Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2, Episode 4 - "Mugato, Gumato".
Star Trek: Lower Decks brought back the Mugato and the animated comedy, of course, highlighted how weird it is that the killer white apes from Star Trek: The Original Series has so many names. Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 has been showing TOS a lot of love; the premiere episode, "Strange Energies," was Lower Decks' take on superpowered menace Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood) when Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) became a god-like being who threatened the USS Cerritos.
Before Lower Decks, the Mugato sole canonical Star Trek appearance was in the TOS season 2 episode "A Private Little War." The horned white apes are native to the planet Neural, which Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the USS Enterprise were surveying. Kirk was attacked by a Mugato and he nearly died from the creature's bite; the carnivorous apes possess poisonous fangs and the only known cure is Neural's Mahko root, which has to be applied by a skilled female shaman of the planet's Hill People. After Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) disintegrated the Mugato with his phaser, he was able to get Kirk the treatment he needs. Even though it was a brief appearance, the Mugato made a powerful impact. The ape that attacked Kirk was human-sized and as strong as ten men; with its striking white fur and distinctive protruding horns in its back and head, the Mugato proved to be a Star Trek alien creature that wouldn't be forgotten.
Star Trek: Lower Decks was a genuine comeback for the Mugato that highlighted everything weird, wonderful, and disturbing about the horned apes. In "Mugato, Gumato," the Cerritos' Away Team discovers Ferengi Marauders harvesting Mugatos, including adults and cubs, on the planet Frylon IV. As the Starfleet Officers tried to apprehend the Ferengi, the Mugatos were released from their cages and stampeded. One Mugato attacked the resurrected Lt. Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) and Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), who knew the Mugato's fangs contain poison, knew to suck the venom from Shaxs' wound. However, after they fled the Ferengi camp, Ensigns Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) got trapped and had to witness the Mugatos' graphic mating ritual.
Along with titling the episode "Mugato, Gumato," Star Trek: Lower Decks joked about how inconsistent it is that the white apes have multiple names and pronunciations. The actual explanation for this is just as strange: In the first draft script for "A Private Little War," the Mugato was simply referred to as a "Neuralise Great Ape." In later drafts, the ape received the name Gumato. However, DeForrest Kelly couldn't pronounce "Gumato" so the name was changed to "Mugato." But despite being easier to say than "Gumato," Kelley and William Shatner as Captain Kirk still mispronounced the ape's name as "Mugatu" throughout the episode.
Eventually, Star Trek just incorporated all three names and pronunciations for the Mugato, and "Mugatu" was an accepted misspelling in sourcebooks like The Star Trek Compendium. The apes also entered pop culture as TOS became more popular over the decades. In his 2001 comedy Zoolander, Ben Stiller, a diehard Trekkie, named the villain of the movie played by Will Ferrell "Jacobin Mugatu," and Stiller chose the incorrect spelling, either for comedic effect or because it's the spelling and pronunciation he prefers.
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2, episode 2, "Kayshon, His Eyes Open," had Mugato skeleton as an Easter egg that was part of the collection owned by Kerner Hauze, along with the giant bones of Spock 2. By the end of "Mugato, Gumato," Boimler and Rutherford successfully negotiated with the Ferengi to open a nature preserve for the Mugato. Given the USS Cerritos' mission of Second Contact, it's likely the starship will make a follow-up visit to Freylon IV to check on the Mugato, so the horned white great apes could return to Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Star Trek: Lower Decks streams Thursdays on Paramount+.
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