Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2024: Week 40
Banned from Argo is a classic and much riffed-on filk Star Trek: TOS by Leslie Fish.
The characters are never mentioned by name and instead are identified by their titles and characteristics. Two examples: Captain Kirk is sexually promiscuous, and Scotty is very fond of alcohol. In the filk, the crew makes a shore leave stop at "Argo Port," cause chaos and destruction, and the planet's leader bans them from ever coming back.
TV Tropes calls it "one of the best-known Filk Songs in existence."
It was a last minute addition to Folk Songs For Folk Who Ain't Even Been Yet, released in 1976. This collection was the first commercially available filk recording.
The filk won a Pegasus Award in 2003 for Best Classic Filk Song. It also became so popular that Leslie Fish got tired of hearing it. In 1992, Fish wrote: "[I] got asked for at every con for years until I got so heartily sick of it that I refused to sing it again..."
Lyrics were printed in many zines and are at the OVFF Pegasus Awards.
You can listen to the song here.