The Star Trek Blooper That Would Get Worf Epstein-Canceled Today

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 12 seconds ago

Sadly, blooper reels have largely become a relic of the past. Back in the day, bloopers would sometimes appear at the end of a film, giving the audience something to laugh at after all the tension had been resolved. After DVD became a thing, many TV shows included blooper reels as part of their physical media offerings. It was a real value add for buyers. They might have seen the episode a hundred times, but this would be their first time seeing a beloved actor flub a line so hard it cracks up everyone in the room. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation was no exception, and the DVDs and Blu-rays for this legendary sci-fi show include more than a few hilarious bloopers. For the episode “The Booby Trap,” this includes a line from Worf actor Michael Dorn that made his fellow Trek actors cackle in maniacal glee. Back in the day, what he said felt like nothing more than a simple screw-up, but these days, it would almost certainly get him canceled. You see, Dorn made the Klingon say “I did not play with boys” in a way that sounded suspiciously defensive!

The Stage Is Set

For this tale to make sense, you’ll need a little context for “Booby Trap.” In this episode, the Enterprise is exploring an asteroid field when it receives an urgent distress signal. Unfortunately, they find the distressed ship’s crew long dead, and our heroes get stuck in the same booby trap that doomed the ancient vessel. Geordi LaForge helps solve the problem by replicating warp expert Dr. Leah Brahms on the holodeck and, in a creeper move, falling in love with her. Eventually, the Enterprise escapes the titular booby trap, with Picard stunting and flexing on his crew by personally piloting everyone out of danger.

So, where does the offending blooper come into play? Early on in “Booby Trap,” Picard geeks out about the prospect of beaming over to a ship whose crew died so long ago. He compares it to a “ship in a bottle,” which is a fairly antiquated reference in the 24th century. So antiquated, in fact, that he gets confused looks from the rest of the crew. An exasperated Picard then blurts out, “Good Lord, didn’t anybody here build ships in bottles when they were boys?”

When All You Can Do Is Laugh

This leads to a pretty funny comedy beat. Worf replies, “I did not play with toys,” and Data points out, “I was never a boy.” Fortunately for Picard, the conversation is saved when Miles O’Brien pipes up and says that, like the captain, he used to assemble ships in a bottle. Sadly, though, nobody could save Michael Dorn, who screwed up his line by conflating it with Data’s!

Instead of saying “I did not play with toys,” the actor declares, in his powerful baritone, “I did not play with boys.” The result is instantaneous and infectiously funny. Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner immediately break character, absolutely cackling at what Dorn had accidentally said. Offscreen, you can hear Jonathan Frakes and others howling with laughter. While he certainly didn’t mean to, Star Trek’s most serious character dropped the funniest line in blooper history.

In the charged political climate of the modern world, a character suddenly blurting out, “I didn’t play with boys,” would likely get canceled quicker than you can say, “Make it so.” Does this mean we need to check the flight logs to see if Worf ever had too much fun on a certain island? Probably not. Based on his own misadventures on Risa a few years later, we know exactly what the Klingon would do with a tropical island paradise: ruin it for everyone with a little light terrorism before going back to work and never worrying about it, ever again.