A late-night comedy skit William Shatner did 35 years ago is once again making news, with Shatner defending himself against criticism from the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
1986: Shatner, SNL and “Get a Life”
In December 1986—one month after the release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home—William Shatner hosted an 8th season episode of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. One of the skits, called “Star Trek Convention”—but more often known as the “Get a Life” skit—poked fun at fans at Star Trek conventions. The skit (which you can see below) was written by SNL mainstay Robert Smigel with help on the nerdy details from SNL staff writers Jon Vitti and George Meyer. It featured Shatner becoming exasperated with the increasingly nitpicky fan questions until he disparaged the fans, saying (in part):
You know, before I answer any more questions there’s something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I’ve spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled… y’know… hundreds of miles to be here, I’d just like to say… GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you’re dressed! You’ve turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!
Robert Smigel had pitched the idea to Shatner directly; in 2018, Smigel told The Ringer Shatner was sold by the “Get a life!” tagline. “That’s what made him laugh,” he said.
While controversial for some fans at the time, it was embraced by many, who also appreciated the detailed understanding of the Trek lore it included (like references to Yeoman Janice Rand and Leslie Thompson and the episode “The Enemy Within”). Shatner himself acknowledged how he respected Star Trek fans. During his monologue for the show, he said, “I mean they’re truly incredible, and I hope they have a sense of humor about the show tonight, or I’m in deep trouble.”
William Shatner in Saturday Night Live‘s “Get a Life” skit (NBC via Getty)
2021: Rod Roddenberry weighs in
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote the upcoming Star Trek Day, Rod Roddenberry took issue with the 1986 skit:
I never really appreciated that skit because I think it was demeaning to the fans. I think it was disrespectful, especially for a character who was an open-minded, intelligent leader.
However, he also added, “I don’t condemn it in any way. It’s Saturday Night Live, and it’s all fun.”
On Sunday in response to a tweet from THR about the Roddenberry comments, Shatner responded with “Isn’t presentism just wonderful?” along with an eye-roll emoji.
Isn’t presentism just wonderful? 🙄 #getalife https://t.co/kX6tj5hP7I
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) September 5, 2021
Shatner followed that up with some clarification, explaining how “presentism” applied today’s value system to moments in the past.
It’s presentism because it applies today’s value systems & beliefs about what is “bullying” & what is “disrespectful” to a time when those were not the values or opinions and nobody was really offended but the mindset people have is that it makes them look intelligent & caring.🤷🏼♂️ https://t.co/yIFT8IDGVe
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) September 5, 2021
1999: Shatner reflects with “Get a Life!”… the book about fans
At the time of the sketch, Shatner actually wasn’t active on the Star Trek convention circuit. The actor had experienced tense moments with some fans; in 1968, one fan even tried to rip his shirt off as he came out of 30 Rockefeller Center. But after appearing at a number of conventions in the 90s, the actor became more fascinated with Trek fandom, leading to his 1999 book Get a Life!
In the book, Shatner explains how he learned he had fans all wrong:
Who were these people? Were they sane? Were they sober? Did they really need to ‘get a life’? To be brutally, humiliatingly honest, that now-infamous ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch was for me, at that time, equal parts comedy and catharsis. I was oblivious to the facts. I bought into the ‘Trekkie’ stereotypes. In a nutshell, I was a dope.
However, in the same book, Shatner says that in 1986, he trusted that fans would not be offended by the SNL skit because it was “SO exaggerated and SO stupid and SO cartoonish.” And he was relieved to learn how Gene Roddenberry reacted to it:
In the weeks to come I do get some criticism for that sketch, but far more praise, from fans, castmates, even Gene Roddenberry, which surprises me. No one was ever more protective of Star Trek’s fans than Gene, and I really expected he might take me to task.
Shatner’s SNL episode came as Gene Roddenberry was developing the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Shatner’s Get A Life! book includes a passage from Richard Arnold retelling how Roddenberry, along with D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, and Bob Justman, all watched a tape of the sketch together the following Monday. According to Arnold, “We were all in stitches, and no one was laughing harder than Gene.”
A decade after the book, Shatner followed up with the documentary William Shatner’s Get a Life! which also explored the world of Star Trek fandom. In the video below from Comic-Con 2012, Bill talked to The Hollywood Reporter about how that one sketch spawned the book and then the documentary.
After 35 years, people are still talking about this SNL sketch. As Smigel told The Ringer, it “may be the most resonant sketch I ever wrote there.”
Watch the skit
Find more stories about Star Trek history at TrekMovie.com.
At the very least… I learned a new word today. Thanks, Bill!
Well, nice to see the people who actually came with and wrote it got a pass.
Maybe I should’ve listened to him..
This particular skit could just as easily be done today using a group of a few ridiculously-dressed, enthusiastic Star Wars fans or Marvel fans with one of the actual actors from those franchises, and it would still get the same reaction from me….a bellylaugh overall.
I’ve no issue with Bill agreeing to doing it then, just as I’d have no issue if he’d just done it yesterday. I’d have been more impressed if Bill had actually written the entire thing himself, but he certainly performed it with gusto.
I couldn’t agree more!
Nailed it.
It’s no secret William Shatner doesn’t like Star Trek and doesn’t really know anything about it beyond what he needed to know. He’s an actor, he doesn’t need to be a fan. I find that skit funny and I have no doubt there is a truth to it for him.
“It’s no secret William Shatner doesn’t like Star Trek and doesn’t really know anything about it beyond what he needed to know.”
I don’t for a second believe he writes those books that display his name as the author.
“It’s demeaning and disrespectful… but I don’t condemn it in any way and it’s all fun.” These would be categorized as contradictory nonsense statements that are perhaps better left ignored. Also, Robert Smigel is a great American.
Yes, he actually IS condemning it but just to save his own a$$ he tempers it by saying it’s just fun. That way he covers all the bases. He gets to have people talk about him. Complete BS.
I don’t know, it’s nowhere near as demeaning and disrespectful to the fans as the garbage that’s been churned out by Paramount/CBS since 2009
“the fans”. Ignoring all the fans that liked Star Trek 09? Fans that like the new streaming series? Or are they not real fans? If anything, that’s demeaning and disrespectful. Please don’t gatekeep.
Cool Story bro
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I never had an issue with this skit. It was funny. I have never heard of anybody having an issue with it.
Until now.
Well, I didn’t know it was a “skit”… I have taken it as an actual honest comment up until today. And that “misunderstanding” certainly induced a very strong rebellion against that attitude and incresed the intensity of my fanaticism :-) Ironic, isn’t it. The very skit that made me was just that… a joke. But I am utterly grateful for that misunderstanding. I stand by my decisions concerning Trek.
This is truly a deep dive from Shatner. I thought I was the only person reading up weird academic papers on “presentism” — Presentism is the doctrine that only the present is real. … A presentist thinks that everything is present; more generally, that, necessarily, it is always true that everything is (then) present. Presentism is the temporal analogue of the modal doctrine of actualism, according to which everything is actual.
Another meaning of presentism is closer to what Shatner means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis)
It’s a pertinent point he’s making and elevates the conversation a little. Shatner surprises me sometimes. I never took the skit personally. There are aspects of fandom that I roll my eyes at as well. In any event, he’s a stalwart presence at many conventions and was very kind to me when I got his autograph. It’s not like he really NEEDS to go to these things.
He doesn’t need to go, but I am sure he doesn’t go for his love of the fans.
Sounds like a good concept for a Star Trek story.
“Presentism is the doctrine that only the present is real.”
Wow, that concept seems to be deeply flawed on many levels. First of all, the present doesn’t even exist. Each and every future moment becomes past in an inconcievable instant. And that very brief moment defies us entirely. Unless you are a trained Jedi :-)
Second, even if you apply a broader sense of “present”: Nothing that is would be if it hadn’t been born by the past. And nothing that is would have any sort of purpose if it didn’t have a future. The present would be utterly pointless.
That is not to say that I cannot accept a certain level of abrogation, for example regarding the retconning of Trek canon or values (e.g. female captains) for giving leeway to creative purposes…
I don’t see why Roddenberry even needed to dredge up a 10 minute comedy sketch from 35 years ago for a fluff piece; it came across as a half hearted attempt to manufacture a little artificial conflict for the sake of attention and I think even he realized it as he was saying it, thus his walk back.
As to the sketch itself, I though it was funny back then and still think it’s funny today. Having attended a few conventions back in the early 1980s, it was also more accurate than some fans may want to admit.
To be honest, I found Denise Crosby’s Trekkies documentaries to be more demeaning, with their long looks at the more outlandish corners of fandom like a bunch of people dressed as Klingons eating at a McDonalds. Now that was eye rollingly cringeworthy.
@ TonyD – I have a sudden hankering to rewatch ‘Galaxy Quest’ all over again now.
It was The Hollywood Reporter which “dredged up” the sketch, not Roddenberry. Did you even bother to *read* the article, homeboy?
And Roddenberry could have easily taken the high road, said that it was 35 years ago, that it was all for laughs and moved on. He didn’t quite do that, now did he. He dredged up tired old arguments about how it was disrespectful, etc., then said inexplicably said it was all good. Talk about a clueless, mealy moused answer to an equally shallow question. Of course, I guess I should expect as much from someone whose only claim to fame is having a recognizable last name and only accomplishment is riding on and profiting from the coattails of others.
Happy, homeboy?
What’s great about that sketch is that it’s still funny today as it was back in ’86. I been seeing this article show up on my feed (gee, wonder why) and I never clicked on it once. Since it made it to TM, I finally did and its much ado about nothing. It’s totally fine for Rod Roddenberry to feel that way but I think most fans enjoyed the joke. And I wasn’t a even a teenager at the time but still a very big fan of Trek then and I thought it was funny. Of course I had no idea 35 years later I would STILL be a fan (I was also a big fan of Knight Rider and The A-team that year too ;)) and here we are! And like Star Trek, SNL is just a TV show too that’s famous for poking fun at everything and yes maybe had a (small) point. And it was really funny.
Oh thanks Tiger2, now I can’t get the A-Team’s theme out of my head!
Sorry about this, but I couldn’t help it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdyYvwcybzg
Yeah the skit, like SNL overall in the 1970s and 80s, was fun to watch and generally harmless.
That said, I think Shatner at the time was totally on board with the theme of the skit and it probably also reflected his personal character and opinion of Star Trek and the fans (as I noted in my comments below).
All respect to Rod, but the sketch was funny, and the satire spot-on. It stung because it was true, and still is true.
Look at any long discussion thread about the franchise, especially the newest shows in the franchise, and you will see many people who do, indeed, need to “get a life.”
Humor about Star Trek, In Star Trek, about the stars of Star Trek and the fans of Star trek has always been part of Star Trek.
Rod “Needs to Get a Life”
I like Rod just fine. He seems to be a thoughtful, well-intentioned person who cares about Star Trek and his father’s legacy. From what I can tell though, he’s never had to work a day in his life. So I don’t find his criticism of those that are actually in the arena to be particularly credible and am not interested in his opinion.
“From what I can tell though, he’s never had to work a day in his life.”
Unfortuantely, money is the only thing that still keeps me attached to that sort of normality. But I really, really hope that the Solana-Class Starship Etherprice will soon free me from those obligations :-) Bitcoin to the Moon and Cardano to Cardasssia!
We’re shipmates 😀. Sadly the USS Bitcoin struck a quantum filament today. 🥲
Well I mean, MOST rich people don’t have to work a day in their life, but to give them credit most do anyway (if only to make MORE money lol). He has definitely worked, but yes most of it has been around his father’s endeavors. But hey, no different than the Trump kids and people still listen to their opinion too. ;)
actually his dad made him work on TNG as a intern when he was a kid.
he never appreciated it until later, a job many would have killed to do.
Working for Star Trek isn’t work! That I would pay money for… I’m talking about your average 9to5 job. And that is still in my way of becoming a full-time geek :-)
Anyway, I hope that’ll have been dealt with around Christmas… But honestly, I shouldn’t post this. The crypto market took a significant dip after my last post. It’s obviously bad karma…
I feel the same about the need to dig up that sketch. Seems like trend-bait. From a very pessimistic perspective – pretensim could be what Rod is doing as an exec for all the new live action shows and how far afield from the original vision they have gone Talk about cashing in on a legacy that until recently he had wanted nothing to do with. The Mission Log podcast is greatness so all due credit there, but even the premise at the time it started was that Rod had no real idea of what the point or meaning of Star Trek was.
This!
This is so interesting on many many levels.
First of all, I didn’t even know this comment back in 1986 was a scripted, exaggerated sketch. I always thought of it as an honest, spontaneous remark.
Second, my lifelong rebellion against that sort of attitude expressed back then, stands tall. Trek is – like any other movie (franchise), literature, architecture etc – a piece of art, one that outlives its creator(s) and persists even beyond my own life. I consider such persistance of vision as superior to the frail and fragile nature of reality… Unfortunately, Nimoy is dead. But Spock lives on forever…
Third, it is isn’t “just” a TV show. It is a TV show and therefore exists, as a TV show. There is no place for “just” in that sentence. For me, sci fi and fanatsy franchises are “my life”.. and Trek is my home soil. I know the content isn’t real, there is no Federation, no Enterprise, no Warp Drive… Doesn’t have to be… because the bridge designs are real, the uniforms, the colors, the musical scores, the SFX, the box office numbers…
Being a “Homo Aspergensis” I can fully immerse in such minute details. The audio-visual tapestry, the music, the money numbers…even a plain and simple list of episodes! And all of that is real… The history of that fiction, that piece of art transcends reality just like Shakespeare, DaVinci or Homer… It will prevail. I cannot understand how any of this can be deemed a “colossal waste of time”…
There are people risking their lives in extreme sports, others live in the woods to be one with nature… I cherish Star Trek trailers, soundtracks, ship models. So what?
To my knowledge, SNL has always discouraged ad-libbing in their sketches, so there was little chance it could’ve ever been spontaneous. Especially when, you know, it’s the punchline.
Oh, and no offense intended, but you might want to lighten up just a little about this stuff. Laughing at the things you enjoy is another level of enjoyment, after all.
What was it Picard said about the space Irish, “Sometimes you have to bow to the absurd.” Something like that. And Star Trek and its fandom has plenty of the absurd.
Really like what you wrote here. Let’s put this another way. Imagine that Zuckerberg participates in a sketch and make comments about how stupid people using FB are. It might be funny (and true), yet it would be disrespectful to his “customers”. Same for Tim Cook participating in a sketch and saying that Apple users are mostly dumb and snob rich people. Again may be funny to some, but very disrespectful. The point here is that the message came not from SNL, but from Shatner, who AFAIK makes a living from ST and its fans. So I agree with Roddenberry. But then, I have stopped admiring Shatner a long time ago. I don’t have to like the actor just because I like the character.
It was all the self-admitted comedy bully writer Robert Smigel’s sentiments. Shatner might have thought the phrase funny, but, according to Seth Myers in an SNL anniversary special, one of the funniest tales told by SNL writers of the era was Shatner was unfamiliar with the US colloquialism and had no idea how to say it properly, so he tried various sorts of dramatic readings of it that had them rolling in the aisles, until Smigel put him out of his misery, showing him how to say it.
He was 100% right. I just have to read some of the essays in the comments section here to feel the same way !
The skit is hilarious, as much today as then. (Lower Decks shows it has a point.) Galaxy Quest parodied the rabid fans as well.
I have no issue with the skit. I have no issue with Roddenberry having (or not having) an issue with the skit. I have no issue with Shatner having an issue with Roddenberry having an issue with the skit.
Move the f–k on.
Bryant, that’s what I say when I see people crying over silly stuff. “Got an issue? Here’s a tissue!”
I think in the skit there was kind of a nod to the idea of realism vs fantasy and my personal belief is that if you are a science-fiction fan of any kind then yes, some of these fantastic concepts may seem real to you especially if you have a good imagination and there is nothing wrong with this. I don’t think it is a waste of time if you want to spend your time immersed in everything Star Trek. I believe that not everything in life should be based on work or earning money, if being an intense Trek fan makes that person happy, so be it. That is a freedom people should have.
It’s not even that. It isn’t about real world vs fantasy at all for me. The contents of genre shows are ficticious for sure but the shows and movies AREN’T. I do not believe there are Klingons out there or there will ever be a Starship Enterprise going to Warp 9. And even the tech that has exceeded Trek’s predictions doesn’t interest me that much. I haven’t even got a smartphone…
I KNOW it’s a TV and movie franchise and that very fact makes it more accessible to me than reality. In reality people you love die. In reality girls and women have always been far beyond reach. In reality you become old and eventually die. How is that reality preferable to something you can revisit time and again as long as you live?
For almost 30 years I’ve been watching Trek. Not just the movies and TV eps… The actual show is sth. special. But I listen to scores every day, I watch trailers on a regular basis, I love looking at stats or episode lists, collecting ship models, comparing bridge designs and more recently watch Trek-related stuff on YouTube…
All of that matters BECAUSE it is a TV show. If that was reality I’d be scared to death… I don’t want any Klingons or Borg in reality. I even don’t want to upgrade to Trek-like tech. It is the self-contained TV and movie franchise that matters… all its designs, sounds, shapes, actors, music, ep titles, YouTube content and trailers…
None of that stuff is any less real than cars, food or sports… It is part of reality. TOS having 3 seasons and 79 episodes… that IS reality… the contents, stories aren’t but that’s true for every book, every play, every movie ever written unless it’s a historical documentary.
I’m a collector and I’m an Asperger who dwells in numbers, title lists, designs, colors, collector’s items, names and music. I live in my own world and that world is utterly different. I do not perceive time the way you do. I’ve always been here.
Back in 1986, Shatner asked that poor guy if he had ever kissed a girl. Well, I haven’t and I certainly don’t want to. I’m supersensitive, you cannot even touch me without tickling me to death. I cannot connect to people the way you do. I cannot compromise, I cannot share my life with others on an everyday basis. It’s impossible for me to “get a life”…
Yeah, I had to move out of my parent’s “basement” when they died recently. I have my own apartment, Mr Shatner. But still I have been and always shall be a geek, Trekkie, nerd… I am what I am… And I won’t apologize for that…
Rod Roddenberry takes issue with a harmless skit but continues to help Kurtzman destroy his father’s creation as long as he keeps getting paid lol.
Rod only cares about money. The fact that without Shatner the series may not have ever got to where it was.
Because we know that Shatner has been involved with ST for all those years because of his love for the fans….
“Presentism,” Bill? How about “revisionist history”? That skit didupset a lot of fans at the time, but it’s fun to see your ego rewrite the past as if being upset by it was some new phenomenon based on today’s value system. This guy never ceases to prove what an egotistical blowhard he is.
All that said, I never was upset with the sketch, and found it amusing. I can understand how people might not have appreciated their fandom hero mocking them, though. Roddenberry was right that it WAS disrespectful of the fans.
Contrary to Bill though, I actually think this is a case of reverse presentism (pastism?)– a sketch like that would probably play better today. Self deprecating humor, humor that mocks its own audience, is something we see a lot of these days, especially as genre fandom has grown far beyond the small niche, geeky circles.
I watched it when it aired live with a bunch of friends who were huge fans then and are still huge fans now. We all thought it was hysterical. It upset some fans, it didn’t upset the overwhelmingly majority of them. Those who were upset by the skit weren’t in on the joke but became a part of it.
That’s not revisionist history. That’s just the way it was.
Those were the days! When people could still say what they meant and make fun of people, without being canceled or some other BS.
Shatner makes some valid points and I might even agree with him to a very limited extent.
That said, the skit and his recent comments probably also give us some insight into his personal character and the limited way he views the world and the people around us. It is no surprise that none of his TOS co-stars seemed to consider Shatner as a close personal life-long friend.
It is also not a huge surprise that producers and directors have never gone to Shatner to work on anything significant in the Star Trek universe since Generations. Meanwhile Doohan and Takei were both in Berman Trek shows along with Nimoy who was also in the JJ movies. Nimoy seemed to be well respected and genuinely reverred by almost everyone he ever worked with on Trek, I was especially impressed by actors who had limited exposure to Nimoy, like Kim Catrall who is more known for her role in Sex in the City, had nothing but insightful and glowing comments about Nimoy, following his passing.
I am not sure how much of this is true, but supposedly Patrick Stewart took Shatner aside one day. He apparently recommended that he learn to embrace the fact that the TOS show and movies were so reverred by so many people and that is why he eventually started to do conventions and other fan events.
Why did Nimoy decide to do the reboot movies. He walked away from playing Spock in Generations, even refused to direct it. Everyone assumed he was done with the character after Unification.
Money
Shatner was doing conventions well before Patrick Stewart was even cast.
But he had *stopped* doing them (for a long time). Did you read the article, homeboy?
This is such a non-issue on every level. Rod wasn’t even criticizing him, and Shatner did nothing wrong. The villain here is The Hollywood Reporter for trying to turn people against each other.
You’d think Shatner would be smart enough not to take the bait.
Because let’s be honest: this skit DID spur a lot of anger from fans at the time, but similar bits done in the years since–such as when he appeared in Futurama, in an episode that similarly mocked the geekiness of Trekkies–have been beloved by fans. Big Bang Theory spent a decade mocking comics fans, Trekkies, and the like, and it too has become a favorite of those same fans.
This is definitely NOT a case of “presentism” as he seems to think. If anything, attitudes towards this kind of humor have softened over the years and become less offensive.
I watched it as it aired. I wasn’t offended.
I suspect Rod said it to get some clicks and a response out of Shatner.
In a way, they are both sons of the same man, yet not brothers at all.
In all likelihood, mission accomplished.
And yet a lot of people WERE offended at the time, even if you weren’t among them. I do recall it riled up some of the Trek fandom back then, even if they were a vocal minority. To say otherwise is simply disingenuous.
I watched it as it aired as well. When Shatner pointed and Lovitz, asked him if ever kissed a girl, and Lovitz drops his head in shame, I howled with laughter. It was funny then, it’s funny now.
When Bill did originally, we had a different era of Trek and Bill then. However, it was very funny and in no way was it offensive to me as a Trekker. Bill has a great sense of humor and it showed here when he did this. Its true that fans know more about the episodes of (insert Trek series here) than the actors do. Over the years my wife have spoken to a few of actors at the conventions and cruises and they are all amazed at our knowledge. Of course it comes from watching the TV shows and movies over and over again. The actors only see/remember what they shot and few, if any, actually watch the entire episode to gain any knowledge.
I had to laugh at the skit photo showing the table of trek collectables… we have that same waste basket. Even a few of the Mego action figures.
Loved that skit when I saw it for the first time in 1986 and still love it now. Great humor.
Hey, Rod…….get a life.
As enjoyable as the Get a Life skit was, the funniest skit in that episode was the long lost alternate ending to It’s A Wonderful Life…
Is that skit online anywhere?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw89o0afb2A
Warp factor 9!!
Trekkies really need a sense of humor.
That’s a tall order.
What does Rod Roddenberry actually Do?
He’s a producer.
That title can mean a bit less than it seems.
He’s an executive producer. Typically that involves handling the business end of a production and not being involved in any creative decisions.
In Roddenberry’s case, it probably means lending his name to the credits of the shows in some shallow attempt to make people think a person from the Roddenberry lineage is still actively involved and then just getting out of the way.
Great to see this story, as it will increase the value of my mint copy of the 45 rpm single of “He’s Dead, Jim” by DeForest Kelley.
The skit is hilarious. Being able to laugh at yourself is something allot more people need to learn now more than ever.
More than ever?
I rather quote Kästner again:
„Was auch immer geschieht:
Nie dürft ihr so tief sinken,
von dem Kakao, durch den man euch zieht,
auch noch zu trinken.“
It’s a story guys, you know, fiction? No matter how enjoyable. But it’s not real life!
It was funny then and it’s funny now. People need to lighten up.
Back in ’86 the sketch hit hard, but it’s still pretty funny. Nothing more than Big Bang Theory did every week with “nerds” and sci-fi fans. Have to take issue with the article contending Shatner wasn’t active on the convention circuit — does this refer to that week, month? He did many conventions during the seventies and eighties. He may have slowed down after the success of STIV and the demands of TJ Hooker, though. Also, I wasn’t sure about his feelings for the series, but the Cushman book relates a story concerning the last episode- Turnabout Intruder. The director wanted Shatner to exit the briefing room in a direction suggesting a nonexistent door. Shatner protested there would be complaints because fans knew the ship too well. That and the story about his refusing to use a metal plated Vietnam era walkie talkie as a communicator in STII suggest he did care about the show — as if his high energy performance wasn’t enough.
The only thing that really bothered me about the sketch was the way they referred to the episodes by number. How inaccurate!
>;>}
At the time the skit came out, I was 19, in college and had a large group of Star Trek fans at the school; been a fan since first run syndication days for TOS. I can tell you that none of my friends were offended, we all found it funny. Don’t know anyone back then or since that didn’t. Back then we knew how to poke fun at and laugh at ourselves without getting bent out of shape about stuff.
As Rod is at least partially in charge now, getting into a fight with him is *not* a good idea if Shatner wants to be in the next movie…
I’ve seen the sketch before, but I’d forgotten that Shatner was already raising horses in 1986. Four movies must really have turned his fortunes around.
I actually enjoyed the skit quite a bit. The only thing that really bugged me was having the fans use episode numbers. I have never used an episode number and I don’t know anyone who has ever used episode numbers. But that’s just a nitpick. The sketch Was a good sketch from a time when SNL could be funny from time to time. Unlike the last few years were SNL it’s just been complete garbage.