One of our readers, L.M. Oliver asked:

Was somebody in casting also a “Blue Blaze Irregular”?  I ask because at least two actors from Banzai appeared in The Next Generation’s first season (Robert Ito and Vincent Schiavelli).

We’ve enlisted Denise Okuda, our resident Banzai expert to comment on this musing.

That’sa Paramount Studios in Hollywood, casting departmenta! You got-a that honey?!

 

 

 

Denise Okuda helped out with publicity for the original Buckaroo Banzai movie, answering fan mail and representing the film at science fiction conventions.  She also worked on the studio’s promotional Banzai newsletter. Afterwards, she stayed in touch with W.D. “Rick” Richter, the director of the movie, who’s a really cool guy. Years later, when Rick was signed to develop a possible pilot for Banzai, he called to tell her the good news. Naturally, we all jumped at the opportunity to help out.  More on that later.

 

Doug,

Well, I don’t think anyone at Paramount casting was a Banzai fan, but you never know.  Blue Blaze Irregulars seem to pop up where you least expect them!  I wasn’t on set during Schiavelli’s appearances on TNG, but Mike chatted a bit with Robert Ito, who played Professor Hikita in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.”  Mike says that Ito seemed pleased that someone remembered his role in Banzai.  I should mention that Clancy Brown (“Rawhide”) guested in an episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise.”  He even signed a copy of the Buckaroo Banzai DVD for us in the Art Department!

In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, we put Buckaroo Banzai’s motto, “No matter where you go, there you are” on the dedication plaque on the bridge of the Starship Excelsior.  MIke, Doug, and Jim delighted in finding places on the show to hide replicas of Dr. Banzai’s famous “oscillation overthruster” prop in as many episodes as they could.  They put one on a Klingon space station model once.  On another episode, they put it inside of Romulan control panel’s guts.  Overthrusters turned up any number of times as engineering tools and alien gizmos.  And in the movie Star Trek: First Contact, they even stuck an overthruster in the cockpit of Zefram Cochrane’s spaceship! 

And, of course, when Peter Weller, Dr. Banzai himself, guested in two episodes of the show, director LeVar Burton prevailed on Weller to use an overthruster prop in a scene! 

-Denise Okuda

 

 Here’s a photo of Weller using the overthruster, plus a closeup of the replica.  You can’t see it in the set photo, but there are also two overthrusters glued to the desk!