Pretty much every cast-member in the Star Trek Universe eats a ham sandwich before coming on set (as also the Star Trek entry on the Film section), but special mentions to...
Star Trek: The Original Series
- The king of hams is Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, pictured on the trope's main page. Shatner's pretty much the biggest ham in the galaxy, no matter what he's in, but this is his crowning achievement in the field. Most famously... he often... talked like... this... while making... strange... hand gestures. And he's only gotten hammier as he's aged. However, to anyone who criticizes his acting, this is actually how William Shatner talks in Real Life.
- Listen to him say the Preamble of the Constitution with such enthusiasm that he's obviously not American.
note - According to Shatner himself in Get A Life, he learned his technique when he was a two-bit actor in local theatre, and it kept the audience from falling asleep. He also says that he learned how to parody Kirk properly from Kevin Pollak's parody of him, and has presumably decided to do some Adam Westing.
- Mirror!Kirk somehow manages to be even hammier. There's also Evil!Kirk from "The Enemy Within." Just a four-course meal of scenery.Evil!Kirk: I'M Captain Kirk! I'm Captain Kirk! [knocks over a monitor] I'm Captain Kirk!!! IIIIIIIIII'M CAPTAIN KIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRK!!!
- Listen to him say the Preamble of the Constitution with such enthusiasm that he's obviously not American.
- Trelane, the Squire of Gothos. Childishness and enthusiasm are just who he is.
- Evil!Sulu is another delicious slice of ham. In fact, most Mirror Universe episodes seem to be an excuse to break out the pork-based products.
- So delicious, he's pretty much the best thing about the critically panned Star Trek: Shattered Universe game.
- So delicious, he's pretty much the best thing
- In her short acting career, Alice Rawlings got to overact opposite William Shatner. In "Court Martial," she played a young girl who blamed Kirk for her father's (supposed) death and expressed it in her own subtle way: "YOU MURDERER!!! YOU MURDERER!!!"
- A Klingon in "The Trouble with Tribbles" says the Enterprise should be hauled away AS garbage, complete with Evil Laugh, in a way so hammy that it leaves Scotty with no choice but to respond with physical force.
- It is Michael Pataki, after all.
- Commodore Matthew Decker, in command of the U.S.S. Constellation in the episode "The Doomsday Machine", comes across as hammier than Captain Kirk, if such a thing is possible.Kirk: Where's your crew?Decker: On the third planet.Kirk: There is no third planet!Decker: Don't you think I know that?!! There was!!! But not anymore!!!!! They called me!! They BEGGED me for help! Four hundred of them! I couldn't! I, I couldn't!! (begins sobbing)
- LORD!! Garth of Izar. He manages to make Kirk, at his hammiest, look subdued, getting lines like "RRRREMOOOOOVE THIS ANIMAL!!!"
- Khan Noonien Singh. Opposite Kirk, the volume in The Wrath of Khan only comes down for the sole purpose of going up again.Chekov: You lie! On Ceti Alpha V, there was life! A fair chan—
Khan: THIS IS CETI ALPHA FIVE!!!! - Lazarus from "The Alternative Factor": "Come! Come! It'll do you no good! I'll chase you to the very fires of HELL!!!!"
- Lenore from "The Conscience Of The King", especially near the ending. Helps that she is part of a troupe of Shakespearean actors. It's even more striking given that it's one of the rare episodes where Shatner mostly averts this trope.
- Gary Mitchell from "Where No Man Has Gone Before". As his psychic powers grew, so did his hamminess.
- Any character who's about to pull a Face–Heel Turn or suffer some sort of breakdown will act like a Large Ham. A nice example is Dr. Richard Daystrom, slowly going mad over the course of "The Ultimate Computer."
- General Chang from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Shatner described himself and Christopher Plummer as "two ham-asauruses." During the climactic battle, his chair joins in:Chang: CRY HAVOC! And let slip the dogs of war!
Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Even though he usually plays a relative Straight Man compared with Kirk and Sisko, Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard had a couple of truly delicious scenes. "THERE! ARE! FOUR!! LIGHTS!!!" He does, however, ham it up without mercy on the holodeck as Dixon Hill. He even did a Humphrey Bogart impression.
- "The line must be drawn HEYAH... THIS far, NO further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!"
- Picard has to pretend to be a jealous lover in order to free Lwaxana Troi from a Ferengi ship. Which he does, Shakespearian style. Some days, you just love showing up to work.
- Stewart is a Shakespearean actor and is known to be able recite entire scenes from memory without further rehearsal.
- Whenever Data put on his Sherlock Holmes hat, he also put on his bib for a big slice of ham. "The GAME... is AFOOT!"
- Q frequently shifts between this and Deadpan Snarker with no middle ground between the two.
- Majel Barrett as Lwaxana Troi. In fact, just to make her look even more animated, she constantly has Homn, an almost constantly silent manservant, at her side.Lwaxana: Who am I? I am Lwaxana Troi, daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Riix, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. Who are you?
- Lutan from "Code Of Honor," one of the few highlights in one of Star Trek's more infamous episodes.Lutan: Then you shall have NO treaty, NO vaccine, and NO Lieutenant Yar!!
- This seems to be the standard Klingon mode of operation, except, notably, for Worf. Unless he's with other Klingons and feels the need to prove his hammy worth."I AM KLINGON! If you doubt it, a demonstration can be arranged!"
- Gowron, Chancellor of the Klingon Empire, may be a textbook Smug Snake, but he's also one of the largest hams in the franchise. Even his eyes bulge out from the overflowing ham inside him. Ditto for Kavok, the bad guy that Gowron's actor Robert O'Reilly also plays in the board game A Klingon Challenge.
- The episode "Devil's Due" gives us Ardra, who is The Devil as far as the people of Ventax II are concerned. As soon as she materializes on the planet, she's a tour-de-force of Camp, just relishing every moment of antagonizing the good guys and putting the moves on Picard. She's pretty much the reason to see the episode.
- Berlinghoff Rasmussen from "A Matter Of Time" apparently came from the 26th century to get a taste of scenery, and is a spectacular pest the whole episode. (And why shouldn't he be - it's Matt Frewer!)
- If Kirk is the King of Ham, then Sisko may well be the Emperor of Ham. The Sisko can ham with or overpower the best of them, and we have seven seasons of EVIDENCE to prove it:
- DON'T you UNDERSTAND? It's REAL!!!!
- Captain Sisko yells at everyone (a montage of Sisko yelling at people)
- Sisko channels Kirk and gives it his own spin at the end of "Rules of Engagement", after receiving vital information from Odo regarding Worf's trial (1:39 in the video above).Sisko: Isn't it possible... that there were no civilians on the transport Worf destroyed? Isn't. It. Possible... that the Ship. He. Saw. Was sending out FALSE. SEN-SOR. IMAGES, and that this whole Affair was STAGED? So that the only Klingon officer in Starfleet would be accused of a massacre? And the Federation would be forced. To stop es-cor-ting the convoys? Tell me... advocate. Isn't? It? Possible?
- "A CLOCK!"
- DON'T you UNDERSTAND? It's REAL!!!!
- Sisko's final showdown with Dukat was utter hammy gold:Sisko: "The Pah-Wraiths will never conquer anything! Not Bajor, not the Celestial Temple, and certainly not the Alpha Quadrant!"Dukat: "And who's going to stop us?"Sisko: "I YAM!!!!!"
- And Dukat himself? A prime cut of Cardassian ham, and it gets better as he gets nuttier. Witness the episode "Waltz":Dukat: I'm so glad we had this time together, Benjamin. Because we won't be seeing each other for a while. I have unfinished business on Bajor! They thought I was their enemy! They don't know what it is to be my enemy, but they will!! From this day forward, Bajor is dead. All of Bajor!!! And this time, even their Emissary won't be able to save them!!
- The entire episode in which the above line is spoken is Sisko vs. Dukat Ham-to-Ham Combat. And to make it even more ham-tastic, Dukat spends the episode tormented by hallucinations of Kira, Damar, and Weyoun, and they're as over-the-top as he is. Had he and Sisko not escaped the planet they were stranded on, they could've feasted on their own ham for the rest of their lives.
- Speaking of Cardassians, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (specifically, the episode "Duet") was the series that introduced us to the so-called "Long Cardassian Monologue", a tendency of Cardassians to go on long hamtacular rants about various and sundry things. That's right, the Cardies are so hammy that hamminess is encoded right into their genes. "Duet" specifically gives us Cardassian dictator Gul Darhe'el, who in his conversations with Kira, proceeds to invoke Evil Is Hammy so damn hard he nearly swallows the episode whole. And it isn't even really Gul Darhe'el - it's his filing clerk, posing as him.
- And if we're gonna talk about the Cardies being hammy, you gotta talk about Garak, Deep Space Nine's resident Magnificent Bastard and Consummate Liar. The man practically talks like a comic book supervillain in casual conversation. But he's not a villain; he's just a mild-mannered tailor.Garak: Oh, no, no, no. Please, don't start. Spare me your insipid psychobabble. I'm not some quivering neurotic who feels sorry for himself because his daddy wasn't nice. You couldn't begin to understand me.
Ezri: I'd like to try.
Garak: Oh, I'm sure you would. You'd like nothing more than to pry into my personal affairs. Well, I'm not interested in dissecting my childhood. I only want to save my people from the Dominion. I don't need someone to walk in here and hold my hand. I want someone to help me get back to work. And you, my dear, aren't up to this task. I mean, look at you. You're pathetic. A confused child trying to live up to a legacy left by her predecessors. You're not worthy of the name Dax. I knew Jadzia. She was vital, alive. She owned herself. And you? You don't even know who you are! How dare you presume to help me? You can't even help yourself. Now get out of here before I say something unkind.
- "Our Man Bashir". Transporter accident Excuse Plot traps the DS9 staff in Bashir's holodeck program;
- Nana Visitor as a Bond girl with a wonderfully horrible Fake Russian accent, coming out of a wall on a rotating bed. (Visitor shamelessly loved every minute.)
- Colm Meaney as a one-eyed hitman.
- Terry Farrell as a sexy scientist.
- Michael Dorn as a turncoat in a white coat.
- And Avery Brooks as a demented, James Bond-style supervillain who swallows most of the scenery with barely a pause for breath. His Just Between You and Me moments are a thing of hammy beauty, made even better with a cliched giant world map with red dots on it, which is unveiled halfway through the villain's speech for dramatic effect instead of just being there from the start.
- Kor (John Colicos) in a reprisal of his role in Star Trek: The Original Series, where he was bit less of a ham, actually. Maybe achieving the Dahar Master rank comes with a license to chew scenery?
- Apparently, Louise Fletcher had a grand ol' time as recurring character Kai Winn Adami.
- Alexander Siddig also let his Cold Ham flag fly during an early episode in which Dr. Bashir is possessed by an evil space criminal.
- Everyone's favorite Romulan senator, Vreenak.
- Avery Brooks again in an early season 1 episode where the crew is driven insane by whacky alien tech. "A CLOCK!!!"
- Even better from this episode is when Evil!O'Brien tells him to leave the station before Evil!Kira can kill him:Sisko: NEVER! Get me a phaser! I'll get rid of Kira!
- Even better from this episode is when Evil!O'Brien tells him to leave the station before Evil!Kira can kill him:
- Steven Berkoff hammed it up shamelessly in his guest role of Hagath the weapons dealer in the season five episode "Business as Usual". Who could forget his pop-eyed, snarling delivery of lines like "instead of doing your JOB, you were off enjoying yourself", "Like this? He's going to like THIS??", and "Let's forego any further attempts at jocularity, shall we, and get down to THE BUSINESS!".
- With Ferengi society facing complete reform toward the end of the series, Quark's so determined to keep to the old Ferengi ways that he channels Picard from First Contact.Quark: "I won't preside over the demise of Ferengi civilization! ... The line has to be drawn HERE! THIS FAR, AND NO FARTHER!"
- Nana Visitor isn't especially hammy as Major Kira, but her Evil Doppelgänger, Intendant Kira, is the Queen of Ham.
- Every character in The Adventures of Captain Proton! hams it up mercilessly, most notably Mad Scientist Doctor Chaotica, Ruler of the Cosmos ("FOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL! You will PAY for your inCOMpetence!"). This is hardly surprising as the holoprogram is based on Republic movie serials like Flash Gordon and Commando Cody. Even crewmembers who initially regard the program with bemused contempt end up playing their roles with gusto — such as the Doctor as The President of Earth, and Captain Janeway as Queen Arachnia of the Spider People.Chaotica: (dramatic music playing) Full power to the Death Ray!
- Kate Mulgrew has said that the king of hams, William Shatner, was the inspiration for her Queen Arachnia.
- Seven of Nine is pretty much an anti-ham, except when she's also the EMH, who must have had hamminess written into his code, or when she's manifesting the personalities of certain assimilated individuals.
- A wonderful example of the Doctor, aka the EMH, being a ham sandwich: the episode "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy" which started with the EMH putting on an opera in a Dream Sequence, wherein he single handedly saved the crew with his deft hands and his Tenoric rendition of "La Donna e Mobile" ("Tu-vok I un-der-stand / You are a Vul-can man / You have just gone with-out / For sev-en years (about)")
- Andy Dick as the Starship Prometheus' EMH Mark-2 was a thick slice of Camp Gay holo-Ham."My brilliant existence cut short... No time to explore the universe... No time to smell the roses... No time for... sex..."
- The Fear Clown from the episode "The Thaw" is a wonderfully hammy bit of total horror.
- "Meld" features a glimpse of Tuvok - after a Mind Meld with a murderer, mind you - when his Vulcan sensibilities aren't hiding his by-then extremely volatile emotions. For a few minutes, he eats scenery up and spits it back at everyone within earshot in a devastating "The Reason You Suck" Speech. And it is REALLY messed up.
- The evil Mirror Universe version of Captain Archer seemed to be channeling Kirk.
- Jeffrey Combs as Shran (and also as the Vorta Weyoun on Deep Space Nine). Then again, this is fairly standard for the actor.
- Shran once interrupted a huge battle in space just to tell the Enterprise, "Tell Archer that's TWO he owes me!!" No wonder Shran didn't appear more often - if he stole any more episodes, there wouldn't be any left!
- Clancy Brown guest stars in the first season as a sort of alien bedouin, and his booming, grandiose performance is by far the best thing about an otherwise forgettable episode ("I told you I am EASILY OFFENDED, Captain!")
- In "Stardust City Rag", our heroes carry out an undercover op on Freecloud. Picard's disguise includes an eyepatch and an overdone Maurice Chevalier Accent, with which he gobbles up the scenery like a plate of crepes.
