Quark

QUARK was a spoof on the STAR WARS craze and had a limited run in 1978. It's run was brief but it was ahead of it's time. The crew lead by a man named Quark got into weekly intergalactic adventures aboard a space faring garbage scow. The show was funny but it's fate was decided and it was never renewed. The show I believe was on a friday night and it made the ratings battle too hard for QUARK to compete with. However the show was created by BUCK HENRY who had done such things as CATCH 22, and GET SMART and THE GRADUATE. Buck Henry is known for high quality work. The audience henry was dealing with was not prepared for this kind of humor. The spoofing of the science fiction craze just didn't float in 1978.

This was an excellent satire program of Sci-Fi in general and traditional "Space Operas" in particular. Should you ever happen to run across the odd episode of Quark, be prepared for laughs in the extreme.

Quark tells the tale of an inter-galactic garbage hauler and his crew of misfits as they find adventures well outside of their normal duties. The humor, though rooted in the cultural strangeness of the 70s, will be very entertaining to adults who remember the 70s as "the good old days". Quark poked fun at most popular culture of the era and the Science Fiction of the day was not spared. Star Wars and Buck Rogers were almost constant targets of jabs and pokes. Even the venerated Star Trek series was humorously taken to task on occasion.

Tragically, it was cut short by circumstances of weather. The entire midwestern US was crippled by power outages during the worst ice storm in US history. The resulting loss of rating points cost it dearly.

Buck Henry's 1978 Series "Quark" was one of those shows that will always be remembered by its' few fans as the one that got away. Most people don't really remember it since they were watching something else on Friday nights but those of who do know that Buck Henry should have had another "Get Smart" on his hands and didn't. The satire was VERY dry and a lot of the gags missed with those few viewers who weren't sci-fi fans. I don't blame NBS for cancelling the show I just wish there was a Sci-Fi channel back then because they would have immediately snatched it up. Richard Benjamin at least got a lot of exposure and this helped his career despite it being cancelled so soon.

I long for this complete series (only 9 episodes, what was NBC thinking?) to be available on DVD. After 26 years I still laugh when remembering the Star Wars parody (Tatooine became PooPoo, so that the battle-cry of the planet's defenders was, "We must save our beloved PooPoo!"), and the pollination ritual of Richard Kelton as the plant man and guest star Joan Van Ark as the princess of an insect culture ("Bee bee bee bee bee beebeebeebeebeeBEEBEEBEEBEEBEE!"). See how well it fits with today's sense of humor? This material is just too good not to be shared with all the potential fans who weren't even born when it was first aired. In current jargon (and with the Barnstable twins in mind) it's like Farscape meets Eurotrip.

Like "Police Squad" and "On the Air", "Quark" is another television series I caused to be cancelled. That's right, I'm responsible. Whenever I find a show I really really like, the series gets cancelled. So obviously it has to be my fault. I can't tell you to see it, there's no way you can. BUT... if you happen to somehow find it showing somehow, somewhere, then see it. If you don't, you'll never get another chance and your life will be poorer for it.