This week officially marked the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. The iconic science fiction show was entering adulthood when The Real Ghostbusters was still in its infancy. Thirty years later, The Real Ghostbusters is pretty much as beloved as Star Trek.
On November 17, 1987 episode 24, Ain’t NASA-sarily So aired. Written by Craig Miller and Mark Nelson, it directly referenced Star Trek in fun ways.
Unless you were already a Trekkie/Trekker or knew someone in your family, most the references went out into space. That was the certainly the case of me, as I was 9 years old. I was probably aware of Star Trek, I knew very little about it. It would be about a year or so before I would have watched a Star Trek movie. It wouldn’t be until 1993 where I was able to watch my first complete Star Trek series on a weekly basis. I was well into adulthood when I watched the original series in order.
The Real Ghostbusters are sent to outer space to the space platform Galileo in order to bust a particularly scary creature, while Peter is overjoyed about working under a government contract.
With both Star Trek and The Real Ghostbusters celebrating milestone anniversaries, this seemed like a great time to review Ain’t NASA-sarily So.
Source: The Real Ghostbusters Complete Series. Disc 1, Vol. 4
Ecto-Containment 
This was a fun episode. I liked the bit where they compared Egon to Spock. There was also another Star Trek reference in ‘Station Identification’ which was kinda funny and scary.
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And to compare Egon to Spock more then once, mostly by McTavish one or both of the writers really preferred Spock over Kirk. 😀 When Irahqua made that realization, a “certain pointy eared science officer” what did they know that we didn’t? 😉
I probably haven’t seen “Station Identification” since childhood. I vaguely remember it, I don’t remember the Star Trek reference. If I ever review it, “you’ll need a reference.”
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