Webster - S06E25 - Webtrek

With the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation behind us we're going to take another look at a bit of ephemera that would have existed concurrently with the second episode, specifically the series finale of the television sitcom, Webster.

For those of you unfamiliar with it Webster was "an American sitcom television series that aired on ABC from September 16, 1983 to May 8, 1987 and in first-run syndication from September 21, 1987 to March 10, 1989." [1] The show stared Emmanuel Lewis "as a young boy who, after losing his parents, is adopted by his NFL-pro godfather, portrayed by Alex Karras, and his new socialite wife, played by Susan Clark." A less generous and more succinct description of the show would be that it was a Diff'rent Strokes knockoff designed to cash-in on that show's success.

Why am I talking about Webster today? Because oddly enough it crossed over with the Star Trek: The Next Generation in an episode titled Webtrek which aired on March 10, 1989, putting it smack in the middle of Star Trek: The Next Generation's second season which is why we're going to talk about it here.

"How? Why?" I hear you asking. Patience dear readers for both those questions will be answered before this entry in the Star Trek Fuck Report comes to a close.

Preexisting Prejudices

Webster was one of those shows that would have probably been cancelled after one season if it existed today but did perfectly fine in an era when there were like five television channels. No one I knew made a habit of watching it but I would bet that everyone who was alive in the mid-80s has seen multiple episodes of it. I did not care much for Webster as a child and don't really have any strong desire to watch it now outside of this one episode I'm watching as part of this scientific study. As for prejudices about this particular episode I can't say that I have any since I've never seen it and only know of its existence because I happened upon a screenshot from it while looking for a different Star Trek related image and then looked into it further.

Plot Synopsis

We kick things off with a fairly mediocre theme song (the first time I've described a theme song as such) before seeing an exterior shot of a townhouse in the rain. Inside the townhouse we see Webster, in his bedroom playing a video game of some sort. This is 1989, peak Nintendo period, yet he's using an Atari style joystick because television writers attempting to write about what children like rarely goes well. 

He's cracking wise in only the way a character in a dumb 80s sitcom for children can which is to say in a completely unfunny fashion but that matters little to the laugh track which howls with laughter over ever remark Webster makes.

Suddenly we see lightning strike Webster's house and then we get some terrible teleportation effects and hear the Star Trek teleportation noise. Clearly the people making Webster did not watch that episode of Reading Rainbow we looked at after Season One because they showed how to make the teleportation glitter effect and it was easy as shit and looked a hell of a lot better than the bullshit we got here.

When Webster rematerializes he's on the bridge of the Enterprise, still holding his joystick. Because this is the Star Trek Fuck Report I feel like I should probably make it clear that this is not a euphemism, he's literally holding a video game controller. We get a red alert noise and a random security officer runs over and scans Webster with a tricorder. I actually recognized this dude as a guy who was lurking about in the background of several episodes from Season 2 and the internet informs me that the actor was named Dexter Clay and that he Michael Dorn's stand-in during the early seasons of the show.

Speaking of Michael Dorn, we then see Worf standing at his security station. He calls Webster an intruder and demands to know how he got aboard the Enterprise. Webster explains that he pushed his joystick forward too far and another random Starfleet officer takes it from him, perhaps for repairs. This again cracks the laugh track up.

Worf is able to tell that Webster is an "Earthling" but thinks his "style of dress" is very unusual. Webster tells Worf that he's always been ahead of the curve when it comes to fashion and that all the cool kids will be dressing like this in 1990 which leads to Worf telling him, "That was more than 300 years ago! You're in the 24th Century!" I'm very confused by Worf thinking Worf's clothes are weird considering the fact that he's just in pants and a rugby shirt which doesn't look all that different from what Wesley was wearing before he became and acting ensign or whatever. Also unless I'm mistaken in the previous season, the crew of the Enterprise thawed out some cryogenically frozen people from the 20th century so Worf would have seen 20th century fashions then as well but I digress.

Another random extra conducts a shitty looking scan of Webster that determines him to be unarmed. With that out of the way, Webster and Worf have a conversation during which Webster tells Worf that the Enterprise is "cool." We get way too literal Worf who insists, "The temperature on the Enterprise never varies." Again the laugh track howls with laughter at this humorous exchange.

Conversation turns to Worf's lack of understanding of the culture of the late 20th century and would apparently rather ask a small child about "mud wrestling," "Groundhog Day," and "dancing for fun," than Mr. Whalen, the Enterprise's 20th Century expert from The Big Goodbye, about it. I can't say I really blame him.

Webster explains that dancing is fun but Worf tells him that in some parts of the galaxy, "dancing is considered a prelude to violence." Webster then shows off some of his dance moves leading to the random security officer from earlier running over and jabbing a laser gun into his ribs.

"See! I told you!" growls Worf.

I must confess that this entire scene confuses me somewhat since at this point in the show's run we've already seen people dancing aboard the Enterprise (there was some random lady officer who did ballet when that creep-ass The Traveler brought them to the edge of the Universe and everyone started tripping balls and living out their dreams) and I know that there's more dancing still to come that does not result in fisticuffs.

Again Webster insists that dancing fun and that he's a good dancer. He mentions that his Uncle Phil is also a good dancer and we fade out before fading back in on a clip of a stage somewhere where Webster's Uncle Phil is doing a soft shoe routine with Webster. That's right people I'm following up the only Star Trek clip show with a review of a Star Trek adjacent clip show.

Anyway Webster's Uncle Phil is played by Ben Vereen who would actually show up later in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Geordi's dad even though Ben Vereen is only like 11 years older than LeVar Burton. To me though he'll always be Mayor Ben from Zoobilee Zoo, an American children's show from the mid-80s that undoubtedly gave rise to countless furries who were children in 1986 but that's well beyond our field of study here at the Star Trek Fuck Repot. Back to the clipshow that has Worf in it!

We see Webster and his Uncle Phil do some vaudeville shtick before singing and dancing. The laugh track thinks it's hilarious. Me? Not so much. Ben Vereen's a pretty good dancer but that's about all I can say for it.

Back on the Enterprise we see Worf, who has just spent several minutes listening to a small child regale him with tales of the time he and his uncle did a vaudeville act in the early 1980s, scowls and declares, "That doesn't sound like fun at all!" He continues by stating that such an act "would have started a war" on some planets. Again the laugh track is utterly destroyed by this zinger.

Webster asks Worf to beam him back home but Worf tells him that they will as soon as they clear the gravitational pull of Antares. Webster is pleased by this because, "The thought of bing in junior high for next eighteen hundred millenniums didn't sound too good!" I have no idea what this even means but it absolutely kills with the laugh track. Really I've been thinking about that "joke" since I heard it and the more I think about it the more it hurts my brain. What is the punchline supposed to be? He's not eighteen hundred millennia into the future. Worf clearly told him that he's in the 24th century and even if it had been eighteen hundred millennia into the future he time traveled. He wouldn't have stayed a junior high student all that time unless he's thinking that he'll have to enter 24th century junior school and that it would take him eighteen hundred millennia to complete 24th century junior high. I don't get it.

Fortunately Webster quickly changes topic and asks why a big-ass space ship like the Enterprise has so few people on the bridge. How he knows how large the Enterprise is when he's spent the entire time in a single room isn't really dealt with as Worf just explains that since they were in the midst of a routine survey only a skeleton crew is needed and everyone else is rejuvenating in the holodeck where they are free "to pursue their most stimulating fantasies." This also gets the laugh track treatment but the implied horniness really calls more for that "WOOOOOOOOOO! (pause followed by a single voice) Ow!" thing that sitcoms of this era would employ whenever anything horny happened.

Webster explains that the holodeck sounds a lot like vacations which like dancing are also fun. Worf scowls and asks, "Isn't 'fun' a waste of time?" Webster shoots back that "Fun's fun!" before telling Worf about how one time he went to a dude ranch with family on vacation.

We get another clip, this time of Webster and his family at the aforementioned dude ranch. Apparently his adoptive father George had been there as a kid and talked up some dude ranch employee. That employee has no recollection of George though and then invites them to a barbecue before teaching Webster "how to mosey." That's the entire clip.

All the talk of dude ranches and moseying and fun are beyond Worf's ken so Webster tells him about another vacation his family went on: a trip to San Francisco for a helicopter tour of the city.

Another clip is cued up and we see Webster and his parents boarding a helicopter. As they get into the helicopter Webster declares, "Beam me up Scotty!" and now I'm really confused because that means that the Star Trek Universe exists both as a real thing that will happen in the future (because spoiler alert for several paragraphs down: this entire episode is revealed in the end to be a thing that actually happened to Webster and not just a flight of fancy or dream or anything) and as a pop culture touchstone that small children would reference in nonsensical situations.

We then get some stock footage of a helicopter flying around looking at San Francisco landmarks while Webster and his parents deliver more terrible sitcom jokes. The overall joke of the clip is Webster's mom, "Ma'am" doesn't like being in the helicopter and in the final bit of the clip we see her knocked out in the helicopter and George joking that the Dramamine finally kicked in.

Back on the Enterprise, Worf opines, "Your Ma'am's reaction was appropriate for such a primitive form of transportation."

Suddenly the red alert klaxons blare and Worf explains that the ship is "having trouble escaping Antares' gravitational pull," and tells Webster that, "If we do not enter the time continuum at the appropriate moment, you will arrive home 85 years too late!"

Webster cracks wise and says that he should have seen Roger Rabbit when he had the chance, apparently unaware of the fact that VHS cassettes of movies existed in his time after movies stopped being in the theater and there's a good chance that Roger Rabbit still exists in some form in the 24th century.

For those of your worried that Webster was going to get stuck in the 24th century and end up in Wesley Crusher's middle school or whatever, fear not, for in the very next scene we get a stock footage of the Enterprise flying past a planet with a random voice that's very clearly not Geordi telling Worf that they've cleared Antares' gravitational pull. With that minor crisis behind them the topic of conversation turns to sports. Worf claims to think human sports are weird except for football though he finds that game to be a bit tame.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it later revealed (maybe circa Deep Space 9) that Worf was a terrific soccer player when he was a child? Why does he not understand human sports? Is he using "football" in the British sense of the word? I don't think that's the case because I'm pretty sure he referred to it as "soccer" when discussing his time playing the game and since Webster's dad was an actual football player it makes sense that the show would make Worf have some respect for said game. Who knows?

Anyway all this talk of sports leads to Webster regaling Worf with the story of how one time his little league team got their asses handed to them because Webster was a terrible pitcher. Kids were socking dingers off him left and right and we see Webster throw down his mitt in frustration.

Back on the Enterprise Worf gleefully tells a small child that that doesn't sound fun and that he was humiliated. Webster admits that getting his ass beat in baseball wasn't all that fun but says that the challenge of it is fun. Finally something Worf understands! He tells Webster that he understands challenges since they are part of "Klingon courtship rituals," That's right, "courtship," rather than "mating," because this is a syndicated sitcom for small children so straight out talking about fucking probably wouldn't have flown.

This leads to Webster talking about the challenge of his "first 6k race." We see him running and running and running in montage. He starts out doing pretty good but soon it's dark and it's clear that everyone else finished the race hours earlier. George shows up in what appears to be a golf cart to pick him up but Webster tells him that he wants to finish the race.

George tells him that they've already raised enough money to save the youth center or some trite bullshit so Webster can stop. Webster tells him that the first five miles were for the youth center but "this last mile is for me." Umm...doesn't the "k" in a "6k" stand for kilometer or was this a 6,000 mile run?

Either way, George is impressed with Webster's determination and tells him that he has his father's heart. Back on the Enterprise, Worf is equally impressed telling Webster that if the "Klingons were not such a fierce race, that would being a tear to my eye."

The random crew member who absconded earlier with Webster's joystick returns it to him. Worf tells Webster that he can go back home now and Webster asks him how he's supposed to do that. 

Worf replies, "Just click your heels together three times and repeat, ‘'There’s no place like home!'" Webster looks at him in askance and Worf cracks a smile and tells him that that was just a little "Klingon humor," before telling Webster that all he needs to do is press the button on his joystick to return to his own time.

Webster does and we get the shitty teleportation effect again. As Webster fades away he tells Worf, "I sure had a lot of..." but vanishes before he can finish the thought.

With Webster gone, Worf completes the sentence for him, "I know...fun!" and then goes back to working the graveyard shift of the bridge or whatever the fuck it was he was doing before a small child from 1989 randomly appeared on the Enterprise.

Back in the suburbs of Chicago, Webster wakes up in his bed. So this whole thing can be written off as a dream and we can write it off as a non-canonical flight of fancy. Or can we? Webster throws off his blanket to reveal that he has his joystick in bed with him and attached to it is a little tag which reads, "Repaired and Inspected by No. 6 - The Starship Enterprise." Webster gives the camera a look and that's the show!

How Rikered War Riker With Beard?
Well, he didn't appear at all here so there's zero data from which we can make that determination. So instead we're going to answer a different question...

How Canonical is Webtrek?
I was never as big a Star Trek fan as I was a Star Wars fan so I'm not entirely sure how expanded universe (or whatever that stuff is called for Star Trek) is dealt with but with Star Wars prior to the Disney Era books and comics and video games and cartoon shows and things of that ilk were canonical so long as they didn't contradict anything in the movies (since they were the highest level on canon at that point) so I'm assuming that Star Trek has a fairly similar relationship with expanded universe material.

If that is the case then we can assume that Webtrek is indeed canon since outside Worf not understanding human sports there's nothing here that gets contradicted by other more mainline Star Trek materials. And in the case of the human sports thing that was something that I'm pretty sure first came up in Deep Space 9 which was years down the line at the earliest. So I'm going to say that this episode is canonical as fuck since it is clear from the conclusion of the episode that everything we saw did, in fact, happen as presented in the episode.

Therefore provided all episodes followed an in-universe chronological order that corresponded roughly with the dates that the episodes aired we can surmise that sometime between the events of "The Dauphin" and those of "Contagion," a small child from 1989 ended up on the bridge of the Enterprise during a graveyard shift and had a discussion with Worf about the nature of fun while the ship escapes Antares' gravitational pull and "No. 6" repaired his video game controller so the child could return home.

Final Thoughts
So we've looked at the how of this episode but now it's time to answer the more pressing question, namely why does this exist. Unfortunately there have been far fewer deep dives into Webster than there have into Star Trek so there's not a ton of concrete information about this episode floating around online but what we do know is that both Webster and Star Trek were produced by Paramount and filmed at the same location (different lots at Paramount Studios) so I'm assuming that this was just a bit of corporate synergy or something of that ilk.

Oddly enough this episode would serve as the series finale of Webster. The episode prior to this one is apparently a more fitting final episode to the show (while at the same time also being a clipshow because of course it was) which leads me to believe that this episode exists solely to get the episode count up to 150 for future syndication deals and that producers wanted to hit that number on the cheap since the show had already been cancelled.

As we talked about when reviewing Shades of Gray there are few things cheaper in television than a clip show and here they just had two primary actors (Emmanuel Lewis and Michael Dorn) along with a couple of extras. It would have been very easy for Lewis and a skeleton crew from the Webster set walk across the lot to the sound stage Star Trek was filmed in to knock out the wrap around stuff with Worf probably in an afternoon.

I wish I could say it's an interesting little bit of Star Trek: The Next Generation ephemera but it's really not. If a Star Trek clip show sucks imagine how bad a clip show for a different show that just happens to feature a Star Trek character in it is. Moreover the presence of a laugh track in the scenes taking place aboard the Enterprise is kind of wild. There were moments during the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation that were very clearly aping sitcom tropes and I now think that the presence of a sitcom laugh track might have helped convince me that what had just happened was actually funny. I'm sure someone online has already put such things together, adding a laugh track to any episode ending scene that more or less has the crew being like, "That's our Data!" But I digress...this is a shitty episode of a shitty sitcom that no one need bother seek out.

Fuck Count
This is a show that forced Worf to speak of "Klingon courtship rituals" as opposed to Klingon mating rituals so of course there was zero fucking here though Worf does mention his colleagues retreating to the holodeck to "to pursue their most stimulating fantasies," so maybe Webster was also a super horny TV. I'm not about to go investigate that any further though but if someone is interested in doing so they're more than welcome to do so.

Total Fucks for Episode: 0
Total Fucks for Season: 0
Total Fucks for Series: 16 (+1~3)