William Shatner has had a long career as a mediocre actor who was elevated to cult status due to his connection with Star Trek. His notoriously difficult working relationships and stilted acting style has made him one of the more common impersonation targets, as well as the butt of many jokes. Given all that, it's no surprise that Comedy Central selected him for their brand of celebrity roast.
A roast is a public event that both honors the roastee and pokes fun at them. The first incarnations of this were private events, but television eventually became a medium for disseminating the roasts. What was shown to the public was often far more tame and prurient than what was not shown. Times have changed and what was once considered to be too crude or explicit to be shown on network TV is now standard fare for safe harbor hours and cable channels.
The Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner — Extended & Uncensored! DVD contents are not much different from what was shown on the network last year. Even some of the extras were a part of the original airing of the roast, and anyway, they do not add much to the program. It seems that what Comedy Central means by "extended" is a handful of imperceptible extra scenes, and "uncensored" means that the f-bombs are left un-bleeped. It is somewhat amusing to note that the bleeps were left in for one of the extras, the "Red Carpet Interviews." Unfortunately, that is one of the only amusing parts of that particular extra segment, as it is apparent that the interviewer, Jessi Klein, is completely drunk off her ass by the end of the program. Also, despite being the "extended" version, the opening segment with Leonard Nimoy that was shown with the original broadcast is not included on the DVD.
One of the features of a roast is that no one is safe, and every one on the dais is subject to jokes about themselves, as well as the celebrity being roasted. Some of the roasters spent more time hitting their comrades than saying much about Shatner. Given that most of the comedians on the dais had never met Shatner, one has to wonder why they were even there. The non-comedians were all people who had worked with Shatner at some point, or were requested by him specifically in the case of Farrah Fawcett. Those who had worked with Shatner were fellow actors and celebrities from Star Trek, Boston Legal, Miss Congeniality, Howard Stern, and even his Priceline commercials received some attention from Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
That's bad that it wasn't too funny.
2 - Bill Sherman
I tried watching this when it was first broadcast on Comedy Central and didn't make it all the way through the first time. What a blown opportunity! You definitely have my sympathies for sitting through it twice . . .