Shark Bytes

Quark didn't have time to Jump The Shark. I only have five episodes and what the show needed was a little fine tuning. The saddest part of Quark is the laugh track; it would have been much funnier wthout cannned chuckles in the background. Around the same time Space:1999 proved you can have a hilarious outer space series without a laugh track. At least Quark taught me "There are no good plants, there are no bad plants, there are just...plants."
THE GALAXY---AD INFINITUM!
(Siempre e Quark!)

I've got a feeling that all the folks who are full of yearning for the wonderful, hilarious show that they think is "Quark" haven't seen it for 30 years.

Believe me, the years have not been kind.

I just picked up 2 DVD's of Quark. Watched them both 5 times already and I still laugh, both at the funny lines and the silly sets. Sure the show is dated, but that's no reason to trash it.
It's a spoof, it was never meant for Masterpiece Theater.

Even if you nostalgically pine away for this show...DON'T recommend it to your adult friends. What you thought was a clever and side-splittingly hilarious show in high school will reveal you to be a juvenile turd of an adult.

Ficus once said, "Placing a flower on your lapel, is like putting a pork chop on my lapel!"

I remember a one-liner in-joke about something or somebody being located "by the Rodden Berry Bush". Classic.

Some quotes, off the top of my head...

The galaxy ad-infinitum
-- the head.

Happy holiday # 13!

Goodby Diane, Goodby Palumbus.

Ficus, why is there a guage in your ear?

I ain't no clone!

Let's kill some gorgies!

Quark, you have found IT!
I don't even know what IT is!

Next, we wait for the bee.

Such a show, and it has been on the list of requests for a DVD edition for about 10 years. Maybe someday...

"Hilarious?" "Intellectual?" "Clever satire?" All you folks who are waxing rhapsodic over this steaming dog turd of a TV show...have you seen it lately? Like, in THIS century? Trust me, even the immense talents of Richard Benjamin (no, I'm not being sarcastic; RB is awesome) couldn't save this dreck. So by all means, get all teary-eyed and nostalgic over Red Dwarf, Dr. Who, or even Blake's 7...but don't waste one more moment wishing Quark was back on the air.

In My Opinion this great show never had a chance to JTS. For many years I kept telling people about Quark and each time I get the standard answer.. "Oh That Cute Ferengi" and of course I would come back and say "No you IDIOT, this was back in 1977/78". So, one day I found a site on the internet all about the show and I knew I was not imagining things, and for those of you that just want to see it again, here is a little tip.. GO to a Comic Book/Sci Fi convention, they sell pirated DVDs of these shows, of course I do not suggest purchasing any DVD that can be bought elsewhere, but seeing as this has NEVER been available in any format, I see nothing wrong with it. I LOVE Betty.. I just don't know which was the clone, I know it was the pretty one. The Pilot was great, OBI-Mud was a fun character, for those who can't remember why he wore a patch, he fell asleep while looking through the microscope.. and he built Andy. I could go on and on about this great shortlived show, I think it deserves a proper release, but alas, I think we have a better chance of seeing The Star Wars Holiday Special (which can also be picked up that sci-fi conventions)

Never did JTS. Hilarious take-off of all science fiction books,movies, & tv shows.I remember the episode where an evil alien race in their enormous starship comes into orbit around a planet & demands they surrender their entire world.The official on the planet says that they won't & the only object the planetary sensors detect is a massive asteroid near their world.The commander of the vessel says 'you idiot, that isn't an asteroid, its our ship.Ohh, ahh can you give us a few minutes to get some things from our palace the official replies.Funny, funny show.

No time to jump. A friend of mine downloaded an episode of this from the Internet and what really struck me (other than how corny and laff track sit-commy it was) was that their parodies of the "Star Trek" style spaceships were spot on perfect. The ships, weapons, costumes and set designs of "Quark" looked more like the Original Star Trek show than any of the other Trek shows did. I've heard that Mel Brooks may be returning to sci-fi and finally doing "Spaceballs III: the Search For Spaceballs II". Too bad Brooks and Buck Henry can't get back together and do a "Quark" movie. Hey, It worked for "Police Squad"/"Naked Gun", and it sorta worked for "When Things Were Rotten"/"Robin Hood: Men In Tights", So why _not_ Quark? The person who pointed out that "Red Dwarf" had certain similarities to "Quark" had a point. Hey, I loved Red Dwarf (at least seasons 1-5) and, to be honest, they may have done it better and funnier, but "Quark" did a lot of it first. And I have no way to prove it but I feel certain that the character Armin Shimmerman played on ST: Deep Space Nine was named "Quark" as an oblique homage to this forgotten gem.

Didn't have TIME to jump, it was sadly only on a short time. But being a trekker as I am, I ate it up, anything parodying Trek and Star Wars was fun. And Richard Benjamin, of course, is awesome. I have to admit I didn't know this was a Mel Brooks/Buck Henry effort!! I was a teen at the time, the child of two sci-fi freaks. I remember when Otto Palindrome was introduced, and Mom laughed, and I asked her what was so funny. She told me what a palindrome is, so that made it funny (Otto). Reading the comments about the other characters makes me recall them too, like Gene/Jean and the Bettys. I of course remember Ficus (Richard Kelton). I just fell in love with him, lol, silly teen crush. I was quite sad when I learned Kelton died while filming "How the West Was Won." He died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his trailer. I wonder what his career may've been if that hadn't happened; that was a highly acclaimed mini-series, and he would've gotten more exposure as a serious actor in it. I, too, thought of this show when I first saw Quark, the Ferengi, on DS9, lol, nice to see someone else mention it!! And when I first saw Red Dwarf, and the basic premise of the show, I thought... Did they get that idea from "Quark?" DVD would be great, I'd buy it!!

I thought the show was hilarious, but it was a complete spoof on Star Trek and for a spoof to work, you have to be somewhat familiar with the original. Unfortunately for Quark not enough people watched Star Trek.

I still remember Richard Benjamin does the robot a favor. The robot says "Mank you". He is corrected by "Thank you." The robot then says "You're melcome." That still gets me.

QUARK lasted 8 episodes, but with the pilot there are a total of 9. Dick Gautier did not play a robot - that was on Get Smart - but he did play Adam Quark in the pilot. I liked Richard Benjamin but I think Gautier should have gotten the series. Tim Thomerson (Gene/Jean) later played the lead role in the TRANCERS films, about a time traveling detective, and he is extremely cool in all of them. The real-life twins who played Betty I and Betty II were indeed Doublemint Twins, Cyb and Tricia Barnstable. I heard that Robert Palmer (RIP) was inspired by them when he got up all those look-alike women in his "Addicted To Love" *****. Anyway, excellent show, never jumped, and WHERE IS THE DVD? Jeez, it would only take 3 discs, maybe two!