One example in the Deep Space 9 series is the bar-frequenting Morn — but there is a lot more to this character than might first meet the eye. Morn, a Lurian, was a frequent background character in Deep Space 9, first appearing in the very first episode “Emissary.” He is found fairly consistently at the questionably-designed Quark’s bar, and his character became something of a running joke.
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Morn’s actor, a young man named Mark Allan Shepherd, wore a prosthetic mask designed by Michael Westmore. This mask was designed to allow the actor to speak and move his mouth, but in every take where Shepherd spoke, it looked weird. Moving it in a way that looked realistic was beyond the mask’s capabilities, and due to how large the mouth was, whenever he spoke it looked more like a gigantic muppet style puppet. Because of this, the character was used a lot in Quark bar scenes, but never spoke. The running gag was that while audiences never saw Morn talk, he was actually a massive chatterbox — but each and every time he was shown on screen, it was just after he had finished talking. Other characters referred to him every now and then, mentioning how they were just stuck talking to Morn who would not shut up.
While he became a great addition to the character of Quark’s Bar, Morn’s appearance was somewhat fate. When Shepherd arrived on set for the first time, answering a casting call for extras, he was fitted with the Morn suit and prosthetic, which at this point was referred to as the ‘Grinch alien mask,’ and was asked to wait until he was needed on set. He sat there and waited, and when nobody came to get him, he decided to wander down to set and see what was happening. This turned out to be a twist of fate, as they had just begun filming the scene first introducing Quark’s Bar. Shepherd was then asked to step in, and the director positioned him at the bar, and asked him to tell the funniest joke in the universe as the camera panned over him. What he delivered was complete nonsense, but the way he delivered the lines, with confidence and force, caught the eye of the director. While the scene itself was not used due to the puppet mouth issue, Shepherd was asked to come back as a regular extra.
After a few background appearances, he was given the name Morn, the name itself being a reference to the character of Norm from the TV sitcom Cheers, another large guy who would be found, reliably, at the bar, as though he were part of the scenery there. Fans loved his so much that not only did he begin to feature more, with more running gags about his inability to stop talking, but he also received various mentions from the main cast. Notably, on one occasion it’s revealed he often spars with the Klingon culture connoisseur Worf, who noted how great a sparring partner he was.
Morn actually got an entire episode written about him, “Who Mourns For Morn.” The station’s security officer, Odo, trying to get hold of Morn to move some of his cargo that is rotting in the cargo bay, only to find out that the Morn who has been sitting at Quark’s is actually a hologram. Quark explains that he had been away for the last two weeks, and as he had become such a staple of the bar it felt wrong not to have him around, so he created a hologram of him to make other patrons (and Quark himself) feel more at ease. There’s another joke here about how he specifically programmed the hologram not to speak, as the real Morn never shuts up. As the episode goes on, it’s revealed that the real Morn has been caused in an ion storm and has supposedly perished, but in true Trek fashion, this is just a ploy used to allow him to escape his former associates, and by the end of the episode he is revealed to be alive and well.
One of the best behind-the-scenes bits of this episode was that during the sequence where Quark is mourning his old friend, he feels like someone needed to be sitting in Morn’s chair, to honor his memory. He grabs a random Bajoran from the bar and forces him into the stool, but of course this is no replacement for the lost Lurian. The actor who plays the Bajoran is none other than Shepard himself. While it’s not known what happens to Morn after the show concluded, it is shown in an alternative timeline future (not the Kelvin timeline unfortunately) that he ran Quark’s bar, creatively calling it ‘Morn’s’.
While seemingly a small part of the Star Trek universe, the character of Morn somehow concreted himself as one of the best supporting characters, with many fans remembering him fondly, and even having his own action figure. The fan-service episode centering around him is testament to this, as well as how the Lurians were brought back, fairly subtly, in Discovery — something that was most likely done purely to honor the old character. Morn added a touch of comedy and lightness to the sometimes very dark and gritty series of DS9, something that was much needed for a show that strived to deal with much harder topics than any other Trek show of the time.
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