Before William Shatner was the face of Rescue 911, he was trying to rescue students in The Explosive Generation. How sexy is the 29 year old in that 1961 movie?
We have seen William Shatner try his hand at comedy over the years, but we have never seen him actually do standup comedy. That is all going to change because Page Six is reporting he is going to do it for AXS TV’s Gotham Comedy Live on January 19th.
I think he is going to be hysterical because he has such a dry sense of humor and great timing. But then again, that could be because he takes pauses between words and that makes him funnier.
Either way, I am looking forward to his comedy debut. Heck, if he does he really good job, maybe he has a new career in his future. He’s only 85 years young, and you are never too old to start something new. Could you imagine him touring the circuit or getting his own comedy special? I would tune in for that even if I find myself asking Scotty to beam me up half way through.
William Shatner did a remote live shot with Good Morning Britain and he should’ve known things were not going to go well when they gave him a cell phone to communicate with anchors back at the station instead of an IFB.
It was hard for the legend hear them, so he didn’t know that the questions were coming fans and not the newspeople. Therefore, when they asked him what was his favorite Star Trek episode was, he called them out for asking such a basic question. And it just went downhill from there.
Well for GMB that is, for us it was great to see him boldly go where no other guest has gone with them before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqjTD2YGucc William Shatner and Henry Winkler along with Jeff Dye, Terry Bradshaw and George Foreman spent a month traveling in The Orient visiting 6 cities and they made memories that will stay with them for a lifetime. Tonight at 10p on NBC, they go to South Korea on Better Late Than Never and they almost cause an International incident. Thankfully, they didn’t or we would’ve heard it by now and they wouldn’t be with us to talk about the best show to grace our televisions since The Shat did a little show called Star Trek 50 years ago this week.
While Jeff Dye dropping his phone on the North Korean side of the border was pretty memorable for all of them, The Fonz had another unforgettable memory from that country. When Winkler was in Seoul he got to try one of their delicacies. He revealed to us what it was at a press day for the show, “I realized I was asked to pull an octopus out of a tank. That personal octopus sat and wrapped itself around my wrist and hand. A woman said, ‘Oh, very good.'” Then he added, “I ate it; wiggling, raw. And I didn’t and it’s so interesting. You put the tentacle in your mouth. Umm, good. You have to pull it, because it sticks to the inside of your cheek. But it actually was not bad.”
From tentacles to trunks, he had experience that will remain one of his all-time favorite memories. In Chiang Mai, he made a friend he will never forget. He detailed that meeting as, “I met an elephant. And I’m telling you, this 15,000 pound elephant looked me in the eye, and I looked the elephant in the eye, and I started crying. You felt the dearness.” So much so, “I have a picture on my phone in my house, in everywhere. You see the elephant leaning into me when I’m standing next to him, like he was a puppy. I’m telling you. And this is not hyperbole. It came out of him like a river, this emotion. It was one of the great moments, outside of my children, grandchildren and family.”
Talking about children, Captain Kirk had a run with a kid that reminded him of his Rescue 911 days. The time that stuck with and will forever stay with him is when, “It was a kid. We had a water fight with colored water, and the water was taken out of cesspools that there were a lot of cesspools around and they were fired at us. And during this fight I had my mouth open, and this kid shot this long arc of water into my mouth.” Then he added, “I’ve never forgotten that child since. That child’s face is emblazoned in my mind. I’ll never forget that kid.” Which could be why he told me that if Better Late Than Never was picked up for a second season, he will not going along with them. Winkler on the other is packed and ready to go.
One more thing that both men will never forget is the month that they traveled to Tokyo, Kyoto, Hong Kong, Seoul, Bangkok and Chang Mai together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPZ8UyqEXdA
Last week, Henry Winkler, William Shatner, Jeff Dye, George Foreman and Terry Bradshaw all traveled to Tokyo with Better Late Than Never and tonight at 10p on NBC they go to Kyoto, Japan and Hong Kong. Looks like some of them might’ve had a little too much Sake and that doesn’t sucke for us.
Kyoto also didn’t sucke for Dye because he told us at a recent press day, it was his favorite city out of the six that they went to while there were there for a month. He explained why, “Because I think, in my brain, when I travel, I want it to be different than anything I know. So any city that reminds me of something I already know, I kind of go, oh, this just reminds me of New York, or this just so I was quick to not dismiss, but to be, like, Tokyo is beautiful, but it feels like something I know.” Then he added, “And Kyoto felt like nothing I’ve ever known before. It was like a very I don’t know, like, it was a small city, and it was rich with tradition. Everyone was so excited to share with us things that I’ve never even heard of. It was just very cool.”
For Winkler what was cool, was the kids. He happily shared, “We met families, we met children everywhere that we went, and there was no language between us…George would sit down, and all of a sudden it was like these children, who had no idea who this gigantic human being was, didn’t understand him, they could have been his grandchildren. They found games to play, and punching, and sitting and jumping. It was truly emotional.”
As The Fonz said, they didn’t know who George Foreman was, but he wasn’t the only one they didn’t know. Even though the four older men on this journey are legends here in the United States, Shatner said it was a different story over there. He revealed that, “They didn’t know who we were, because the shows, certainly the shows I’ve been in, weren’t playing in Asia. And it was interesting. The only people that recognized most of us were American tourists, which we found plenty of, going place to place.” The natives might not have known who there were, but they were all still very friendly to them.
Believe it or not, before the show the octogenarian Captain Kirk had never been to Japan. Why? He joked the tickets were too expensive and no one else bought them for him. Then he got serious as he disclosed what an actor’s life on the road is like, “You know, actors go like, fly someplace, and they go to a hotel, and they do the job, and then you think, the lumpy mattresses and bad food; I want to get home. And you don’t see the location. We go on locations all the time, but never see the location. What you see is where you’re filming and the hotel you’re in, and you go there at 6 o’clock in the morning, and you get out of there at 8 o’clock at night. And I want to get home. My dogs. My dogs.”
My dogs, is how he might refer to his four new friends that he will have for the rest of his life. Dye had to this say about his now old buddies, “I learned something from each of these guys, which is my favorite thing. And maybe that’s just good casting by these guys, or whatever. But everyone had something so much different that I really enjoyed.” The comedian enjoyed learning that Shatner was the bravest and Bradshaw was afraid of everything.
Thankfully, Sake was not one of the things that Bradshaw was scared of because that makes tonight’s episode even more endearing.
Better Late Than Never has proven to be a wonderful show that takes us on heartwarming journey with five men who all got to experience many new things in several new places and came out stronger from it. We get to go along for the ride and laugh with them as we all get to learn things we never knew before about these six cities we have never been to before but will consider in the future. Plus, we get to learn more about some of our favorite actors, athletes and Jeff Dye as they discover each other in a continent of discovery.
