I feel like I've told this story before, but I don't think I've ever written it down in my blog, so here's something that was cut from this week's TNG review of The Battle:
The "Picard Maneuver," in this script refers to a pretty cool strategic move that Picard uses to defeat the Ferengi ship and save his crew, but on the set, "The Picard Maneuver" is what we called it when we would sit down, and straighten our two-piece space suits (which came into use in the third season.) Patrick Stewart, being a classically trained actor with the RSC, couldn't simply tug down on his uniform, and always did it with dramatic flair, earning the move its name.
All of us had a problem with our jackets bunching up and looking lame, so we all had to do our own version of "The Picard Maneuver" whenever we sat down. When I finally got my two piece space suit, I did it after sitting down at the CONN, and a particularly officious associate producer pulled me aside between takes and said, "Wil, you can't pull your jacket down when you sit down. That's the Picard Maneuver."
"How am I supposed to stop it from bunching up?" I said.
"I don't know," he said. "Just don't tug on it, okay?"
"Okay," I said. I knew how to pick my battles.
On the next take, I sat down, my jacket bunched up revealing my totally lame muscle suit, and the director had to stop the take.
"Wil," he said, "can you pull down your jacket when you sit down?"
"Sorry," I said, "I can't. It's . . . 'the Picard Maneuver.'" I nodded to the associate producer, so everyone knew where the order had originated.
The associate producer got very flustered, and with a red face said to go ahead and do it, just not as dramatically. On the next take, I did exactly the same thing I'd done every take before, and everyone was happy.
The associate producer quietly left the stage, and I the issue was never raised again.
I also recall Johnathan Frakes always making a huge deal about doing the Picard Maneuver with the jacket on his space suit, pulling it down, tugging it from side to side, standing back up, yanking it down, sitting back down and tugging on his sleeves . . . I don't think I'm conveying how incredibly hilarious it was, but maybe you had to have been working on the Bridge for twelve hours to be in the same comedy space we were whenever he'd do it.
In fact, there are a lot of amusing stories to be told about the things we did in the twelfth hour, just to maintain our sanity . . .
