POISON SCOOTER

Captain Kirk Gets Roasted

William Shatner was never an icon I appreciated growing up. I'm more of a Star Wars guy than a Star Trek geek and T.J. Hooker was just too unwatchable for me to get invested. However, how to you get through life not knowing who Shatner is? Naturally I am aware of the man and what a pompous ass he allegedly is. Over the last few years I've actually grown to love him on Boston Legal and I appreciate in a strange way his musical creations with Ben Folds, so I was somewhat curious to see how a Roast would go for him. A guy who is most famous for playing a space captain and butchering classic hippy songs like Mr. Tambourine Man is rife with built in material. Plus I saw on the commercial that both Artie Lange and George "Mr. Sulu" Takei were going to be roasters and as a Howard Stern fan I was more than curious.

Comedy Central has really done a good job of reinvigorating the roast concept bringing forth relative unknown comics outside of the comedy world and getting iconic personalities to subject themselves to ridicule (Pam Anderson, Hugh Hefner). The roasts are typically filthy and loaded with drunk shenanigans on the dais, in fact this time around Andy Dick embodied Courtney Love, as Patton Oswalt pointed out, with his face licking antics and Artie Lange appeared to be slugging back Jack Daniels like it was water. This is my kind of fun.

Not all the jokes were funny, but for the majority of the evening I was chuckling enough to suggest you give this a look. Greg Giraldo and Jeff Ross are two comics that just go for the jugular of not only for the guest of honor but anyone who dares to show up to the roast; watch out Carrie Fisher and Adrian Zmed. Patton Oswalt had what I considered the line of the night pulling out a small paper bag and asking Shatner to settle a bet he has with a friend by "acting his way out of it." Artie Lange commented this morning that his best joke was cut from the show, something about Lee Majors (Farrah Fawcett's ex-husband) wouldn't fuck her for 6 Million Dollars now, but still had some good jokes get on the air. With all the talented comedians assembled and ready to take aim at Shatner, imagine my surprise when I laughed the hardest at Betty White's set and the old footage of Shatner "singing" Rocket Man in the 70's. Anyway, I think you should give this a viewing as I'm sure Comedy Central will be playing the shit out of it for a couple weeks.

posted by Scooter @ 4:25 AM