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It was Forbidden Planet International that tipped us off to this great day, and we couldn’t let it pass unnoted. (Comics content: Shatner is the author of many fine comics over the years! And no one is to say otherwise.)

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Shatner is a gift that keeps giving.

While searching for some still for this tribute, I found the great Shatner’s Toupee blog, a site devoted to a tireless, dogged investigation of that single topic — the kind of thing that made the internet great, by God! — and found these stills from a very early Canadian tele-production of Billy Budd, with Shat as Billy Budd!
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For those unfamiliar with Melville’s original, it involved Budd, a cheerful, innocent youth pressed into service on the Royal Navy; when confronted with a false accusation, frustration over a speech impediment leads Budd to do something quite rash and out of character. which destroys his life.
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You can see the entire story line in Shatner’s wide stance in just this one still!


Here’s the famous Shatner-is-a-dick advertising outtake.


And here’s the great “Sabaataage.”

Shatner also famously said “Get a life!” defining the pitfalls of the fannish life forever

And for your listening pleasure, TWO versions of the great “Common People” single.

Here’s a Lego take on the same song. Choose your poison.


Let we forget in the long list of his other great achievements, Shatner also helped birth “Slash” fiction — it’s believed Kirk/Spock homoerotic fan-written tales, or K/S, led to the term “slash.”

Oh and you knew this was coming.

Happy birthday, William Shatner! You have enriched our lives and made us smile and laugh…mostly without meaning to, but once you figured out you were doing it anyway, you took it on like a good sport. You are The Shat, and you are great.

1 COMMENT

  1. Great, indeed. And he has got to be the hardest working male octogenarian in show biz today! Happy birthday William!

  3. TJ Hooker was awesome sauce. I loved trying to guess which action scenes had a stuntman in it!

    IIRC wasn’t there an interview on some late night talk show during which Shatner removes his wig?!? Or is this an urban legend?

  4. I caught an episode of Shatners interview show where he interviews Bernard Goetz.

    Willliam Shatner interviews Bernard Goetz.

    That was a scene man! Shatner is a hoot.

    Happy B-Day Captain Kirk!

  5. And March 26th is Leonard Nimoy’s 80th birthday. What are the odds that they were both born in March 1931?

  6. You should amend that to read that William Shatner was the public face of a number of fine comics ghost-written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

  7. nothing cracks me up more than listening to shatner “sing”. if ya ever get the chance listen to his rendition of ‘mr. tambourine man’ or ‘lucy in the sky with diamonds’, you gotta hear it to believe it. that said, i’ve always enjoyed watching shatner in star trek, etc., i got a real kick out of his guest shots on ‘third rock from the sun’ a few years back. say what you will about shatner, there is no one quite like him, the guy is an original. happy b-day!

  10. I second Raffaele – I can’t believe William Shatner is 80. Maybe he’s had work done and I know about the toupee but he doesn’t carry himself like a typical 80 year old. Of course, neither does Betty White… neither does my grandma.

    Now Leonard Nimoy? He looks 80… but he doesn’t act it, either.