we must accept that because they are the arbiter of it.
Case closed. And BTW I never mentioned LD – you did.
“Given all the other silly and questionable stuff”. Please don’t take people for idiots. It’s crystal clear you’re referencing LD.
No, I’m not referencing that specifically. I’m referencing the entire body of work of Kurtzman franchise in the last year which is now trending towards silliness — we also got space zombies and Star Wars like crap in the ridiculously over-the-top Pic season three, and the we got musicals and animation mixed with live action in Strange New Worlds.
it’s multiple shows now that have this silliness issue – i’m commenting on the overall franchise trend and I’m not singling out one series.
There is silly like Bashir and Garak being stuck in a James Bond simulation playing against copies of their friends, who want to kill them – which is still a serious exploration of what real spy work is like, and how Garak thinks Bashir taking it lightly is insulting – almost coming down to one of them dying at the end. Or Q transporting everyone to Sherwood Forest, turning Picard into Erol Flynn Robin Hood – which still was a story about Picard not daring to let his feelings for Vash compromise his image as a stern captain, but how he is ready to take extreme risks for her.
And then there is nonsense like the musical episode of Strange New Worlds, most of Lower Decks, and this, where everything is just done for a joke, without any real reason.
No one is FORCED to accept anything as canon. This is a TV show, not the U.S. Supreme Court.
The fake drama from some of you is hilarious here. If P+ says it’s canon, it’s canon. To me that means everybody’s forced to accept it because only P+ get to state what cannon is.
But okay, if this hurts your feelings to here is worded so directly, then don’t let me stop you from your fake outrage, lol
Fake drama? The only fake drama is from someone saying they’re FORCED to accept something as canon. As for hurt feelings, what are you even talking about?
By definition, the arbitrator of canon, in this case Paramount, gets to dictate what canon is for their properties. You don’t have to like it, and neither do I, but yeah, we have to accept it, because the final word on what is canon or not is with the studio. We don’t get to decide what canon is. So by the definition of the term we’re forced to accept what Paramount tells us is canon. If it makes you happy I will of course state the obvious that any individual can dismiss what P says, but they can’t do anything about it… so yeah it’s pretty much forced upon us, as I said.
And BTW, there was no way you can appeal this to someone at Paramount so you’re appealing to Supreme Court for relief analogy is DOA — canon determination is a dictatorship, with P having all the power to unilaterally make any canon pronouncement they want with no one being able to overule them— there is no appeal. Thus, as I said, it’s forced upon us.
Sure we have free will to ignore it — but it’s like driving over the speed limit continuously — It feels great and you think you’re doing your own thing but it doesn’t make a difference because their speed limit ain’t changing — it’s forced upon all drivers… however, in this case you can’t go to court and get a speeding ticket reversed — your just F’d into make believe personal head canon…lol
Umm… I don’t know what I just watched…
It’s called a “turd”, William.
LOL!
Ha!
I hope Paramount+ has a 7 day return policy with the company who made this episode, because that really sucked.
I am a HUGE fan of all that is Trek…
That being said, I watched again and I realized WHY this seems familiar: This is what Family Guy would do.
{something happens}
Stewie: “This is worse than that time I was on Enterprise.”
(Cut a way to this EXACT skit with Brian as Kirk and Stewie as Spock, SAME script.)
Yeah, I was just having with the Canon thing but this is… well, it’s a Family Guy skit.
Yeah, this was about as unfunny as Family Guy humor is. (Was always more of a Simpsons fan)
It would be funnier/more absurd on FG.
Perhaps FG of 10 years ago…. Not so much now.
I enjoyed it (it was cute), but can we talk about Ethan Peck as Spock. When he first started talking, I seriously thought they had some actual Leonard Nimoy dialog in there. Where’s this Spock on Strange New Worlds (or is that part of the character growth)? More of this Spock, please!
Side note, I’ve noticed that someone else is using the moniker of “Sisko”, and even though I’ve been using “sisko” here since 2009 or thereabouts, does this mean I need to change my ‘name’? Can we even have a “Sisko” and a “sisko” here? Does it matter? I’m fine if I have to switch to captblsisko (which my 13 year old refuses to say properly, he says “cap t-b-l sisko”, seriously kid?). Just wondering what the protocol is since I’ve never seen this in the 14+ years this website has been around.
Not sure about more than one person using exactly the same name (and spelling), but there have certainly been a Phil and another phil posting here for some time.
This site doesn’t require registration to comment but that probably also means you cannot “reserve” a handle for yourself.
I was asking more out of curtesy and to make things less confusing (not that I post here often enough for the daily folks to remember me).🙂
Seriously. This reminded me of his portrayal in DISCO season 2. Someone kidnapped that Spock and replaced him with Neelix-of-the-Dopey-Grin.
That was about as not funny as if they tried to be not funny. But it does show the absurdity of catering to the easily offended.
Well, that sucked.
It would have to improve just to say that it sucked.
This is off to a good start IMO. Maybe a bit repetitive, but it definitely got a laugh out of me. Looking forward to the rest of them (especially Aaron Waltke’s, since he’s my favorite Prodigy writer).
I just want to know what was going on with that Kirk. Did they lose the rights to the original TAS artwork?
I don’t think that was supposed to be Kirk. I think that was supposed to be Capt. Pete Holmes (or some captain other than Kirk that he’s playing) since it looked kind of like Pete Holmes.
Ok, I clearly don’t know who Pete Holmes is. Thanks.
I don’t either beyond the funny Batman and X-Men parodies he’s made.
Terrible
That was VERY silly. I liked it.
I am nostalgic for the days when Paramount would not allow any Star Trek material to be released that might damage the brand name…
They weren’t too strict about it. Final Frontier slipped through.
Final Frontier was King Lear compared to this…
Well, yeah. Final Frontier is a movie that actually takes itself kind of seriously and is meant to be part of the Star Trek canon. This is a 3 minute comedic sketch that is just meant to be silly and is explicitly not part of the canon. The two really aren’t comparable.
Used to be, if it was FILMED Star Trek it WAS canon. When did that rule change?
It’s way too late for that. Discovery already did a fine job of damaging the brand name.
Hence my nostalgia for the olden days
Definitely agree about Discovery. That’s been a dumpster fire for 4 seasons now. 🙄
Meh. Hopefully there is at least one that means anything or has some heart or depth to it instead of just meaningless cr#p.
The throwback animation is great and the the joke is funny even thogh it’s completely ripped off from a similar sketch on scottish TV a couple of years back. Ironically it it’s just too long to be funny. It should’ve ended after the screw and the ass. That’s the punchline. Everything after that just goes on wayyyyyyyy too long.
But the concept is kinda interesting. Would be nice if they do something with it instead of just cheap jokes
Yes. That’s about the point where I felt the joke was wearing a bit thin. But it was still quite amusing. I just would love for the LDX writers to look at that and learn something.
So now it is final. This is what Trek has become. What a piece of shxt.
Loved it! Feels very Conan. Hilarious.
I enjoyed it. I think Kirk’s description of the woman needed to either be a little shorter, or go on for an absurdly long length of time. This length was just long enough for it to be boring, but not long enough to be ridiculous like Too Many Cooks. The different offended aliens were very funny though.
So…it’s the old “everyone’s offended, men are worthless, and woman has to save the day” tropes.
*sigh*
I know there’s a writer’s strike going on, but come on…..
Yeah, that was kind of embarrassing to even sit through. Those tropes are so…effing…tired. And seeing an emasculated captain was so much fun.
It was lampooning “everyone’s offended.” Not a trope.
Yes it was. Honestly I don’t see nearly enough of that. But perhaps its lack of being common contributes to it continuing to be funny.
I guess the Incel crowd didn’t like it.
Lol
Who was the target audience for this?
People with a sense of humor
This wasn’t funny, though.
It was, you just don’t have a sense of humor. You probably thought that show Frasier was funny.
This is canon….Kirk is on a holodeck simulator and someone has added all these weird characters in.
Head canon finds this acceptable :)
I literally couldn’t wait until that was over. Yikes.
I have to admit, after sitting on this one for a little while, it hasn’t held up quite as well for me as when I watched it. The first time watching it, it was basically a “dumb fun” type of episode, which admittedly went on for a bit too long. That, I’d be perfectly fine with. Not my favorite Trek by any means, and I can see how it wouldn’t be for everyone, but still fairly enjoyable to me.
However, I did eventually start to see the more problematic side of the short that others have pointed out. I actually don’t think it was intentional. I believe the whole “point” of the short was just “haha, Star Trek has crazy alien designs, and if these aliens knew more about stupid human idioms,” but the fact that one could very reasonably come away with a much more problematic interpretation of the short doesn’t really sit well with me.
I am admittedly still very much looking forward to the rest of these, I just hope the other writers are more thoughtful and careful about what they wrote. (At the very least, I’m fairly confident Aaron Waltke will know what he’s doing, based on what he’s done on Prodigy.)
I thought that was pretty funny, personally. I’m not sure THIS was the way to honor an animated-Trek anniversary, but hey, so be it.
Honor a cartoon? That’s pretty funny.
Your comments are as worthless as comments get, fella.
Go honor your cartoons 🤣🤣🤣
This was hilarious. Can’t wait to see the others. Make this a full time show to replace prodigy.
I thought it started great but then went on way too long. Funny but overdone IMO. Not really for me but it’s just supposed to be silly comedic stuff so wait to see what the next ones are like.
Waiting for Lower Decks and Arron Walke s episodes for sure. Bet both of those will be great!
They actually expended resources on that. Why? That was garbage.
All that did was cement why Lower Decks works: because it isn’t this.
I don’t see the point of this. It’s not funny, it’s not a good homage to The Animated Series. It’s not a good spoof of Star Trek in general. It’s not well-voiced. So what is this supposed to even be?
The guy who wrote this also wrote IDW’s The Scheimer Barrier comic which is also an incompetent piece of non-entertainment. I can’t imagine what Paramount was thinking when they allowed either of these things to exist.
Looking at what they let Secret Hideout do allowing this to happen had to be a mistake on their part.
This was easily the best Trek of the nu era. Therefore, it had to be an accident.
I’m still surprised they didn’t ask Gazelle Automations to make these since they did those awesome TNG and Voyager animated segments
Hear, hear, though I did enjoy this for what it is.
To the “I’m a liberal but…” crowd here saying that everyone is offended by everything now and we can’t say anything anymore.
Well, that’s lazy, tired, just not true and a Fox news talking point.
Yeah, otherwise, I didn’t find this funny or clever but to each their own.
That was appalling. Who commissioned this crap?
I wonder if this satire of ‘being offended’ will be considered offensive by those being satirized? Probably most definitely! haha.
This had more laughs in it than all the Lower Decks episodes combined.
Well done. If I had one criticism it would be they took the gag a tad too far. But yes… Decent work for a change.
Am I really the only one who found this hilarious? I was laughing the whole time. And it’s honestly good commentary too – in the same way that 98% of the comments on this website are descending on this as crap (and also taking it way too seriously), that’s kinda how the internet works these days – every little thing that shouldn’t be taken seriously or literally blows up into something ridiculous. So like, in my opinion this hit the nail on the screw: it was funny, and it had social commentary, and it served its purpose of being a light little romp.