Weekend Vid Picks: All Hail William Shatner

I have one mission today, guys, and that is to get you excited about famous actor and Canadian William Shatner joining the cast of upcoming Twitter-to-television sitcom pilot S— My Dad Says (new, TV-friendly title still to be determined) as the titular Dad. I come armed with decades of video from the man’s past career. I anticipate that my mission will be an overwhelming success.

Let’s work our way backwards. Shatner had a big viral success in 2009 when he appeared on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien to perform a section of Gov. Sarah Palin’s farewell address to Alaska. NBC has removed the video from both its site and Hulu, but here’s a bootleg clip from that as captured by MSNBC’s Countdown.

But the man is also a bit of a web video pro in his own right, thanks to the online-only Shatner Project, an intriguing hodge-podge of videos documenting his adventures in Hollywood — like a 2008 Shatner responding directly to comments J.J. Abrams made about the potential for him to do a cameo in the new Star Trek reboot. It’s not the classiest move, but Shatner’s directness has always been a big part of his signature style.

As a reminder of said directness, let’s revisit one of his most legendary moments — Shatner’s 1986 appearance on Saturday Night Live, when he ruthlessly mocked the most devoted of Star Trek fans.


William Shatner SNL skit Get A Life 1986-12-20
Uploaded by efly2020. – Click for more funny videos.

So you’re probably thinking to yourself, wow, Shatner can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. But that’s just the thing! Even a casual perusal of the SMDS Twitter feed indicates that the dad in question isn’t exactly a ray of sunshine — he’s brash, disapproving and often inappropriate. Which might be an unfortunate bit of typecasting for William Shatner, but also has potential to be comedy gold.

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