Picard Gave LeVar Burton Flashbacks To His Community Cameo

On “Community,” Donald Glover plays a character named Troy who, like many of us, is an enormous LeVar Burton fan. Burton played himself on “Community” in an episode where he was hired to introduce himself to Troy by a rival. The rival knew Troy would be overwhelmed with anxiety at meeting his hero. Troy was aghast, having only wanted a photo of Burton. “I only wanted a picture! You can’t disappoint a picture!” he screamed. 

Captain Shaw was a little more dignified, but he still geeked out. Only now, it was Burton’s character that someone could geek out about. Burton recalled the surreality of that moment, as his real life and his fictional life seemed to intersect. Burton said: 

“I haven’t talked to him about it — ‘him’ being Terry Matalas — but I imagine that scene that I play with Todd on the bridge of the Titan when his character, a former engineer, meets Geordi La Forge for the first time. In my own life, I have that moment at least once a day. It’s the Donald Glover moment from ‘Community,’ and it was pretty meta playing that scene with Todd because it felt like it was taken right out of the book of my life.”

Burton has gone on record multiple times with some very strange fan stories. Between “Roots,” “Reading Rainbow,” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Burton has essentially had obsessive fans around him for the bulk of his career.