From the opening sketch for this year’s “Mystery Trekkie Theater” at Shore Leave: “Mad scientist” T. Alan Chafin goes on a rant, and then perfectly mimes having the beginnings of a heart attack. With Mike Friedman, Bob Greenberger and me clustering around him, I shout, “We need a doctor!” and Mike bellows the classic line, “Is there a doctor in the house?!” Out steps con guest Bob Picardo and with impeccable timing delivers his classic line as the holographic doctor. Result: A standing ovation from a jazzed (and maybe a little relieved) packed house.
Photo by Dawn Swingle
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Most awesome. Sorry to be missing it!
Video, PLEASE! As suggested at Bob Greenberger’s blog, perhaps a video done for charity.
I think that someone with the convention does have some video, but that is rarely made available and might not be under the best of conditions anyway. The skit is only a few minutes long.
I’ve long thought Robert Picardo was one of the most awesome people alive and I think this only confirms it.
I just watched Inner Space again today. I’d completely forgotten he was in that movie until his awesome character, The Cowboy, showed up.
Oh, and even though I gave up on Voyager fairly quickly, I think I watched twice as many episodes as I would have if Picardo hadn’t been in it.
This year’s was the best I’ve seen since you did “Alexander” — sadly, that was my first and it’s spoiled me ever since.
But one question has been bugging me ever since MTT2009 — was it a deliberate decision to feature “Shatner” in a skit that involved a dead body in a pool, or a horrific oversight of taste? All I could think of was the 9/11 call Shatner made with his wife in their pool…
J.
We were doing a send-up of “Sunset Boulevard” which starts with a dead body in a pool. The same thought occurred to me, but it was unavoidable. What would have been tasteless would have been a joke along the lines of, “First your wife, now this. What is it with you and bodies in pools?” But we didn’t do anything like that, nor would we have. Doing a spoof of “Sunset Boulevard” directly rose from Shatner’s very public comments about expecting some manner of involvement in the film. I just like the notion of him expecting that Abrams would be calling any moment, oblivious to the fact that the movie had already opened and was a huge hit without him. Sure, we could have done it without the pool gag, but it’s one of the the most iconic images of the film. We had to go with it.
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Ah… I suppose I’ll have to get around to seeing “Sunset Boulevard” sooner or later. I’m glad it wasn’t just me that had that thought.
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It was still pretty good, even to the non-cognoscenti like me, but “you got your ášš kicked by a muppet!” from Jedi Apprentice is still my favorite.
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And I would pay very, very good money for a DVD of the Alexander MTT3K. My friend and I were in physical pain over that one…
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J.
Nobody does “mildly anonyed” better than Robert Picardo.
Woah, I butched the word annoyed there. Blame the hangover.
It was a great skit and a great choice for MTT3000. A fun convention all around (as usual). My picture of the appearance of The Doctor was a few seconds after the one above with you already in motion.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/M5Y9M-zGZcXAszAIAdA1vQ?feat=directlink
(I don’t know if direct link will work, but if not I put the photo up on my blog.)
I normally don’t nitpick here, but given that it is his character’s classic, signature line, and the title of this blog entry, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that it’s “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” (Of course, I don’t know if Picardo flubbed it on the stage, so maybe the blog entry title is a reference to that…):-)
Maybe the writer(s) of the script flubbed it. Or maybe they purposely wanted to be slightly off.
I’m assuming that whatever he said, Bob got it right.
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