10 Weirdest Adverts Featuring Star Trek Actors
4. MCI Friends And Family - The Whole Crew (And Riker!)
MCI Communications introduced their friends and family rate in 1991, which they advertised with this Trek heavy advert in 1993. The entire main Original Series cast appears in the ad, along with Jonathan Frakes, who they jokingly say must be in the wrong circle.
MCI was instrumental in bringing competition to the telephone market in the eighties, offering another option instead of AT&T, which had the monopoly on long-distance calling at the time. This ad plays into that fear of long-distance calls, with each member of the cast enjoying the fact that they can talk to each other without staggering phone bills.
The company would go on to be bought out by World Com for a staggering $34.7 Billion in stock, becoming MCI World and then, two years later, the MCI element was dropped altogether. Following a major accounting scandal, in 2002 World Com filed for bankruptcy, at which point several of the old managerial posts were refilled by MCI staff, who claimed they were taking their company back.
None of which features in this ad - but that was far too interesting not to include!