Unintentional Hilarity

My kids and I have been going through all 700+ episodes in five different series of Star Trek. Before embarking on this adventure I dithered about watching the series in broadcast order or chronological order. A co-worker pointed out that people now have the same problem with Star Wars. I think I would go for chronological order with Star Wars- the movies start off really lame with Little Orphan Ani, get steadily worse, then by the fourth installment start getting better, peak with Empire Strikes Back, and then end with the bittersweetness of the Ewoks combined with Princess Leia in that bikini.

But we were talking about Star Trek.  I ultimately decided on a loose broadcast order:  TOS then TNG then DS9 then VOY then ENT.

So, first they got to see Kirk.  Almost immediately I had to pause it and inform the children that "back in the 1960s that was what they called comedy."  Eventually we reached "The Trouble With Tribbles" which I told them "was an attempt at an all comedy episode."

As a good father I told the kids (aged seven and nine) about Redshirts, complete with the phrase "what are the odds he's going to die?" whenever a Redshirt appeared. We got over halfway through the series before I had to tell them "not all Redshirts die. Some lived."

I also introduced them to the phrase "oh, what are the odds Kirk is going to kiss her?" And the obvious answer "one hundred percent." There was the occasional episode in which I had to say "nah, Chekov/Spock/McCoy is going to kiss her. But Kirk really wants to!" But we made it all the way to the third season's "Requiem for Methuselah" before I realized the awful truth about Kirk. In that episode the Enterprise has a raging epidemic.  All hands will soon die if they can't get the right medicine. And despite this, the instant Kirk lays eyes on a pretty blonde all he can think about is getting into her pants. Even after he finds out she's a robot.

"What?!" My wife asked as the children described this to her. "He wanted to kiss a robot?"
"Yes," they replied. "He's kissed robots before."
And that's when I finally realized that Kirk isn't just some starfaring horn-dog. He's pathological. He's got a problem worse than Democrats Anthony "Seymour" Weiner and Filthy Bob Filner combined. What the heck was Starfleet thinking of giving this guy command of a starship?!

The Original Series has even better examples of unintentional hilarity, though. In the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get captured by a group of aliens with telekinesis.  It finally occurs to McCoy to run a tricorder scan of the aliens and discovers that a substance in their blood called Kirinite gives them their powers.

Kirk: McCoy, there must be a quick way of building up a concentration of Kirinite in our blood.
McCoy: It'll take some doing, but it's possible!
<pulls ampule out of medical kit and inserts it into hypospray>
McCoy: I'm ready.

Wow, that did take some doing, Bones!  And wait a second, you mean McCoy has had an ampule in his medkit this whole time that can give people telekinesis?!  Earlier in the episode we saw the alien's TK was powerful enough to damage the Enterprise.  A little later was an amusing scene in which they forced Kirk to slap the shit out of himself.  So… If Bones has this wonderful TK shot, why don’t they all take it every day? Why do they even bother with phasers?  Next time they encounter the Klingons just force them to slap themselves silly and then wedgie themselves to death before setting the auto-destruct on their ships.

But the long nineteen year hiatus between The Original Series and The Next Generation apparently allowed Rodenberry to really hone his comedic WTF? powers. In the NextGen
ep "Where No One Has gone Before" there's a scene in which Picard is making a shipwide address, somberly informing the crew of the plan to return home. There's various shots
of the crew bustling about preparations for the ship. And then there's this shot:

Uhhh, Captain, why is there some random Asian dude wearing a dress on deck eight? I showed this to a co-worker and after we discussed "what the heck were they thinking when they filmed this?!" I asked the question "...and why does he look so confused to boot?" To which my co-worker replied "well, because. He's obviously... confused."

Another co-worker was more matter-of-fact: "Why wouldn't they have transvestites in the future?"

This whole question came right back just a few eps later with this scene:

Sure enough, my nine year-old asked "Why is Picard wearing a dress?"
"Uh, because it's a formal occasion and he wants to look his best," I replied lamely.
"Then why isn't he wearing a suit or a tux?" My son asked practically.

Because Star Trek is essentially just "Libs in Space" (which explains what Jim Henson was really trying to say with "Pigs In Space" as well as why all the Treknobabble is so nonsensical) and this was probably some ham-handed comment about what liberals euphemistically refer to as "gender stereotypes."  But that's kind of a lot to lay on a nine year-old. Fortunately, my knowledge of history bailed me out.

"It's not a dress, it's a Greatcoat, like the ones worn by the British Navy long ago."

Thankfully, the Internet backed me up on this:

Picard's accent certainly helped.