Romulan Noodles

Romulan Noodles, as they are properly called, are the victim of a flubbed merchandizing effort of Gene Roddenberry in his original Star Trek series.

In episode 59, “The Enterprise Incident” Captain Kirk fakes his own death, and teleports onboard a Romulan Warbird do a little imperial espionage. In the process of getting his hands on the top-secret Romulan cloaking device, he is forced into an awkward scene where he needs to consume ethnic food or blow his cover. He immediately falls in love with a particular dish called Romulan noodles.

“Oh My . . . It tastes . . . just like chicken! . . . like . . . Iowa fried . . . chicken!”

The Star Trek Franchise was poised for immediately release of “Romulan Noodles” into the marketplace following the first showing of the episode. Unfortunately, do to a miscommunication with production, the work “Romulan” was horribly misspelled. The mistake discovered all to late. The scene was awkwardly cut from the episode.

Even with the misprint, “Ramen noodles" was an instant success with college-age bachelors. Marketing resisted any suggestions to re-brand the noodle.

Of course, hardcore fans will want to know how modern-day sales of Romulan Noodles fit into the Star Trek universe. In the original long-term scope of the series, that question was to be answered in the fourth movie “The Voyage Home.” There Kirk snuck a pack of Romulan noodles back to the 20th century for easy snacking. Once in San Francisco, he fell in love with, (and of course gets his shirt torn by) a fun-loving transvestite named Maggi Mee. (S)he reverse engineers the noodles and makes a fortune.

Logically, after the misprinted packages were released, this subplot idea was also scrapped.