Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton Share Perfect Star Trek Joke

LeVar Burton and Patrick Stewart spent 15 years working together on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the four films that followed. That history came around again for one fun moment on Twitter.

It happened when Stewart shared a photo of himself with a historic door on Twitter.

“I suspect this door might actually be older than ME! (beautiful Medieval English oak…700 yrs or so, south porch door of St Mary’s church in Charlbury),” Stewart tweeted.

Burton popped into Stewart’s mention to ask, “Yeah, but can it slide to the left and go whoosh?”

Take a look below:

Star Trek fans will likely recognize the joke as a reference to the automated doors featured on Star Trek‘s Starfleet vessels and the distinctive sound effect that accompanied their use.

Levar Burton recently helped pay tribute to the Star Trek franchise by representing Star Trek: The Next Generation when the Star Trek franchise was honored with the Governors Award at this year’s Emmy Awards. He recently spoke about how Gene Roddenberry’s vision shaped his life even before he was cast as Geordi.

“I felt a responsibility, having been an enormous fan of the original series, Star Trek,” Burton said. “I’m a huge fan of the science fiction genre, always have been. Science fiction is my go-to body of literature for just pure pleasure and enjoyment. When I want to read something for me, it’s generally science fiction or fantasy. Star Trek was one of the very few representations of the future I encountered as a kid where people who looked like me were represented. So in an era in my and in America where it was rare to see black people on TV except on the nightly news during the Vietnam War era when most of the soldiers we were sending to the theater of were black kids, Star Trek was huge. What Gene Roddenberry, as a storyteller, was saying to me was, ‘When the future comes, there’s a place for you.’ That was…it’s hard to underestimate the power that seeing oneself reflected in the popular culture, what impact it has. It validates you. Absent seeing yourself represented, or people who are like you represented in popular culture, you are sent a very dangerous message, a message that says, ‘You don’t matter,’ that you’re not important. So you know, quite naturally, I clung onto that example of black people in the future.”

Stewart will return to his role as Jean-Luc Picard in a new Star Trek series on CBS All Access. The show doesn’t currently have a release date, but filming is expected to begin in April 2019.

What do you think of Burton’s joke? Let us know in the comments!