Did you know? Captain Proton caught on fire on Voyager set

Captain Proton was an immensely popular holodeck character

Robert Duncan McNeill portrayed Lt. Tom Paris on Star Trek: Voyager for its entire seven season run. While aboard the ship, McNeill’s character got in a little retro acting by his portrayal of Captain Proton who was the protagonist of the holo-novel The Adventures of Captain Proton, a story he created where he and sidekick, Buster Kincaid, played by Harry Kim, battled the forces of evil, namely Doctor Chaotica and Queen Arachnia.

"“Captain Proton, Spaceman First Class, Protector of Earth, Scourge of Intergalactic Evil, at your service!”"

As much fun as it was to step back in the 1930s to portray the good captain, it also came with risks.

Captain Proton is set ablaze

In the book Star Trek—The Artistry of Dan Curry, Curry describes a particularly challenging scene where the captain was using a jetpack to fly after his ship. The crew used the original jetpack from the serial Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, and the visual effects crew filled it with 14-inch industrial sparklers. McNeill had to be mounted to a form-fitting fiberglass support on a rig that looked like a big see-saw. In front of a blue screen, it looked like he was flying.

Fortunately, Dick Brownfield, who was the special-effects supervisor, added a little extra pecaution by dressing McNeill in a racing car driver’s fireproof underwear underneath his costume. That was very fortunate, indeed, as when the sparklers were ignited, McNeill’s butt caught on fire. Thankfully, he wasn’t harmed because of the underwear, and he took the mishap in good stride with Curry saying his respect for McNeill “took a quantum leap forward when I saw how graciously he handled the situation.” It’s not everyone who could be so gracious when their rear was burning!