Top music parodies number 8 - "Star Trekkin' across the Universe"
Those unfamiliar with the history of this may have trouble spotting it, but "Star Trekkin' across the Universe" is a heavily modified (and bowlderised) version of a parody of "I am the music man."
"Star Trekkin' across the Universe" had to have a place on this list of top parodies as it was very popular - it spent several weeks in the UK charts including a couple at number one - and has stood the test of time, in that well over thirty years after it was top of the pops many people still remember it.
Back when I was at University I recall my student contemporaries singing "I am the Star Trek Man" which I understand had been written by Roger Kehoe for members of the Sealed Knot society, of which I seem to recall my friends who were singing it were members.
It was sung to the tune of "I am the music man" and each verse began with the leader singing "I am the Star Trek man, I come from down your way, and I can play,"
Everyone else would sing out the question "Who can you play?" to which the reply was the name of a Star Trek character, followed by an appropriate line for that character such as
"We come in Peace - shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill!" for Captain Kirk or
"It's worse than that, he's dead Jim, dead Jim, dead, Jim!" for Doctor McCoy.
And then everyone would sing together all the lines given so far. Not all the lines of the version I heard at university were suitable for a family audience - the lines concerned may have been improvised and added to Roger Kehoe's version.
When The Firm brought "Star Trekkin' across the universe" a couple of years in 1987, - and it reached No 1 in the charts - it had been substantially cleaned up and most of the obvious derivations from "I am the music man" removed, but enough of the remaining lines were identical to those in "I am the Star Trek Man" than I knew at once this was a version of the same song and this account in Wikipedia of the origins of the song supports that view.
The song was released with a claymation animated video, but this version below uses clips from the "Kelvin Timeline" Star Trek films.
"Star Trekkin' across the Universe" had to have a place on this list of top parodies as it was very popular - it spent several weeks in the UK charts including a couple at number one - and has stood the test of time, in that well over thirty years after it was top of the pops many people still remember it.
But there was a serious challenge for the top "Star Trek" place on this list, and I must give an honourable mention to one which fans of Deep Space Nine will appreciate, "Trill all the klingons want," which is a parody of "Girl all the bad guys want."
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