The Red Shirt is one of the great staples of classic Star Trek. They were background crew members of the U.S.S. Enterprise in red uniforms (which meant they were in operations — engineering, security or support), and are remembered by viewers of the 1960s TV series as cannon fodder. As soon as you saw a non-main character in a red shirt join Kirk, Spock ad McCoy in the landing party, you knew that it was likely to be the poor sod’s last mission. They were quick and dirty writing devices for injecting some tension into a story, reminders to the audience that space exploration was dangerous, and they made for some good drinking games.
It turns out that actor Jonathan Goldsmith, whom you probably recognize as Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World”, played a Red Shirt in the episode The Corbomite Maneuver, and he didn’t die!
And now, one of my favourite Red Shirt references, from the first season of Family Guy:
10 replies on “The Most Interesting Man in the World Was a Red Shirt on Star Trek…and He Survived the Entire Episode!”
He survives because he’s in a scene with Shirtless Kirk whose awesomeness and invulnerability has a field effect.
[…] speaking of service, who better to crew the ship than the legendary Most Interesting Man in the World, who managed to survive the original Star Trek episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver” as a […]
Wouldn’t it be great if they did a Dos Equis commercial based on this fact? Where he’s a red shirt and “Kirk” ends up getting shot instead?
I’d love that. Maybe they could get James Cawley, who plays Kirk in the excellent Star Trek fan film series Star Trek: Phase II.
[…] out, the legendary Most Interesting Man in the World, managed to survive the original Star Trek episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver” as a redshirt! Is […]
[…] Via Accordion Guy […]
[…] Play a Red Shirt on Star Trek…October 14, 2012 By James F. McGrath Leave a CommentI spotted this on Facebook about a week ago, but IO9 mentioned it today and so I thought I’d share it. […]
[…] Via JoeyDeVilla […]
I wrote that on the Dos Equis website about two years ago. Funny that someone memed it.
[…] to reports, Goldsmith appeared as an unnamed crewman (under the stage name Jonathan Lippe). If you watch the […]