"And the nominees for Best Soft
Drink Product Placement are... Star Trek: The Pepsi
Generation, They Call Me Mr. Pibb, and Snow White and the
Seven-Ups." -From Futurama, "That's Lobstertainment" (February 25, 2001)
Star Trek: The Next Generation was launched on American
television in September 1987. By November the parodying
possibilities seemed endless. Attending Orycon that year in
Portland, Oregon with Julia Mueller and Michael Delgado, we kept
joking about Star Trek: The Next, Next Generation or
something like that. One of us (I can't remember who) said,
"What about Star Trek: The Pepsi
Generation?" Inspiration had struck! Potential ideas
wrote themselves, and by the time we drove back to Seattle at the
end of the weekend we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to
have in the movie.
I decided to collaborate with Darrell Bratz, a friend of mine
who had done a brilliant parody of Phil Donahue for our live
stage show, A TARDIS Home Companion. I invited Darrell
over for pizza one Sunday afternoon and together we pounded out a
script. Later, Darrell confided to me as he drove home that day
that he had no doubt this was the worst idea he had ever worked
on and it would be a horrible disaster.
I also enlisted my former housemates Cyn Mason and Greg Cox to
add jokes to the movie, which for reasons I can't remember was
done at LeRoy Bervin's house in West Seattle (LeRoy contributed
the "Doo-Dah" pun to the movie). Unlike Darrell, Cyn
and Greg were quite enthusiastic.
Our one and only choice to play Picard was Michael
Santo (left). Michael in fact hated The Next Generation
and his continual irritation at being told he "looked like
that guy on Star Trek" fueled his enthusiasm to
parody the whole production. Michael in fact was being a very
good sport. He was waiting patiently for T. Brian to come up with
the next Doctor Who script that in theory we would be
making later that year. (That script was not delivered until the
summer of 1988, by which time the energy to pursue another Who
had dissipated -- though Michael is still eager to do one.)
With Broken Doors in
post-production, The Pepsi Generation was filmed right
after Rustycon in January 1988. Next Generation had only
been on the air four months and Denise Crosby hadn't even been
killed off the show yet (hence, her character's presence in the
movie). Julia, as one of the originators of the movie, got to
play Ya Har, but Michael Delgado was unavailable the weekend we
were shooting, so Jeff Harris filled in to play Rigor. T. Brian
Wagner refused to shave off his beard in order to play Doo-Dah,
so the part went to Gary Watts. In fact, it was on the set of Pepsi
that Gary started romancing the former Doris O'Connor. They were
married in April 1989 and are still living in bliss in Carnation,
Washington.
Filming was done in the apartment of Jeanine Grey and Chris
Rimple, the only people I knew who lived in a windowless place.
All the interior scenes were done on a Saturday, with all the
exteriors shot the next day in Seattle's Discovery Park. Like
most of the Doctor Who movies, the ending of Pepsi needed tinkering. The
movie originally ended with the Away Team beaming back up to the
ship only to discover Rigor has turned the ship into a
hippie-filled crash pad. Suddenly, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy show up
where Bones declares the new show, "It's dead, Jim."
Frequent actor Jim Dean played Kirk (making three separate movies
in three different parts he appeared in for me). This scene was
cut because I accidently erased the footage of them by mistake
(whoops!), but in retrospect, the movie ends much funnier with
Picard's line to Weasley about watching gladiator movies
(shamelessly ripped-off from Airplane and contributed by
Florida fan Scott Wilson.) The final shot of the ship falling off
its string was an accidental blooper, with a post-dubbed line
suggested by Keith Johnson. The cameo by the TARDIS was ad-libbed
when model maker Gary Watts presented me with a tiny foam TARDIS
and we decided to add it in the shot as a gag. In the original
cut of the movie (notable for the numerous typos in the credits
and lack of background stills during them), the TARDIS shot
appeared during the movie, but the audience laughed too
hard and missed the line Picard says about "Jumping down to
the planet's surface."
Cameraman Alan Halfhill fearlessly edited the movie in an
all-night marathon session in order to premiere the movie at
Norwescon 10, alongside Broken Doors,
and won the Amateur Film Contest (beating out a 45-minute
long claymation parody of Star Trek: The
Motion Picture). The reaction to Pepsi was immediate.
People were clamoring for copies. Bootlegs (taped off the
in-house video channel) turned up the very next day. It was a
smash hit. All this for movie I spent two days and less than $200
on. Co-writer Darrell Bratz viewed the final project and admitted
his initial misgivings were wrong and that he thought we had done
a pretty good job.
On August 26, 1996 BBC Television in England featured a clip
from The Pepsi Generation on a documentary about Star
Trek parodies. About a minute was used consisting of Michael
Santo's "Space, the Final Frontier" speech at the
movie's beginning. This was transmitted in the UK PAL television
format converted from my 3/4" NTSC U-Matic master I provided
them.
For the 10th anniversary in 1998, Alan Halfhill and I DIGITALLY REMASTEREDStar Trek: The
Pepsi Generation (just like the Star Wars movies!).
New sound mix! Legible credits at last! Digital effect (we could
only afford one!). Copies now available on DVD
(home-made DVD-R format made on a Toshiba RD-XS52, may not be
compatible on all players). Write
me and please state which movie you want and what country you
are in.
In 1989 I wrote a sequel to be part of an annual parody called
Follies '89. In it, the crew of the Enterprise would meet
a planet full guys named Steve, travel back in time, and rescue
Pepsi from the diabolical clutches of Elvis-impersonating
"Coca-Klingons." The reason production didn't go
forward is Michael Santo left town to do Shakespeare. (I suppose
I could be persuaded to post the script here if enough people
were interested -- write me.)
Meanwhile, I thought this would end my associate with Star
Trek and parodies and that The Pepsi Generation would
be my monument to Trek fandom. But a film was about to be
released that would change all that...
Credits:
Star Trek: The Pepsi Generation
16 minutes. 8mm videotape. Filmed January 1988, released March
1988. Digitially Remastered April 1998. Cast. . . Michael Santo as Picard, Gary Watts as Doo-Dah,
Julia Mueller as Ya Har, Raven as Jordache, Conan MacLafferty as
Weasley, Jeff Harris as Rigor, Doris O'Connor as Toii; DJ
Driscoll, T. Brian Wagner and Ryan K. Johnson as writers; Tony
Case, Ian Smithers, Sharon Demuth, Joe Pincha, Mike Flynn and
Hadley Hull as the Ferrari.
Written by Ryan K. Johnson and Darrell Bratz, additional material
by Cyn Mason, Julia Mueller, Michael Delgado and Greg Cox.
Produced and Directed by Ryan K. Johnson
Our one and only choice to play Picard was Michael
Santo (left). Michael in fact hated The Next Generation
and his continual irritation at being told he "looked like
that guy on Star Trek" fueled his enthusiasm to
parody the whole production. Michael in fact was being a very
good sport. He was waiting patiently for T. Brian to come up with
the next Doctor Who script that in theory we would be
making later that year. (That script was not delivered until the
summer of 1988, by which time the energy to pursue another Who
had dissipated -- though Michael is still eager to do one.) 
the ending of Pepsi needed tinkering. The
movie originally ended with the Away Team beaming back up to the
ship only to discover Rigor has turned the ship into a
hippie-filled crash pad. Suddenly, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy show up
where Bones declares the new show, "It's dead, Jim."
Frequent actor Jim Dean played Kirk (making three separate movies
in three different parts he appeared in for me). This scene was
cut because I accidently erased the footage of them by mistake
(whoops!), but in retrospect, the movie ends much funnier with
Picard's line to Weasley about watching gladiator movies
(shamelessly ripped-off from Airplane and contributed by
Florida fan Scott Wilson.) The final shot of the ship falling off
its string was an accidental blooper, with a post-dubbed line
suggested by Keith Johnson. The cameo by the TARDIS was ad-libbed
when model maker Gary Watts presented me with a tiny foam TARDIS
and we decided to add it in the shot as a gag. In the original
cut of the movie (notable for the numerous typos in the credits
and lack of background stills during them), the TARDIS shot
appeared during the movie, but the audience laughed too
hard and missed the line Picard says about "Jumping down to
the planet's surface." 
claymation parody of Star Trek: The
Motion Picture). The reaction to Pepsi was immediate.
People were clamoring for copies. Bootlegs (taped off the
in-house video channel) turned up the very next day. It was a
smash hit. All this for movie I spent two days and less than $200
on. Co-writer Darrell Bratz viewed the final project and admitted
his initial misgivings were wrong and that he thought we had done
a pretty good job. 