Shatnerized!

Last Friday we happened to see that William Shatner was to be a guest on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (BBC America) so we watched his interview. He is so terribly funny, in many ways - not afraid to poke fun at himself, quick with witty comebacks, giving it right back to Jonathan. Sometimes he didn't even have to speak; his facial expression was enough to make us both laugh. Here is a clip but that's not even the funniest part. At one point, somehow having got onto the topic of death, Shatner wanted to be cremated and scattered. Jonathan replied that he'd rather be preserved, and Shatner exclaimed in surprise, "You want to be jam?!?" - obviously better delivered by Captain Kirk than written by me.

As a part of the interview, William Shatner plugged his autobiography, Up Till Now. After seeing him on the show, I wanted to read it so we picked it up over the weekend. I'm about halfway through. So far, quite entertaining, very funny at points, always interesting. For example, I'd never thought much about what he did pre-Star Trek. If asked, I would have assumed he'd had other acting gigs, movies and TV, in order to be considered for the lead in a series, which is true, but I had no idea until reading the book that he was an accomplished stage actor on Broadway and his movies were stuff like Judgment at Nuremberg.

I like the book but my favorite bit of Shatner memorabilia is this CD. I've owned it for years and it's one of my prized possessions. Not only does it feature Shatner doing "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" but it also has Mr. Spock doing "Proud Mary" and "If I Had a Hammer". I have to say, Star Trek love aside, the best track on there is Andy Griffith doing "House of the Rising Sun". I highly recommend picking both autobiography and CD up from Amazon.