Showbits

I hope everyone had fun this April Fool's Day. The creativity that webmasters pour into their public images this day is always a treat — whether you rely on YouTube for ASCII art, ThinkGeek for a reason to buy an Apple iPad, or Google Topeka to find all this and more.

Sci-fan fans found a treasure trove of licensed products today at ThinkGeek. The most delicious of them all: Tribbles 'n' Bits cereal. Fresh from the replicator, it's the the perfect wake-up for any Star Trek fan. Don't worry — the breakfast treat is entirely vegetarian, being composed of wheat, rice, rye, and quadrotriticale. If you'd like some company in the mess hall, and the enclosed Captain Pike action figure is too binary a conversationalist (which is still one state more than the monolith action figure can offer), there's one cool tribble who might accept such an invitation. Don't set the date just yet; though this cereal may be a product of the 23rd century, it could prove popular enough to warrant warping into our reality, as previously happened with their tauntaun sleeping bag.

Regardless of the cereal's fate, kudos to ThinkGeek for such a clever array of surprises today. They're almost on par with the more literary jests of StarTrek.com, which a half-decade ago offered such insider jokes as "Your Mirror Universe Twin and You FAQ", "Several New Star Trek Pilots Rejected", and more. Even three years later, the closure of StarTrek.com as we knew it is one I still lament. Thank you, ThinkGeek, for filling that gap.

It's April Fool's Day, which is often a relished opportunity for creative mischief. An outlet for such comic imagination used to be StarTrek.com — up until its managing geniuses were summarily executed. Fortunately, their past efforts are timeless and are still available through the magic of the Internet Archive. Courtesy its Wayback Machine, I present to you the hilarious news reports of April 1, 2005 (links will load slowly — be patient):

• Star Trek: Enterprise Saved … With Strings Attached
  
• Several New Star Trek Pilots Rejected
  
• Your Mirror Universe Twin and You
  
• The Galactic Enquirer
  
• GQ: Gorn Quarterly
  

Remember that three years ago this month, we were on the cusp of the cancellation of Enterprise. To see that first headline above set my heart atwitter — until I remembered the date. It was cruel of our overlords to toy with our emotions so carelessly… but they made up for it with the excellent Mirror Universe FAQ.

A few other pieces were not captured by the Wayback Machine but have been reposted to a Trek message board:

• Bakula Debunks "Holodeck" Rumor
  
• BBC to Remake Star Trek
  
• New Series Announced: Klingon Eye for the Starfleet Guy
  

It's nice to know humor will survive into the 24th century!