Does anyone know if Jonathan Frakes REALLY knows how to play the trombone? Or does someone else play the trombone off-stage during the series while Frakes is pretending to play it?

As far as I know, Frakes really can play the trombone.

I think that's why it was written into the show, because Frakes really does know how and requested that he be allowed to do so in the show.

I believe Jonathan Frakes also worked with the band Phish - he slided his bone into "Riker's Mailbox", one of the tracks on their album "Hoist"

Uh..hehehehehehehhehehehe.

"He slided his bone."

hehehehehehehuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuuhuhuh.

Franks was on tonights rerun of The Dukes of Hazzard on CMT, episode "Mrs. Daisy Hogg".

He was younger and without a beard. He also got to love on Daisy! The lucky bastard!

Wow, I wonder what he looked like. What year was that, John? Any idea of what season it was in?

According to IMDB, it was October 9, 1981. Episode 4.1.

That is exactly right JM, you beat me too it!

I'll own that episode on DVD on August 2, 2005, when the fourth season of Dukes is released.

And to tell you the truth Luigi, he didn't look all that differant from when he was first on Next Generation.

He was also on an episode of "The Waltons", around this same time (early 1980s).

Riker-boy Walton?

No, he played Ashley Longworth Jr. in two episodes of The Waltons:

episode # 7.19, "The Legacy", February 22, 1979

and in episode # 8.8, "The Lost Speep", November 1, 1979.

oops! That should be "The Lost Sheep"! lmao

Uh..it was a joke, John-Boy

Jonathan Frakes can do great impersonations of Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks & Brent Spiner

He dances and sings real good. (He did a lot of that on stage)

SUMMARY:

Meeting Jonathan Frakes at the convention was the funnest experience I ever had. I was expecting him to be more serious. However, to my surprise, he's quite jovial. I was so glad to see that he lost all that weight he gained when I saw him on "Enterprise".

Did ensign babyface have his beard back?

Also,I noticed in the behind the scenes clips from Nemesis that it looks like he's losing some hair on top, but in the movie, its all there... Perhaps you could shed some light on that "part?"

Jonathan Frakes had his beard, but there's some gray in it now.

He said, "The makeup people dyed my beard black for my appearance in "These Are The Voyages"."

As for his hair, you are correct, he is losing his hair. He said, "The makeup people filled in my bald area with some kind of makeup to make it appear I had a full head of hair."

(Those are direct quotes, BTW)

Two questions:

Why does he make so many jokes about Trek and the people he worked with at conventions? Isn't he ever serious, for cryin' out loud?

Also, why did he do TATV for ENT??!! Did he really need the money that badly?

I really wonder about this!

I also wonder if he ever heard from Denise Crosby after he made that little joke at her expense.

If it was me in her position, I would not have been amused. She should have gotten him back, in my opinion.

In case you are wondering what I am talking about, this is from the Denise Crosby page:

(The Vegas convention report has a humorous comment made by Frakes. Talking about TNG's 20th anniversary being this year, he noted, "And of course, next year the 21st anniversary of the best career choice ever made. Denise Crosby — 'I'd like to quit that show now before it really gets popular.'" )

Hmm. Funny-Boy Frakes strikes again. I wonder if any other actor has ever been able to humiliate him the way he humiliated Crosby. And supposedly they were friends when they worked together back in 1987!

In fact, I'm reminded of what AmIAnnoying.com said about Billy Crystal:

"He is pompous and does not have a sense of humor when the joke is on him."

Just like Mr. "I Plan to Live Forever" here. Isn't that something!

One word: "Thunderbirds".

Four more words: what was he thinking?

This movie was one of the worst box office bombs of 2002. I can't believe that nobody told Frakes that a live-action movie of a puppet show from the '60's just plain would not work!

How the hell did he first get involved with this abomination of a movie, and why?

He is "Just Trek and Only Trek", he shouldn't do anything else. That's what I think!

I dunno; I thought the oil rig sequence was good- meaning the concept was solid, but the execution (making it kiddy instead of playing it straight, making Alan the only one of the Tracys with any personality, etc.) prevented it from being good. So I don't think it was a conceptual flaw so much as an execution flaw.

Well, Funny-Boy Frakes is still directing! He helmed tonight's episode of "V", which is on now.

I wonder why I did not know about this sooner, hopefully he won't direct any incredibly terrible movies ever again if he sticks to TV!

I will now officially go on record with my opinions of this man. I liked and respected Riker, but I do not like or respect Jon Frakes.

He became completely full of himself, fame and success went right to his head. I really hate it when that happens to people.

Also, he and Marina Sirtis LOVE to make jokes at the expense of their co-stars, which they've been doing for years. And they get away with it because of their high level of popularity amongst Trekgeeks, which IMO is totally undeserved.

And can somebody PLEASE tell me why he didnt direct Nemesis? He said that he knew what was wrong with it but was powerless to do anything about it. This just makes no sense to me, the studio had a hit with FC and a dumb but still financially successful film with I, and then they don't hire him to helm N?! What the hell was the logic behind that decision? There apparently wasn't any, therefore it bombed!

And yeah, he and Sirtis were both older and fatter in TATV and they still thought it was a good idea to, as I put it years ago, "put on the old uniforms and pretend that their careers still exist" by pushing the Enterprise crew to the background and making them an afterthought in their own finale episode. I think the Bermaga knew that ENT had become a complete trainwreck, so near the end of their tenure at Paramount they decided to distance themselves from ENT as much as possible, finally acknowledging that it was an epic fail from the beginning. Judging from the almost violent negative backlash TATV received, even from some of it's own castmembers, it seems that assessment is totally on the money!

But hey, that was a long time ago. What good does it do to dwell on the past the way I've been doing? Trek nearly went belly-up for good as a result of the failure of the ENT finale and of the existence of the series itself, which I STILL have trouble trying to accept it as officially canon within the franchise. But hey, if "Shatner's Love Letter To Kirk" TFF can be considered canon, why not ENT? Hmmm?!

Anyway, back to Frakes. I don't like the guy. Riker rules, Frakes fails! (Hey, I like the sound of that.)

And that's pretty much all there is to it!

There's a Twitter movement afoot to get Jonathan Frakes to direct the next Trek film, now that Roberto Orci is out. More here.

According to this article, Billy Campbell was the first choice for Will Riker. His casting was nixed by a Paramount executive, and the rest is Trek history. (I always thought that Frakes was first choice, and Campbell second.)

Fascinating.