By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Gene Roddenberry is rightfully considered one of the most visionary creators in television history. He brought us Star Trek: The Original Series, kickstarting a franchise that has lasted over 60 years through various movies and spinoff shows. Through the medium of sci-fi, Roddenberry explored major issues ranging from Civil Rights to Cold War tension. In fact, he put almost everything into the first Star Trek show except for himself.
Unlike his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry never gave himself a major role in any Star Trek project. This is why you never see his face onscreen at any point. However, what most fans don’t realize is that Roddenberry secretly made a single, uncredited appearance in one episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. In “Charlie X,” the second episode ever broadcast on TV, he served as the voice of the galley chef aboard the Starship Enterprise.
Talking Turkey With Captain Kirk
“Charlie X” is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that would arguably be more at home in The Twilight Zone. The Enterprise rescues a 17 year old who is the sole survivor of a crashed ship. The boy soon exhibits extreme powers of telepathy and transmutation, which take a sinister turn when he does things like make people who annoy him disappear from reality. Captain Kirk and his crew are unable to contain the boy, but the godlike aliens who gave Charlie his powers eventually show up and take custody of the dangerous young man.
Based on that description, you’re probably wondering why the heck the Enterprise galley chef even pops up in the episode. “Charlie X” takes place on Thanksgiving, and Captain Kirk wants his crew (who are almost entirely human) to get into the holiday spirit. Earlier in the episode, he tells Charlie that if the crew “has to eat synthetic meat loaf, I want it to look like turkey.” Later, the galley chef talks to Kirk over the ship’s intercom and tells him that even though he put meatloaf in the oven, it has been replaced with actual turkey meat. Charlie laughs, effectively cutting off their conversation.
Making Way For A Woman At Warp
It’s a very short interaction, one that is meant to subtly underscore Charlie’s reality-warping powers. We see the chef at one point, who is played by an unknown actor who doesn’t speak. When the chef speaks over the intercom with Kirk, he is voiced by Gene Roddenberry, making his one and only appearance in a Star Trek episode. William Shatner may have actually acknowledged this cameo on screen, calling the man “chief” instead of “chef.”
The fact that this is Gene Roddenberry’s only onscreen appearance in Star Trek is ironic because his wife became a mainstay actor throughout the franchise. Majel Barrett Rodenberry played Number One in the original pilot episode and Nurse Chapel in The Original Series. She also voiced the ship’s computer in The Original Series and The Next Generation and many other roles (including Spock’s mother, Amanda Grayson) in The Animated Series. For fans of the Golden Age of Star Trek, though, Majel will always be best known as Lwaxana Troi, mother to beloved TNG character Deanna Troi.
Gene Avoided The Screen
As for Gene Roddenberry, he never appeared onscreen in any future Star Trek shows or movies. However, later creators did their best to retroactively make him a part of franchise history. In reference books like the Star Trek Encyclopedia and the Star Trek Chronology, you can see a Photoshopped image of Roddenberry in an older-style Original Series uniform under the listing for Robert April. April is the very first Captain of the Enterprise (before Captain Pike took command) and is played by Adrian Holmes in Strange New Worlds.
We may never know exactly why Gene Roddenberry voiced the lowly, one-off character of the chef in “Charlie X.” In the early days of the show, it might have simply been easier to have him voice the character in the one scene than to hire an entirely new actor. At any rate, this has always been one of the best early episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. But the fact that it represents Roddenberry’s one and only appearance in any version of Trek makes this episode a bona fide part of franchise history.
