Several weeks ago, I found out a good friend of mine is a Trekkie in a very funny way. We were having lunch, he whipped out his iPhone, and one after another came Doc McCoy’s famous catch phrase, “I’m a doctor, not a…”
Over and over again we heard, “I’m a doctor, not an engineer!,” “I’m a doctor not a brick layer!,” “I’m a doctor not an escalator!,” and so on, and it was really funny to hear it in this context.
So of course, this begged the question every Trekkie must know, how many times did Doc McCoy state he was a doctor, how many times did Spock say “Fascinating,” and so on.
Of course, we can always count on Trek fans to do all this hard work for us, not that it’s work to them because they are deeply devoted to the show, so here’s what they’ve gathered…
Believe it or not, McCoy only said “I’m a doctor” eleven times on the show, according to Wikipedia, which got this tidbit from the book, “From Sawdust to Stardust: The Biography of DeForest Kelley.” He also said, “He’s dead, Jim,” twenty times on the show.
Looking around on YouTube, there’s of course a bunch of fan compilations of the famous Star Trek lines, I even found a commercial for “She’s He’s and It’s Dead Jim Week” for the Kansas 24 TV Network.
I can’t locate an exact number for how many times Spock has said, “fascinating,” but there is a YouTube clips where he says it 46 times.
I also can’t find how many times he said, “Illogical,” or “highly illogical,” but certainly some Trekkie out there knows the answer, or is willing to scan through his DVD collection with a clicker counter to find out. (If any Trekkies out there know the answer, please let us know.)
The real question is how many scenes Kirk (pause) gives (pause) that (pause) halting (pause) delivery (pause) of his.
Okay Trekkies, that’s your homework assignment. Break out the DVDs and your clicker counters, and your thumb will probably go numb trying to count all these up.
Another homework assignment, how many seconds in those pauses. Who could forget the classic Saturday Night Live skit where John Belushi redid this to a T, and it caused the audience to break into uproarious hilarity and applause? Now as I’m writing this, the other classic Star Trek SNL skit comes to mind: “GET A LIFE!!!”
