"Ugly giant bags of mostly water."
This particular line is a popular insult in the fandom and comes from the episode Home Grounds (S01E18), where the crew was introduced to a powerful, but rude, microscopic crystalline lifeform. It addressed the crew, "Ugly. Giant. Bags of mostly water," in a choppy synthetic voice as the universal translator struggled to interpret the unusual language.
While this line has a little humor sprinkled in, it's spoken by a hostile, unknown lifeform. The crew can't giggle too long about it. It's a memorable line, though sometimes mistaken for a Worf quote. Star Trek is full of quirky phrases, but something about a "bag of water" really struck a chord. Perhaps because it is such an accurate description of humans.
"There are four lights!"
Speaking of memes, no list of unintentionally funny quotes would be complete without Picard's harrowing line from Chain of Command Part II (S06E11). The captain was imprisoned and tortured by Cardassian Madred for Starfleet intel. Picard remained strong but wavered when Madred lied about the Enterprise being destroyed. When given the chance at freedom, all Picard had to do was say that there were five lights on display, but he remained honorably defiant, "There are four lights!"
While not funny upon it's first airing in 1992, hard times and the rise of dark humor has painted this scene in a new, cynical light. Not for the pain inflicted on Picard, but for the vision of a haggard and broken man still standing up to tyranny. "There are four lights!" has been templatized, shared, and used to mock a litany of situations, proving that you can never predict what the future will find funny.
(Heavy breathing) "Not now doctor... please."
The writers wasted no time pairing off crew members romantically in The Naked Now (S01E03). On only our second adventure aboard the Enterprise, not only did we witness every character wander around in lustful, drunken stupors, but we also learned Data is "fully functional" in an awkward tete-a-tete with Tasha Yar.
But even more silly, especially on rewatch, is when the stolid and always put-together Captain Picard fumbled his usual charm with Dr. Crusher. Instead of gracefully pulling away from her attention, he hissed hot breath on her face, "Nhhot nohh doctorhh... pleassse," duck walked and waved goodbye like a blushing school boy. After decades of watching Sir Patrick Stewart respectfully play the suave Picard, seeing him suddenly act sloppy and almost giddy is hysterically jarring!
"I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter in my grandmother's journal."
This line elicits not a deep belly chuckle, but one of those nervous laughs through your teeth because it leaves you so uncomfortable. The infamy of episode Sub Rosa (S07E14) reaches the farthest stars in our galaxy. Meant to be a supernatural love story between Dr. Crusher and a ghost, this episode has been panned by critics and fans alike for being too awkward; the story, the acting, the dialogue.
Dr. Crusher read through a journal filled with her late grandmother's intimate recountings of her love affair with a spectral entity called Ronin. With dreamy sparkles in her eyes, Crusher later shared with Deanna Troi the arousing dream she had that night, "I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter in my grandmother's journal." It's an off-putting line in a very weird and melodramatic story. All you can do is just laugh, or just skip to Lower Decks, which is a gem of an episode!
“You have to understand, drugs can make you feel good.”
In Symbiosis (S01E22), the crew rescued cargo vessels full of a chemical substance sold as a highly addictive and highly exploitative medical treatment. Wesley Crusher struggled to understand why someone would voluntarily allow themselves to become addicted to a chemical.
Tasha Yar aptly explained that people in bad situations often use illicit substances to escape their reality. Having grown up on a conflict-worn colony, she was around addicts, and Denise Crosby's delivery would have you believe that Yar may have struggled in the past as well, "You have to understand... drugs can make you feel gooood!" Yar's PSA is a little too convincing at selling the counterfeit benefits of drugs, making the whole exchange ironically funny.
“There's nothing wrong with me... maybe there's something wrong with the universe!”
Dr. Crusher delivers another memorable line in Remember Me (S04E05). A warp field bubble experiment by Wesley Crusher slowly disappeared the entire Enterprise crew except for Dr. Crusher. She spent the first half of the episode pleading that something was wrong with the ship, until there was no one left to gaslight her. She then had a moment of brilliance, “There's nothing wrong with me... maybe there's something wrong with the universe!”
Haven't we all had this epiphany at least twice in our lives? It's a relatable existential moment that we can all chuckle at, but in Dr. Crusher's case, her breakthrough revelation was literally correct. With the help of The Traveler, Wesley managed to save his mother before her reality collapsed into itself. A fantasticly intense episode with a fantastically memorable line.