Thursday, September 18, 2008

William Shatner

I'll let it known that the William Shatner irony well is one that has been dipped into too many times. Whether it's part of Sean Cullen's stand-up routine, Family Guy or *shudder* Comedy Inc, the comedy community always goes to Shatner for the easy laugh. Now the shame in this is that when a comedian is attempting to cultivate his or her own enclave in comedy's lore cracks about Shatner (or Paris Hilton or Celine Dion or Michael Jackson...) it does nothing to seperate themselves from the rest of the banal static of their peers.

But commerce is result driven, and while I have no emperical data to back this up, agencies seem to think Shatner delivers the goods. If you go onto YouTube and enter the tags "Shatner" and "Commercial" you'll come up with 250 results.

There is the current spot running for the popular World of Warcraft where Shatner depicts himself as some kind of WoW dude:



Evidentally in the early 80's creative departments thought that Shatner and video games also fit like a glove:



In the past year or so, Shatner has shilled for priceline.com, All Bran and even a Detroit area disability lawyer:



Apparently Shatner tests very well. Whoever can get his endorsement in the US Presidential campaign will surely get a sizeable "bump" in the polls.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Shatner's Canadian. He shouldn't be endorsing any U.S. presidential candidate. Dion, however could do well from his support. To me, Shatner was never a joke. The guy has got tons of talent. Anyone who doubts this should see "Free Enterprise."