10 Greatest Star Trek In-Jokes
5. Who Writes For Morn?
We all know Morn: the famously loose-lipped Lurian with a liking for jumja sticks, a small fortune in one of his stomachs, and his own seat at Quark's bar. His name alone is an in-joke: Morn is an anagram of 'Norm,' the permanent patron of Cheers. The character's reputation as a chatty Cathy might well precede him, but, of course, Morn never actually had any lines.
This was far from the plan for Morn from the beginning, however. According to The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, on the very first day of filming for Emissary, the man beneath the then nameless Morn mask — Mark Allen Shepherd — was asked by director David Carson to "tell the funniest joke in the universe"… and he did. We won't spoil it for you, but it involves a "coconut concertina cosmological argument" and a "honeysuckle garbage poultry rimfire".
Morn made it into the pilot, but, evidently, the joke did not. Later, lines that were planned for the character were written out before shooting. Eventually, it was far funnier for the great raconteur to say nothing at all, becoming what is certainly one of Star Trek's longest-running inside jokes, especially when you take into account the Cerritos' season three stop at Deep Space 9.