The Surprisingly Deep Connections Between Star Trek, Cheers and Frasier
Cheers, Frasier and Star Trek have a surprising amount in common. Kelsey Grammer commanded a Federation starship. Captain Janeway once dated Sam Malone. Data sat next to Lilith on an aeroplane. And Martin Crane’s tatty chair was apparently upholstered using material left over from the original Star Trek.
And that is barely touching the surface.
Being a massive fan of Cheers, Frasier and pretty much all things Star Trek, I already knew there were plenty of actor crossovers, Easter eggs and references between the various shows. I distinctly remember Kirstie Alley as a hot Vulcan in Wrath of Khan, and Kate Mulgrew as a hot politician in Cheers. However, I didn’t realise quite how deeply intertwined they were until I started looking into it.
The connections run through Cheers, Frasier, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and even the movies. The obvious question is why. (I’ll get to that.)
The most obvious connection is the actor crossovers
These are the easiest ones to spot. Plenty of guest actors and extras appeared in both the Trek shows and the sitcoms, but some major stars also crossed between the franchises.
Kelsey Grammer, who happens to be a Trekkie, appeared in the Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect” as Captain Morgan Bateson, commander of the USS Bozeman.
Bebe Neuwirth, who played Lilith, his on-screen wife in Cheers, is also a huge Star Trek fan and appeared as Nurse Lanel in the excellent Next Generation episode “First Contact”. (Not to be confused with the later movie Star Trek: First Contact.) Apparently she was rehearsing for an episode of Cheers the same day.
Paul Willson, who played bar regular Paul in Cheers, appeared in Voyager. So did Dan Butler, better known as Bulldog Briscoe from Frasier, and Patrick Kerr, who played Frasier’s famously obsessive Star Trek fan Noel Shempsky.
The traffic also went the other way.
Cheers premiered only a few months after the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In the film, Vulcan officer Saavik was played by Kirstie Alley, who would later become one of the biggest stars of Cheers as Rebecca Howe.
Patrick Stewart appeared in Frasier as famous opera director Alistair Burke, who develops a romantic interest in Frasier in the episode “The Doctor Is Out”.
Brent Spiner, better known as Data, also turns up. In “Lilith Needs a Favor”, he sits beside Lilith on an aeroplane. The famously pale Lilith comments on how white he looks.
“I am always this pale,” he replies. Which is funny because- well, if you read this far, you probably get it.
René Auberjonois, who played Odo in Deep Space Nine, appears in Frasier as Frasier’s old mentor, while Voyager’s Robert Picardo also turns up as a security specialist.
There are more, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
Now let’s nerd out with the things most people will have missed
The actor appearances are only the beginning. There are also some great easter eggs.
In the Next Generation episode “Eye of the Beholder”, we briefly see a crew member’s service record. It says the officer previously served aboard the USS Peterson and USS Malone. Clearly a reference to Norm Peterson and Sam Malone from Cheers.
And speaking of Norm…
Norm was the hefty Cheers regular who occupied roughly the same corner of the bar for years while consuming heroic quantities of beer.
Deep Space Nine has Quark’s Bar. It also has a hefty regular who spends an extraordinary amount of time sitting in the same place drinking.
His name is Morn.
Frasier’s resident Trekkie takes things even further
One of Frasier’s recurring characters is Noel Shempsky, Frasier’s colleague at the radio station and an enormous Star Trek fan.
At one point, Noel asks Frasier to get him the autograph of Scott Bakula, who played Captain Jonathan Archer in Enterprise. In return, Noel agrees to translate a speech for Frasier’s son Frederick’s Bar Mitzvah.
Unfortunately, Frasier fails to obtain the autograph, so Noel takes his revenge. Instead of translating the speech into Hebrew, he translates it into Klingon. Frasier then delivers part of his son’s Bar Mitzvah speech in Klingon without realising what Noel has done.
Cheers got in on the act too.
When Woody gets married, Frasier and Lilith give him Star Trek steak knives. I’m not entirely sure what constitutes a Star Trek steak knife, but apparently they exist, and I want some.
Even behind the scenes, things get strange
Martin Crane’s chair is one of the great running jokes in Frasier.
Frasier’s apartment is carefully decorated with expensive furniture and artwork, while his father insists on keeping an enormous, battered recliner held together with tape. Apparently, the fabric was taken from material sitting in Paramount’s warehouse, left over from the sets of the original Star Trek series.
Then there is production designer Herman Zimmerman. Zimmerman worked as art director on dozens of episodes of Cheers before becoming one of the most important production designers in modern Star Trek. Among other things, he helped design the Enterprise-D and Deep Space Nine.
Which means someone who helped create the visual world of Cheers later helped create some of the most famous locations in the Star Trek universe.
Including Quark’s bar.
Then the cast of Frasier actually went aboard Voyager
A particularly memorable crossover came in 1996.
To celebrate Star Trek’s 30th anniversary, the television special Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond was broadcast with Ted Danson as host. It included a comedy sketch featuring much of the cast of Frasier aboard the USS Voyager.
Roz, Daphne, Martin, Niles and even Eddie the dog appeared, alongside Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway.
At that point, the connection between the two franchises stopped being a collection of Easter eggs and became almost impossible to ignore. Although if we really want to enter conspiracy territory, which I do, there are a few more.
Ted Danson, who played barman Sam Malone, once dated Whoopi Goldberg, who played Guinan, the bartender in the Enterprise’s Ten Forward lounge.
Danson also starred in Three Men and a Baby, directed by Leonard Nimoy (aka Spock).
There are even some joke theories that Cheers was a Star Trek holosuite program.
I will stop now as I have really proved my point and am moving into daft coincidence territory.
But why are there so many connections?
The simplest explanation is geography. Cheers, Frasier and the various Star Trek productions were all Paramount shows, and much of the work took place on the same studio lot.
That meant actors, writers, directors, producers and executives were constantly working in close proximity. They probably met in canteens and possibly during cigarette breaks. It was therefore much easier for someone from one production to appear in another, particularly when they already knew the people involved.
There were also important links behind the scenes.
Rick Berman became one of the key figures in Star Trek after Gene Roddenberry, executive producing The Next Generation and later co-creating Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.
Before working on Star Trek, however, Berman had been Paramount’s Director of Current Programming. And one of the shows he was responsible for was Cheers.
Then there was Herman Zimmerman, moving from Cheers into Star Trek production design.
Add the fact that several members of the Cheers and Frasier casts, such as Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth, were genuine Star Trek fans, and the number of cameos begins to make sense.
If you are filming on the same studio lot as one of your favourite shows, already know the producers, and happen to be a famous actor, it is probably only a matter of time before you find a way aboard the Enterprise.
So there you go.
A version of this story originally appeared on my Scifiward website.
