He went from insulting Captain Kirk to palling around with Spock
Over the course of his long career, Patton Oswalt has voiced a gourmet rat, played an unconvincing Elton John impersonator and beefed with Kevin from The Office in the short-lived, soon-to-be an obscure Trivial Pursuit answer, Suits LA.
And now the beloved comedian is boldly going where a number of people have already gone before (to be totally honest): the Star Trek franchise.
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As Parade pointed out, Oswalt shows up very briefly at the tail end of the recently released trailer for Season Three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, seemingly playing a Vulcan who gets razzed by a high-fiving Mr. Spock.
Star Trek actually has a long history of casting comedians. Tig Notaro had a recurring role on Star Trek: Discovery, Sarah Silverman guest starred in a two-part episode of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: The Next Generation once suggested that a holographic recreation of Joe Piscopo was the universe’s foremost authority on the subject of comedy. In retrospect, this is far tougher to swallow than warp drive and matter transporters.
But Oswalt now belongs to a very rarified group: People who have acted on Star Trek shows and roasted the U.S.S. Enterprise’s most iconic Captain.
Back in 2006, Oswalt was a part of the dais for the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner — although it’s tough to remember who exactly was there that night, since the late Betty White clearly blew them all out of the water.
While Oswalt lobbed insults at his fellow comics and presenters, he was relatively easy on Shatner until the very end. “I didn’t really pick on you that much,” the Big Fan star told Shatner. “As a nerd, it really is a big deal for me to be up here. It’s hard for me to write anything mean about you; this means a lot to me. I’m going to go now, but before I leave, just settle a bet for me and my friends…”
At that point, the comedian extracted a paper bag from his jacket pocket and held it out to Shatner. “Could you act your way out of this for me really quick?” he asked.
As further evidence of Oswalt’s Trek fandom, on his album Werewolves and Lollipops, Oswalt told a story about the time he became “very angry” at a college physics professor for incorrectly identifying which crew member of the Enterprise is responsible for firing the phasers.
Both roastmaster Jason Alexander and Andy Dick had already appeared on Star Trek: Voyager before ripping into Shatner that night, and Shatner’s co-star and frenemy George Takei was there as well, meaning that Oswalt might be the only Shatner roaster who landed a Star Trek gig after the event.
Although, it should be noted that prior to the new Vulcan role, Oswalt did briefly voice an A.I. cartoon cat in Star Trek: Picard, the show that reunited the Next Generation cast, minus, of course, Joe Piscopo.
