It can be dumb and still be funny.Is it criticism of the skit to call it dumb?
A Matter of Shatner's Perspective
- Thread starter Khan 2.0
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Is it criticism of the skit to call it dumb?
Taking so much money for so long and also resenting and bashing the fans does seem pretty jerky to me.
The skit claims anyone traveling a while to go to a convention is at best wasteful.
I don't understand. Taking so much money for so long? You mean having a career, doing his job? Getting paid for your time is a bad thing?
Where is there any proof he actually resents fans? It was a comedy skit written by SNL.... where does he bash fans?
He takes just as hard a hit in the skit, as the entire punchline is him being forced back into the role due to his contract and the executive on the sidelines. It mocks him, just as much as it mocks the fans. Its a comedy skit......
...and how anyone ever believed anything else is...ridiculous. Shatner was a guest star like any other, and truth be told, the idea of ST fans being nerdy and obsessive already achieved cultural recognition in the early 70s, with the explosion of ST conventions, which were covered by the media. No one needed to go out of their way to find some very obsessed fans...the kind that would have prodded comedy TV series writers to have a guest actor say, "get a life."
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And it was a different world. Star Trek fandom wasn't a thing on the national radar (and I don't think I had ever heard the word "fandom" at the time). I was a big Star Trek fan, and though I had never been to a convention I was aware of them. Watching that sketch, I actually enjoyed it because it seemed like a sign that it had become big enough that it was worth satirizing on SNL. But what really impressed me was that even though they were making fun of Trekkies, the writers obviously knew the show. Knew it really well. I actually went to my "Compendium" and looked up the episode number for "This Side of Paradise" and damn if they hadn't gotten it right. So obviously they were fans themselves, and on some level it was self-deprecating. There were serious Star Trek fans "on the inside" at SNL, how about that!
The main reason I was watching that night, though, was because I had a real crush on Maria McKee. I mean how great was she?
The people who were attending Star Trek conventions in the '80s were a miniscule fraction of the audience. If only serious fans bought tickets the Star Trek movies would have flopped.
I didn't see the skit until years later but when I did I looked up the episode number as well. I was impressed with their attention to detail
As the same time, the episode number for "The Enemy Within" was way the hell off at episode 37. If they meant "Mirror, Mirror" they would still be off, but only slightly.
Except that at that time I don't recall every hearing a Trek fan refer to an episode by #. The whole S02 E21 thing was not a thing back in those days. There were only 79, so you referred to them unambiguously by title.
The episode numbers were on the Paramount VHS tapes and laserdiscs as well as in the Star Trek Compendium. I remember knowing the numbers for The Doomsday Machine and The Enemy Within of the top of my head back then. So that didn't strike me as out of place. I didn't know other fans at the time, so I don't know if it was common or not, just that I knew where I could get the episode numbers.
Except people still don't do it. Who refers to "City" or "A Taste of Armageddon" by its episode number?
Agreed, but I took that as dramatic license to heighten their nerdy strangeness.
They kinda did that with the recurring Chicago Bears "Superfans" sketch. Da Bears!
"Klaatu barada nikto."Couldn't care less, but I'd hate to go to my grave not knowing what Kirk was about to say at the end of JOURNEY TO BABEL.
There are fans, and there are fans.. some of us here are old enough to remember Barbara Adams and her brush with fame:
http://edition.cnn.com/US/fringe/9603/03-14/trek.html
http://edition.cnn.com/US/fringe/9603/03-14/trek.html
Star Trek IV was incredibly popular with crossover appeal and was the #6 movie of the year. That's why Shatner was hosting SNL then.
That happened ten years before in May of 1976. SNL's first season.
John, who co-hosts an SNL podcast.
Yeah I remember. I was talking about organized fandom. The vast majority of people who went to that movie would know next to nothing about what went on at a Star Trek convention.
Yeah I remember. I was talking about satirizing hard core Star Trek fans and conventions.
this is pretty funny Watch William Shatner Reviews Impressions of Himself | Reviews | Vanity Fair
William Shatner on Twitter: "So @VanityFair had me suffer (at times) to review a series of clips of people apparently (though in some cases I couldn’t see it) mimicking me as Captain Kirk. https://t.co/5F112Ua1bV" / Twitter
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