As something of an aside to the Commander Keen “Multiverse Saga,” I thought I would touch on the
Commander Keen animated series that ran from 1999 to 2001. Many fans such as myself consider it one of the best animated shows based on a video game alongside Greg Weisman’s
Legend of Zelda and the SatAM incarnation of
Sonic the Hedgehog. I can attribute this to Tom Ruegger as executive producer of the series, giving it a similar tone to
Animaniacs and
Freakazoid. He admittedly knew little of the series beforehand except what he saw when his three sons play
The Universe is Toast on their Sega Saturn.
The format, for the most part, was similar to his previous work with an average of three shorts focusing on Keen’s exploits as “Defender of the Earth” and how it contrasted with his mundane terrestrial existence as 8-year-old boy genius. It was also chock full of pop cultural references and subversively adult humor that Ruegger and the writers could get past the radar of network censors. However, the series gained some notoriety with one of its rare full-length episodes known as “The Fatal Frontier.”
The episode itself was a thinly-veiled parody of
Star Trek fandom and was originally written with voice actors impersonating the original cast. It was only fortuitous timing that casting and voice director, Andrea Romano cast Leonard Nimoy as the devil in all-but-name Mr. Satin for both
Mars’ Most Wanted and the animated series. Nimoy happened upon a draft of “The Fatal Frontier” and suggested bringing in the cast of the Original Series. To everyone’s surprise William Shatner and DeForest Kelly agreed to lend their vocal talents to the show (Kelly recorded his lines months before his passing in June 1999). Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei, and James Doohan also returned to “reprise” their roles.
As for the plot, it bears many similarities to
Galaxy Quest released a two months after its original airdate. The actors from Keen’s favourite television,
Quasar Quest, find themselves abducted by aliens (voiced by Next Generation alumni Brent Spiner, Dwight Schultz, as well as series regular Rob Paulsen) to fight an alien warlord voiced by Michael Dorn. As a parody of Star Trek fandom, these aliens, called the Dwibs, resemble the principal cast of
Revenge of the Nerds complete with homemade uniforms, poor hygiene, and aversion to sunlight. Keen calls them a planet of basement dwellers.
Most of the comedy comes from William Shatner’s performance an exaggerated version of himself called Bill Shattered, whose ego dwarfs the Milky Way and despised by his co-stars. He honestly believes that the very real danger they face is a reenactment of one their episodes and takes credit for Keen’s efforts to keep him from getting killed. Meanwhile, the other
Quasar Quest cast members of the struggle to play the roles of their characters on the show, notably Kelly’s character (Kelsey Meadows), who is implied to be alcoholic, and Nimoy’s burnt-out and cynical counterpart.
Despite Keen’s warnings, flabby and barechested Shattered fights and loses to a lizard alien in a brief scene parodying the Gorn fight from “Arena,” which reveals the fact they are actors. Thus the rest of episode focuses on Keen and the casts’ (minus a traumatized Shattered) efforts to teach the Dwibs how to fight back. However, the problem with the original broadcast version was that time constraints forced the producers to truncate the episode to fit into 24 minutes. That meant that many of the actors outside that Kirk/Spock/McCoy trifecta didn’t receive as much attention, though they did get some memorable lines like Keen prodding Koenig’s character into using a Russian accent (“Say Nuclear Wessels!”) or getting Takei to repeat his famous, albeit from
Third Rock From the Sun, “Oh my!”
Personally, my favourite is Michael Dorn’s Warlord shouting, “DWIIIIIIIBS!” right out of
Revenge of the Nerds.
Despite this, “The Fatal Frontier” became one of the series’ highest-rated episodes. As with
Galaxy Quest, it became popular with Trekkers disappointed with the direction of the series after
Rubicon, the sudden cancellation of
Voyager, and the tone of
Nemesis. Ruegger later revealed in 2000 that they had originally recorded over an hour’s worth of dialogue, and even storyboarded an hour-long special just in case the studio was interested. Demand from both Commander Keen and Star Trek fans ultimately led to a rare collaboration between Warner Bros. and Paramount to co-produce a feature-length version of the episode to release for the 35th anniversary of Star Trek.
Commander Keen: The Fatal Frontier saw a limited theatrical release on September 7, 2001 followed by a tremendously successful home release on VHS and DVD. With the release of
Commander Keen: Worlds United as a launch title for the Katana in March, Keen was at the apex of his popularity. Though its run was comparatively brief at two seasons and fifty-two episodes total, “The Fatal Frontier” (both broadcast and feature-length version) and its sheer amount of Star Trek references helped cement the series’ place in popular culture. Not only among video game fans, but also among animation fans and science fiction aficionados.
-from the blog "The Musing Platypus" by B. Ronning, March 17, 2013
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This may have unfortunate butterflies for Futurama, though.
