Where have you seen the Oscillation Overthruster?

The Oscillation Overthruster from Buckaroo Banzai has appeared in various different places since the film was released. These appearances sometimes happen on television as well as in books. Below are several sightings of the Overthruster over the years. If you have any to add, drop Sean a line at figment@figmentfly.com.

 According to Brad Long : The following information is embedded in this page (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/language/annotations.html) :

It is permissible to omit the element name and equals sign (=) in a single-element annotation whose element name is value, as shown below:

@Copyright("2002 Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems")
public class OscillationOverthruster { ... }

According to Tim Lehnerer : In the MMORPGs "City of Heroes" and "City of Villains" there's a power enhancement called the Oscillator Overthruster. It boosts your intangibility by roughly 17% if you have that power. The in-game text is: "Pat. Num. 981,480,176.  According to the theory that most solid matter is in fact composed of empty space, a person could pass through a wall if his atoms were lined up correctly.  This invention does just that, lining up the atoms that compose your body in order to increase the duration of your intangibility power."

According to Heather : On your Buckaroo Banzai FAQ you ask "Where have you seen the Oscillation Overthruster?" It appears in all three Back to the Future movies (Christopher Lloyd finked on Banzai Institute?) in the souped up De Lorian vehicle as the "Flux Capacitor"

According to Evan_Benoit : "The Front 242 album "06:22:03:11 Up Evil" uses a sample of the Overthruster's "deedily-deedily-dee" sound in several places."

Star Trek and the Overthruster

According to Link12859 : "WTG Dave for spotting the Banzai quote in the Star Trek Experience. If you're really sharp-eyed, you can also spot the overthruster in that ride.

The Star Trek folks have a lot of fun with the overthruster.

In one third-season Next Generation episode, Wesley is using it to disintegrate a rock (a variation of its original function, obviously).

It also appears as :

In the Spring 1998 Universe Today (Vol. 6; Issue 2), the newsletter for the Babylon 5 fan club, an interview with Bear Burge, Babylon 5's Prop Fabricator, had the following to say about the Overthruster on page 14.

"Have you every seen Buckaroo Banzai? This is the 'overthruster', an intricate piece of that film. It has since then been used for Star Trek in various incarnations: first as a Cardasian piece and then in the movie Star Trek : First Contact, where it was used as an engine component in the Phoenix. On BABYLON 5 we used one of these components in the scene where G'Kar is looking for Mr. Garibaldi, and hands him the engine piece which was scavenged from his Starfury."

There is a photo of an oscillation overthruster replica on one of the first pages of Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, published by Pocket Books.

If you look VERRRRY carefully, you might spot one on the cover of the updated Star Trek Encyclopedia.

Scott Tate dropped me a note with more Overthruster sightings on Star Trek.

"Greg Jein, who is credited with miniatures work on TABB, is also a regular contributor to the Star Trek modelmaking staff. While working on The Next Generation, he provided a reproduction of the overthruster that was used several times. Here are a few verifiable ones (thanks to citations in the Star Trek Encyclopedia and/or its CD-ROM counterpart, the ST Omnipedia):

"11001001" (The Next Generation, 1988) - Wesley Crusher uses it as an isolinear chip reader.

"Pen Pals" (The Next Generation, 1989) Look for it in the Enterprise's geosciences lab, where it's being used as a spectral analysis device.

"Best of Both Worlds" (The Next Generation, 1990) It's a Borg surgical instrument.

"A Man Alone" (Deep Space Nine, 1993) Dr. Bashir uses it as a handheld sensor.

"Up The Long Ladder" (The Next Generation) finds Captain Picard looking through a list of starships on a computer readout. Among them is the Starship Buckaroo Banzai, captained by John Whorfin. This and another ship, the Hathway, are both listed as being built at Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. This information was found on the Buckaroo Banzai Trivia and References Page (http://kumo.swcp.com/synth/text/bb.references/) maintained by Vince Mora.

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This page was last updated on June 10th, 2016.
Maintained by Sean Murphy [figment@figmentfly.com]