Yesterday’s Dilbert referenced an obscure Vulcan illness, which sent “hordes” of Dilbert fans to Google to find the reference.
The Christian Science Monitor explains where the reference originates:
In “Amok Time,” an episode that first aired on September 15, 1967, Dr. McCoy notices that the usually stoic Spock is becoming extremely irritable. Turns out that he is suffering from a chemical imbalance ? Pon Farr ? caused by a need to mate. Vulcans experience Pon Farr every seven years, and unless it is satiated, they die within eight days.
Captain Kirk redirects the Enterprise to the planet Vulcan so that Spock can marry his betrothed, a beautiful but rather forbidding Vulcan named T’Pring. But in a twist, T’Pring manipulates the situation into a fight to the death between Spock and Kirk.
I don’t get it…where’s the obscure reference? 🙂
Yeah, DILBERT fans especially should get that reference.
My bad. “Obscure” is very relative.
Obviously it was the young ones who didn’t get it… Being young, though, they knew right where to look and went there in droves. Which means nothing is obscure for long these days. And that is a good thing.
*mental image of Dilbert mating*
eww.
The episode mentioned is where we first heard of Pon Farr, but definitely not the only mention and FAR from obscure.
Like “the creature on the wing” in “The Twilight Zone,” anything that appeared in the original Star Trek series is inherently reasonable to expect someone who is literate in pop culture to have seen.
However, I had no idea that that’s how you spell it. I would have guessed something like “panfar.”
It’s such an obvious reference. Pon was the uncle of Jamie Farr from M*A*S*H, so obviously Dilbert is gay.
In 40 years no comic of any kind will reference anything Chris Pine,Zachary Quinto or Karl Urban ever said.
J.J. Abrams, you are one sick, greedy, hearless son of a…