10 Greatest TV Extra Performances Ever

8. Hand Crank Guy (Star Trek)

Community Basic Lupine Urology background extra
CBS

The Enterprise is a very busy place, and each member of the crew has an important role to play in keeping the ship running smoothly.

But wait a second, what on earth is this guy doing?!

In Star Trek's season three episode The Lights Of Zetar, there's a quick shot at the 37-minute mark where William Shatner walks past an extra who appears to be cranking an invisible wheel against the wall. At least, that's what it looks like in the lower-resolution GIFs/images of this moment that are scattered across the web.

If we do some cranking of our own though and boost the quality to HD, we can see that this chap is actually turning something - it's just that the material is quite hard to see.

Either way, this extra caught people's attention due to the incredible amount of effort he poured into his cranking task. He definitely had his Weetabix in the morning.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.