The memes “gave me more cachet than the show ever did,” the Star Trek actor says.
Some folks only recognizeJonathan Frakesfrom the memes.
You know which ones.
Jonathan Frakes on ‘X-Factor: Das Unfassbare,’ the German reboot of ‘Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction’.RTL ZWEI
So much time has passed that many people don’t even realize where these clips came from.
Frakes' favorite of the memes is “the half-speed drunk,” he tells EW.
He’s talking aboutthe videoin which slowed-down clips of him hosting the show make him sound inebriated.
Jonathan Frakes on ‘X-Factor: Das Unfassbare,’ the German reboot of ‘Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction’.RTL ZWEI
“It gave me more cachet than the show ever did,” he says of the memes.
Frakes is slightly in awe of them.
“Somebody put a lot of effort into the editing of those…
It’s a phenomenon that I’m quite thrilled to be part of.”
Beyond the memes,Beyond Beliefhas brought Frakes back in a significant way.
You might say he’s a big deal in Germany.
There’s a niche.
So we’ll see what happens."
He hosted 1995’sAlien Autopsy: (Fact or Fiction?
), a Fox special investigating the infamous video of an alleged alien autopsy recorded by the U.S. military.
And he hosted 1996’sThe Paranormal Borderline, another tinfoil hat investigative series.
“So I gladly became alien-friendly because of the connection withStar Trek.”
He also said yes toBeyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, created by Lynn Lehmann.
(The stuff memes are made for.)
It was an easy gig.
“We’d knock ‘em all out,” Frakes recalls.
“We used to do them in L.A., and then they found a cheaper production company in Vancouver.
So we’d go up for a weekend with a Canadian crew.
Frakes experiences his own “fact or fiction” question as he thinks back to some of these gags.
One episode saw Frakes whipping a tablecloth off a table without disturbing the dishes and utensils on top.
“Why do I think that may have been faked?
Because I’m sure I couldn’t do that trick,” he remarks.
“That sounds like fiction to me.”
He thinks that was the magic of editing.
That would be my guess.”
Frakes has been asked many times over the years to do somethingBeyond Belief-related.
It’s the second-most-talked-about gig from his career that fans bring up at conventions, afterTrek.
“The same thing when I work on Cameo,” he says.
“There’s a lot of people who just want to doBeyond Beliefreferences.”
Again, he has the memes to thank.
