Kirk Thatcher Recounts His Time With Star Trek IV On and Off Screen
Kirk Thatcher played the punk on the bus in STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME. Image: Paramount.
Just where is our future, the things we've done and said!
Let's just push the button, we'd be better off dead!
'Cause I hate you!
And I berate you!
And I can't wait to get to you!
DECEMBER 2, 2022 - Star Trek fans might recognize this little ditty from the song that the “punk on the bus” is listening to in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. That punk was one of the film’s associate producers, Kirk Thatcher, who also sang the song. Collider recently caught up with Thatcher, who looked back at his experiences working on the film, both in front of and behind the camera.
Thatcher said that director Leonard Nimoy hired him to take care of all the “technical stuff, with effects and sets and all that” so that Nimoy could focus on the story. "I got all this responsibility to make decisions on stuff as long as he approved it. Because he really wanted to focus on telling that story. It was an amazing job, and he gave me a lot of freedom to do that." Thatcher was only 23 years old at the time.
The humor in Star Trek IV is often cited as one of the reasons it has become a fan favorite, and one of the funniest scenes is Scotty attempting to operate a 1980s computer. Thatcher said, "I wrote that gag, that he talks to the mouse, because I had just gotten an Apple 512 Mac, and so the whole thing was, they said, 'Well we're going to have the design thing done on a Macintosh because it's a graphic computer,' … and Leonard loved it.”
As far as the punk on the bus is concerned, Thatcher as a Star Trek fan enjoyed the fun between the characters, which is all he expected from his cameo. "I knew it was special and that it was fun. But you never know, I didn't know that the punk was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I mean, it was a fun little gag. It was more like an Easter egg, like, "Oh, that was [an] associate producer." It wasn't like, 'This is going to be this huge moment.'"
For more from Kirk Thatcher on Star Trek IV, including images of both his appearances as the punk, head over to Collider.
David is a contributing writer for Daily Star Trek News on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. He is a librarian, baseball fan, and book and movie buff. He has also written for American Libraries and Skeptical Inquirer. David also enjoys diverse music, but leans toward classical and jazz. He plays a mean radio.
