The Practical Joker by: Chuck Menville and Len Janson and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“The Practical Joker” is written by: Chuck Menville and Len Janson and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22021, was the 3^rd episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 19^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 21, 1974.

 

Sometimes you just want an episode of television that is a bit of fun and that’s exactly what “The Practical Joker” brings to Star Trek: The Animated Series.  Like the previous episode this is one that introduces a piece of lore, mainly the predecessor to the holodeck which as far as I am aware is one of those things that will be a big part of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  What’s kind of funny is that here the rec room is just a small part of an episode that decides to have fun by going full weird.  The central mystery is the Enterprise crew experiencing a series of practical jokes from their glasses being full of white liquid that spills on them, forks bending and dropping food, food dispensers dispensing ludicrous amounts of fruit, and laundry writing “Kirk is a Jerk” on the back of his uniform which I could not believe was an actual thing that happened in an episode of Star Trek and not a shitpost because of William Shatner’s general demeanor.  Doing an episode like “The Practical Joker” in animation could be a worry due to how limited Filmation’s animation standards were.  Yes, there’s still something quite static when the dialogue is happening, but even with the shortcuts being taken for very good reason in getting the episode in under the deadline.

 

Chuck Menville and an uncredited Len Janson write a script that actually increases in tension, the jokes start harmless as mentioned but eventually become more dangerous.  There’s also a secondary threat of the Romulans, the Enterprise accidentally entering Romulan space and by the end of the episode providing their ship with the same practical jokes the crew have had to deal with.  The big twist is that there isn’t a single joker on board, but the actual computer of the Enterprise is malfunctioning because of an energy field it passed through and playing these jokes.  Majel Barrett actually might be giving her best Star Trek performance here as the computer, using just enough emotion to communicate a childish sense of glee at the jokes being played while still holding back that artificial voice.  In fact, the entire cast of the episode seems to really be cutting loose, they know the episode has quite the silly premise and are playing into it with the slight exception of William Shatner who is just giving his usual performance as Kirk.  Menville and Janson also do a surprisingly good job of balancing the episode so everyone in the cast at least has something to do, which is an especially good feat since this is still just a 25-minute episode of television.  Okay, it’s accomplished by keeping characters in groups, but historically Star Trek has even struggled with doing this in even the standard hour-long episodes of the original series.  The weaknesses of Menville and Janson as writers, not usually writing in science fiction, does mean that the resolution of the episode is particularly ridiculous, just going through the field again to fix the computer and make the Romulan’s computer become a joker.  It's a resolution that doesn’t make sense but I can’t help but still enjoy the episode because of how much fun everyone is having.

 

Overall, “The Practical Joker” is an episode that isn’t particularly deep and has very little to say on anything, but it does fulfill a brief of being an entertaining episode of television.  The cast is clearly having a lot of fun performing their parts and that shows in the finished product, meaning the audience is going to have fun.  If Star Trek: The Animated Series was more like this it might get tired fast, but after a few weeks of boredom, this feels like a shot in the arm to finish the episode count strong.  7/10.