TVSquad

Do not adjust your web browser. You are now entering the Retro Squad, where we are reviewing past episodes of classic TV shows.

The original version of Star Trek has been a show with two faces. On the one face, it was a serious show that dramatized the good and glorious future we humans could have after we screwed everything up (though, with so many wars going on around the galaxy, how good and glorious could it be?). On the other face, at least to some, it was a campy science fiction show that featured poor special effects, bad acting, and tunics that really didn't hold up to space travel too well.

Since the show left the airwaves in 1969, that second face is the one that television shows throughout the decades have parodied. Whether it be the original series itself, or the subsequent movies, or the conventions that sprung up from this show that lasted only 79 episodes. Shows both animated and live-action have found ways to skewer the show's, and its fans', good intentions. After the jump you'll find a few examples of those parodies either to laugh with or be angry at.

As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies -- Ever with numbers 30-21, we here at TV Squad are also looking at television comedy, but with a slightly skewed difference. Last week, we took a look at the numerous stand-up comedians who became sitcom stars. In this installment we look at one particular TV comedy that made stars out of a number of actors and actresses.

I'm talking about NBC's Saturday Night Live. Since its premiere in 1975, the late-night sketch show has given us a slew of actors and actresses who have made the move onto both the big and small screen. Sometimes the move was towards more comedy, sometimes it was a switch to more serious roles, other times it was a little bit of both. And, while many of those who made it are still in the public eye these days, some of the greatest of those who came from Studio 8H had their careers snuffed out way too early.

The amount of those who rose to the top varied from cast to cast. Some casts, like the very first one, produced a whole slew of talent who went on to bigger and better things. Others, like the first casts from 1980-85 and the mid-1990s, produced very little in the way of big stars.

(S02E09) "We could wake up tomorrow, and it could all go to hell."-- Robert McAllister

I have to admit: I would have owed Tommy $100. But not for the same reasons as Kevin and Justin. I will get to that in a bit though. Was it just me, or did this episode have some editing glitches? One minute Kitty is telling Robert that it's bad luck to sleep with the groom on the night before the wedding and Justin and Lena seem to be talking about the wedding being that day, and then Kitty is in the Walker kitchen working on her vows and the wedding is still a day away. Anyway, it wasn't a big deal-- it just seemed a little incongruous for a bit.

(S02E08) "Well, I'm a democrat, and I lost my virginity to "She's Got Legs."-- Sarah Walker

Did everybody lose their virginity to a song? I don't remember whether I did or not, but if you want to share yours, feel free. I loved it when Robert walked in and Nora asked him what song was playing when he lost his. And then when she revealed that her first time wasn't with their father. And that is all very well and good, but I personally have never found Chevy Chase (Stan Harris) to be particularly attractive. However, I am willing to put that aside and say that I thought he did a wonderfully understated turn as Kitty's Nora's (thanks, Jamie) first love, Stan Harris.

(S06E01) A long time ago, but somehow in the future . . .

Who would've thunk it? When Family Guy premiered back in 1999(!) many people tossed it away as a pale imitation of The Simpsons and kind of ignored it. Who knew that eight years later, at the start of the show's 6th season, Seth MacFarlane and his crew would be able to get the approval of George Lucas himself to air a spoof of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It shows how far Family Guy has come since it returned to the prime-time airwaves.

Because Time magazine didn't want to waste a reporter resource to interview Chevy Chase, they decided to have him answer questions sent in by readers. One of them asked what he thought of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and he oh so humbly took credit for their success. "My ego tends to think that, you know, I started it with my Weekend Update," he responds, implying that the ideas for both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report came directly from WU.

In a way, he might be right, as his fake newscast came before theirs. But TDS and TCR are so different from Chase's newscast, that his claim of "starting" it is tenuous at best. Never let it be said that, despite a declining career, Chevy didn't still have his mid-career ego intact. At least he admits to it.

Regis just asked Chevy Chase if tonight's Law and Order episode was based on the Mel Gibson case. First of all, dumb question. Second, Chase said it was kind of inspired by the case.

Right.

Chevy Chase has started shooting an episode of Law & Order in which he plays a celebrity who is stopped for drunk driving and whose "religious prejudice" comes out -- okay, he's playing Mel Gibson. Since this is Law & Order and not, say, Reno 911!, Chevy's fictional character will also be found with blood on him, making for a major-crimes angle.

Count on Jack McCoy and the rest of the gang to have this one neatly sorted within forty-three minutes as usual. Win or lose, next week they'll be on to another story distilled from some other headline. One episode, one case, the end.

Despite the popularity of the Fletch movies (starring Chevy Chase as the sarcastic reporter), it has taken longer to get more of the movies made than it took to get another Superman movie made -- and presumably, Superman Returns required many more special effects. Director Kevin Smith (whose new movie Clerks II is in theaters and who was also associated with Superman at one point) had been talking about making a Fletch movie years ago. As in more than five years ago. He wrote on his View Askew message board back then that he wanted to cast Jason Lee (who now stars in the title row of the terrific show My Name is Earl) as Fletch.