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Oh My!

Did Patty Duke appear in an episode of Star Trek? If not, what is she doing alongside George Takei in these painfully awkward PSAs for the Social Security Administration, wearing Starfleety pajamas in front of a blue-screen simulation of the USS Enterprise's bridge? Maybe she's a Trekkie. Or a bad investor (which would make shilling for Social Security especially appropriate).

My favorite line: "Patty, let me be honest with you. Won't filing for Social Security benefits online be confusing?" (To which Patty replies that it's a snap compared to navigating through an asteroid belt.) Note that the SSA apparently did not have permission to use the Starfleet chest insignia, a detail that, along with Patty's anachronistic wristwatch, ruined the suspension of disbelief for me, although I've always been a Sulu fan.

[Thanks to Michele Sullum for the tip.]

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|4.13.11 @ 4:16PM|

Are you channeling Dick Enberg?

|4.13.11 @ 4:18PM|

I imagine that France wants to ban this to deflect attention from its racist (anti-immigration) ban on burqas.

All I want to say is, I want to be in France when the protests start over this....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....al-pay-sex

The Gobbler|4.13.11 @ 4:29PM|

You can take my French whores when you pry them from my cold, dead hands

The Immaculate Trouser|4.13.11 @ 4:31PM|

Or damp and sticky, as it were.

|4.13.11 @ 4:45PM|

FUCK SARKOZY.

This will be a joke in France.

Otto|4.13.11 @ 6:06PM|

"80% of prostitutes are victims of trafficking"

Good to know our politicians aren't the only ones to make up complete bullshit statistics.

Shocked|4.13.11 @ 6:22PM|

All depends on your definition of trafficking. They used the "owns on car and drives self around" version.

|4.13.11 @ 7:30PM|

Hey man, the knows what he's talking about - he saw Taken!

cynical|4.13.11 @ 10:00PM|

Somehow, I think the ability of wealthy, powerful French politicians to use their wealth and power to nail attractive young women will remain in place.

cynical|4.13.11 @ 10:13PM|

Whoa, wrong article...

|4.13.11 @ 4:18PM|

Paramount will murder your children if you even think about using anything Star Trek related (though they haven't been able to get NutraSweet for his Kirk/Spock/Horta slash fic yet); how was the SSA able to get away with this?

Brett L|4.13.11 @ 4:21PM|

Bigger guns, meaner lawyers, more money.

|4.13.11 @ 4:29PM|

Photon torpedoes even?

|4.13.11 @ 4:28PM|

"Spock screamed, 'NO KILL I' as Kirk's semen sprayed the glowing body of the Horta. The sticky droplets evaporated in a puff of acrid steam."

The Immaculate Trouser|4.13.11 @ 4:32PM|

"Brain, brain, what is brain?!"

The Immaculate Trouser|4.13.11 @ 4:32PM|

"Brain, brain, what is brain?!"

|4.13.11 @ 4:33PM|

HE'S RIGHT HERE ^^^, PARAMOUNT

GILMORE|4.13.11 @ 4:51PM|

Paramount will murder your children if you even think about using anything Star Trek related

Oh man.

You have obviously never seen this

Warning: NSFW

But, SFHB (safe for hash brownies)

|4.13.11 @ 4:56PM|

You NutraSweeted the link, dude. Nice going.

|4.13.11 @ 5:06PM|

Isn't that technically only half-NutraSweeted, since the hyperlink itself works, it just goes to a bad link (as opposed to having orange-colored text that does nothing when you click it)?

|4.13.11 @ 5:32PM|

Nope. You screw up the link at all, and you NutraSweeted it.

|4.13.11 @ 5:46PM|

Duly noted.

Otto|4.13.11 @ 6:21PM|

Here's GILMORE's link.

|4.13.11 @ 8:23PM|

That was amazing. I'm now high.

|4.13.11 @ 5:48PM|

I think Paramount only starts liquidating your offspring if there is even remote whiff that money could be made from said Star Trek branding, or that people might see it.

So they're all cool with this.

Tim|4.13.11 @ 4:19PM|

Where's the fooking klingons when you need them?

The Immaculate Trouser|4.13.11 @ 4:20PM|

At least Takei has the good sense and self-respect to look and sound bored as fuck reading those staid lines.

|4.13.11 @ 4:31PM|

"Target that explosion and fire!"

|4.13.11 @ 5:03PM|

I'm just curious what law Takei broke that he had to appear in this as part of his sentence.

The Immaculate Trouser|4.13.11 @ 5:04PM|

It involved children and a broken teleporter.

The Gobbler|4.13.11 @ 4:26PM|

"although I've always been a Sulu fan."

NTTAWWT

Joe M|4.13.11 @ 4:29PM|

Damn it that was my joke!

Navigaytor|4.13.11 @ 4:35PM|

Unbenownst to the the rest of the crew, Sulu surreptitiously and repeatedly entered a course heading directly for Uranus...or any other within reach by impulse power.

Fist of Etiquette|4.13.11 @ 4:32PM|

As I recall, in the pilot for The Patty Duke Show, Cathy Lane was the result of a transporter accident. Ironically, it was Patty, the original cousin, who was evil.

|4.13.11 @ 4:48PM|

What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be trawling the tubez, looking for a reason to hate Tampa Bay?

Isn't someone here from Tampa? SF? PL?

I don't know they all look alike to me.

Ryan Malone wears your ugly mom like a beard! Ha!

NoVAHockey|4.13.11 @ 5:05PM|

i've just decided that they're florida and that it's 1996. that's hate enough.

Fist of Etiquette|4.13.11 @ 6:05PM|

I am on my way to Consol as we speak.

|4.13.11 @ 6:33PM|

Dude, have fun. Be LOUD!

We'll all look for you on the teevee.

Fist of Etiquette|4.13.11 @ 7:00PM|

I'm the one in the Lemieux jersey.

|4.13.11 @ 7:09PM|

You should wear a baby blue Crosby jersey, that way you'd really stand out.

Fist of Etiquette|4.13.11 @ 8:54PM|

Alotta shots second period, not alotta goalz.

|4.13.11 @ 10:07PM|

You shoulda saw da third.

Fist of Etiquette|4.13.11 @ 10:40PM|

The Con was deafening.

|4.13.11 @ 7:07PM|

Are we talking hockey?

|4.13.11 @ 7:10PM|

Steve Stamkos wears your ugly mom like a beard! Ha!

*scampers off*

|4.13.11 @ 7:10PM|

'Cause if we are, prepare for pain, bitches.

The Gobbler|4.13.11 @ 5:41PM|

"Patty, the original cousin, who was evil."

Which is why a "hotdog" made her loose control.

Colin|4.13.11 @ 4:44PM|

Too bad they didn't get Duke's ex-husband instead. The Addams Family & Star Trek. Now, that would be something.

Can't understand why Takei would do a promo for the SSA, though, when they refuse to recognize his marriage.

|4.13.11 @ 4:51PM|

Patty, let me ask you a question: Is signing up for Social Security online harder than say, ummm, putting on a bra?

Cause if so, you ain't gettin' no check.

Yeah, I looked. Fuck off.

Corporate Drone|4.13.11 @ 4:51PM|

*sets phaser on DIE A LITTLE INSIDE*

|4.13.11 @ 5:01PM|

Difficulty Scale:

online signup for SS benefits < navigating an asteroid field < filing taxes

Han Solo|4.13.11 @ 6:02PM|

Never tell me the odds.

|4.13.11 @ 6:32PM|

That was the uber-laugh that I desperately needed today.

However, my assertion stands, since Solo could handle an asteroid field, but never paid his taxes.

|4.13.11 @ 6:34PM|

(still waiting for Star Wars: Episode 16, where he signs up for Social Security, to verify the comparison completely)

Han Solo|4.13.11 @ 11:20PM|

I married a rich chick, what do I need Social Security for? But if I did I don't think I paid taxes since all my revenue was, er, off-the-books.

|4.13.11 @ 5:03PM|

To paraphrase Ben Folds: "Give me my Snuggie back, give me my Snuggie back, you bitch."

Contrarian P|4.13.11 @ 5:10PM|

And Takei wins scary sounding laugh of the year award!

|4.13.11 @ 5:40PM|

OMG.

Urkobold's hacked the Hit & Run servers...again!

|4.13.11 @ 7:11PM|

When talking Sulu, the proper statement is simply, "Oh my."

|4.13.11 @ 6:19PM|

This isn't good. A George Takei post and Pro Libertate is nowhere to be seen. Someone please alert the authorities and tell them to bring the cadaver dogs.

|4.13.11 @ 7:09PM|

I only continue to run Sulu Friday because of highnumber's unabiding love for Star Trek.

Wind Rider|4.13.11 @ 6:26PM|

Well, they may have not done a deal for the Star Fleet insignia rights, but you guys are just noticing the ever rising tide of gov sponsored propaganda health, safety, and welfare informational tv spots that have been flooding all the backwater ad spots on cable television programming. While they didn't splurge for Paramount Rights, they had nooooooo problem shelling out an undetermined amount to Disney to use the Cinderella footage for that rage inducing car booster seat spot. Even at 3am rates on some of the bottom of the viewership channels and a great mass marketing discount (but figure the odds of some aparatchik drone scoring that kind of deal), we've still got to be watching several tens, dozens, probably more millions of dollars simply being evaporated for the benefit of eventually making you want to throw things at your television. Yeah, I'll have another ice cream, thank you very much for asking.

|4.13.11 @ 6:36PM|

So, what you're saying is, we need to subsidize TVs?

Zeb|4.13.11 @ 8:17PM|

I had assumed that Patty Duke was dead.

|4.13.11 @ 11:18PM|

Judging by those ads, she is.

This Dave|4.14.11 @ 1:04AM|

When you say her watch is anachronistic, do you mean to the 2250's or 1960's?

|4.16.11 @ 12:08AM|

Dis she say asteroid, or hemorrhoid belts?

Nike Dunk Shoes|12.9.11 @ 9:52PM|

thanks

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