Several times, I've heard a comedic reference to William Shatner saying,
"it sickens me". I always thought this was just a joke from someone imagining something he would say, based on Shatner's reputation for being picky and hard to work with sometimes. In an episode of
"The Simpsons" called
"Lisa's First Word", one of the Flanders boys hugs Bart and he says,
"Please don't hug me...it sickens me".
I could tell from the way Bart said the line that he was doing a Shatner impression, but it wasn't until I heard
"Don't tell me how to do the line...it sickens me" on the latest episode of
"Futurama" that I thought it might be something Shatner actually said. Now that I've looked it up, I was able to find an actual clip of Shatner saying,
"Don't tell me how to do it...it sickens me".
Apparently a director was giving him suggestions and he didn't like it.
Shatner is hilarious. What I'm wondering now is, does anyone know the context of Shatner saying those words? Is it from the same session as the infamous "Sabataage" run? I'm not sure because I've heard a clip of that on Youtube, but there's no "it sickens me" in it. Can anyone inform me of the 'sickened Shatner' origin?
This line was uttered during a VO recording session for the CD-ROM edition of Star Trek: Judgment Rights, for which I was the producer. Mr Shatner
Several times, I've heard a comedic reference to William Shatner saying,
"it sickens me". I always thought this was just a joke from someone imagining something he would say, based on Shatner's reputation for being picky and hard to work with sometimes. In an episode of
"The Simpsons" called
"Lisa's First Word", one of the Flanders boys hugs Bart and he says,
"Please don't hug me...it sickens me".
I could tell from the way Bart said the line that he was doing a Shatner impression, but it wasn't until I heard
"Don't tell me how to do the line...it sickens me" on the latest episode of
"Futurama" that I thought it might be something Shatner actually said. Now that I've looked it up, I was able to find an actual clip of Shatner saying,
"Don't tell me how to do it...it sickens me".
Apparently a director was giving him suggestions and he didn't like it.
Shatner is hilarious. What I'm wondering now is, does anyone know the context of Shatner saying those words? Is it from the same session as the infamous "Sabataage" run? I'm not sure because I've heard a clip of that on Youtube, but there's no "it sickens me" in it. Can anyone inform me of the 'sickened Shatner' origin?
---
The infamous line "it sickens me" and the unique pronunciation of sabotaaage were uttered by William Shatner during the VO recording session for the CD-ROM Special Collectors Edition of the Interplay adventure game
Star Trek: Judgment Rites, of which I was the producer
.
The game had already been released on floppy disc, and not long after, buyers of the adventure game could also purchase the
ST:JR Movie & Sound Pack, which was an additional set of disks that contained 10 MB of new video and sound effects. Installing the game from scratch from the floppy disks took a whopping 75 minutes!
When I came to the project, I was tasked with combining the content from both collections into a single CD-ROM product. CD-ROM was becoming the standard, and this title with it's gigantic footprint was a natural fit for this optical media. I was also responsible for setting up the recording sessions for all the voice actors who had lines in the game, to arrange for Interplay's in-house team to edit the recording session DAT tapes into individual files, to hire an outside game developer who would add speaking animation to all the dialog, and then to create a separate CD-ROM disc that contained interviews of others who contributed to the game, plus a concept-art slide show, and a never-before released interview of Gene Roddenberry, all of which was navigable from a 3D rendered version of the Enterprise Bridge, which is the first time that had been attempted.
The recording session for Mr. Shatner, in fact for all the VO actors including the rest of the original cast, took place at the building across from Capitol Records at 1800 N Vine in Hollywood, and on one of my many visits to the facility, I learned it was also where the final mix downs for MADtv were done. I don't recall the name of the studio, and after some searching, it looks like they're no longer in business.
There are a few versions of this story floating around, but what follows is my recollection.
Mr Shatner's session began with reading his lines for the earliest scenes in episode 1 of the game. This included a timed puzzle which the player must solve before the scene resets. It's meant to be payed multiple times because you learn more each time you try to solve it.
If you played the game, or its predecessor
ST: 25th Anniversary, you'll know the player controls Kirk who is accompanied by Spock and McCoy throughout the game. Thus, in some instances, the player would direct Kirk to speak with either Spock or McCoy. In the timed puzzle, the room begins to fill with knockout gas and if the player takes too long to solve the puzzle, Kirk, Spock and McCoy pass out and awaken a short time later back in the jail cell.
It was in the scene with the knockout gas that the director interrupted Mr. Shatter to inform him of the knockout gas and suggested he redo the line with Kirk being on the verge of passing out. This is where Bill Shater replied, "Uh... Don't tell me how to do it. It sickens me." And Bill went right on, reading the lines as if they were a phone book.
A little later in the same session, the next line in question was one where the player would direct Kirk to speak to Spock, "Spock, sabotage the system." Mr Shatner read the line and pronounced "sabotage" with an "a" (phonetic symbol: æ) sound like what you'd hear in the word "bat" as compared to how some pronounce it with an "ah" (phonetic symbol: ɑ) like you'd hear in the word "bot." Bat vs bot.
The director interrupted Bill offering the correct pronunciation,
"Can we do line 193 again? Sa-bo-tæge is pronounced sa-bo-tɑge."
Shatner paused for a moment and asked, "I don't say sabotɑge. You say sabotɑge. I say sabotæge."
Shatner brushed off the suggestion and went on reading. (side bar, Shatner actually does pronounce the word as sabotæge, which you can hear for yourself if you do a search on YouTube.
We had a couple of pickup sessions with Bill a little later, and in both sessions, I warned everyone not to direct Shatner unless the line was unintelligible, in which case we'd say it was our fault and re-record.
This would be a nice place to end the story, but real life has other ideas. The engineer who ran the board for our recording sessions secretly kept a second copy of the DAT tapes and extracted various out-takes which he'd hope to add to one of many out-take reels circulating around Hollywood. The two clips, "it sickens me" and "sabotage" were among those linked.
I was alerted to this when a colleague called me during office hours and asked if I was listening to Howard Stern. I wasn't. "You've got to hear this." he said. So I wandered over to his workstation where he had the Stern Radio Show playing.
Howard was interviewing Bill Shatner. 'How quaint,' I mused, 'my colleague thinks I'm a fan of Bill Shatner.' But after a moment, I heard the infamous line "Don't tell me how to do it, it sickens me." I could feel the blood drain from my face. "We're gonna be sued." I said, and made a beeline for the executive suite.
The company president, Brian Fargo, was less concerned. "What are you worried about, Ken?" he asked. I explained that surely Bill Shatner would remember this was from our recording session and that he would sue us for leaking the clip, It wasn't us! It had to be the recording studio. Brian reassured me our corporate lawyer would call the studio and make some threats, maybe even get us some free recording time.
This would be a nice place to end the story, but real life has other ideas. I began to hear the line in other places, in an episode of
The Simpsons, and one for
Futurama. One late night I was watching
Space Ghost Coast to Coast, the episode with Steven Wright (
Snatch s06e02).
---
Moltar: Nobody can hear ya, Space Ghost. We've been off the air for 10 days.
Space Ghost: (to Steven Wright) Excuse me. (invisos into control room, face-to-face with Moltar) Please don't tell me how to do it. It sickens me.
---
Within a short time, someone close to me who was familiar with story behind the leaked clip, called me and asked if I'd seen the movie
Mystery Men. I had not. The caller assured me I HAD to go see it. So I did! And there it was again, Ben Stiller's character responds to Casanova Frankenstein correcting him on the correct pronunciation of "pandora."
"Uh, ... Please don't correct me. It sickens me."
Later in the film, characters can even be heard correcting each other on the correct pronunciation of "sabotage."
This would be a nice place to end the story, but real life has other ideas.
Much later, JJ Abrams directs the first of the
Star Trek reboot movies, which includes a scene from young James Kirk's life. It's the scene where pre-teen Kirk is joyriding in his stepdad's antique
Corvette. He turns up the radio full blast and the music spews forth assaulting everyone within earshot. He loosens the convertible top causing to fly loose like a pterodactyl which lands in the dust trailing behind the car. And right before the Corvette careens off a cliff into the nearby ravine, young Kirk jumps out, struggling to stop the momentum that would send him Thelma and Louise into his doom.
The music playing from the radio...
Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.
To confirm this wasn't a bizarre coincidence, I bought the BluRay for the express purpose of listening to the Director's Commentary for just that very scene. Producer, Damon Lindelof is heard asking JJ Abrams about his choice of the song for the scene and if it had anything to do with a certain Shatner story. JJ played dumb and said he was a fan of the Beastie Boys and thought the song was appropriate for the scene.
Plausible deniability.
Of course, the universe is not kind enough to leave me alone following the first of the Star Trek reboot films. In the third film,
Star Trek Beyond, the Beastie Boys tune makes re-appearance and plays a key role in defeating the film's nemesis.
I've had a front row seat to watching how a simple moment between an actor and his director became a cultural meme that always seems to show up where I least expect it. But at this point, I'm comforted knowing Bill Shatner will never sue me.
