5. Star Trek - The Transporter
'Beam me up Scotty,' is a phrase so synonymous with the Star Trek franchise that most people don't even realise it was never said on screen. Of course, the phantom quotation is supposed to have been delivered by Captain Kirk to Montgomery Scott as an order to start the ship's transporter, which would have teleported the away team to a nearby planet. But the point is, 'Beam me up Scotty' is up there with 'Elementary, my dear Watson' and 'Luke, I am your father' in terms of how unanimously ingrained in popular culture it has become over the years (and no, neither of those were ever said either), and it's all because of that transporter. However, that iconic means of teleportation, along with the sparkly, shimmering sound that accompanies it, would never have been had the bigwigs over at CBS Television been a bit more liberal with their money. Simply put, the transporter was an addition to the series by way of necessity; the characters needed to go from the Starship Enterprise to whichever planet needed them that week, and the show just didn't have the money to realise the coming into orbit and landing of a spaceship that series creator Gene Roddenberry wished for. Their solution was a device boasting the very simplicity that gives it its iconic status now (less is more, especially when there is less money) - a teleportation device that instantly beams our heroes to the planet's surface, with little more required of the production team than a fade out and a nifty sound effect. It's hard to imagine the Starship Enterprise without its famous transporter now, and indeed the device has been the subject of entire episodes from time to time. Its late-in-the-day inclusion seems like a no-brainer for a science fiction series short on cash, but it's a cultural icon nonetheless.