Alright, now most respectable psychologists and college professors will downplay Freud's contributions to the science because, quite frankly, the man was insane. So to say that Bernard Kates' portrayal of the infamous father of psychoanalysis was a mockery even by Freud's standards made this seventh season episode "Phantasms" just extraordinarily funny. Data discovers a dream program created for him by Dr. Soong, and when he starts to experience nightmares involving a knife, cutting into Counselor Troi like a cake and big burly workmen coming to take him apart he goes to none other than Dr. Freud himself which is basically just asking us Trekkies to make fun of him. Freud obviously interprets the knife cutting into Troi as Data's unconscious desire to have sex with his mother (because as a wise bar fly by the name of Cliff Clavin once said, "a Freudian slip is when you say one thing but you mean a mother") and the workmen were elements of a dismemberment dream out of animosity for Dr. Soong, his father. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRq95IKBUtU Just when you think this hilarity can't get any worse, the episode ends with the fictional Freud calling a telephone inside Data's stomach to warn Picard and Geordi about the parasites attempting to feed off the crew, and also taking a slug from one of said workmen's old fashioned Ruger, this of course leading to one of the worst (and funniest) death scenes of all time. Did we miss your favorite historical cameo? Sound off below!
Steve is an unrepentant nerd who enjoys all things Disney, Doctor Who, and Star Trek. He is currently finishing his undergraduate degree in political science at Temple University and divides his time between his homes in Philadelphia and Orlando.
