Category: Humor

William Shatner’s Up Till Now

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As I write this I’m a little less than half way through William Shatner’s autobiography, Up Till Now and I’m already hating that it will end.  Shatner’s stories, observations and asides are entertaining and written as if he was chatting with the reader over a McDonald’s Mocca Frappe.  [Stay thirsty, my friends!]

Growing up, I was a HUGE Star Trek fan [although Spock was my favorite character] and I did enjoy Shatner in Boston Legal and The Twilight Zone episodes [that he headlined], but I wasn’t a TJ Hooker fan.  And except for the Star Trek movies starring Shatner and the original crew, there are no other William Shatner films in my movie collection.  That had led me to believe that I might enjoy only a small part of Shatner’s autobiography.  Boy, was I wrong.  Ever page has either made me smile or given me some interesting insight.  And sometimes both.  For example, Shatner discusses being flown to France with his co-stars for the premiere of an animated film…

In the animated film, Over the Hedge I played Ozzie the Opossum, whose primary survival technique is playing dead, but truly dramatically dead.  Shatnerian playing dead.  Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of DreamWorks, sent the cast, including Bruce Willis and myself to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of the film.  As we were walking up the red carpet, surrounded by photographers, we were introduced to the French actors who had played our characters in the French version.  Wait a second, I wondered, we’re the stars of the film, right?  I knew we were the stars, our names were in big letters on the lobby cards and credits.  But as this is an animated film our faces weren’t on the screen, and now our voices were replaced by French actors.  So we were the stars of a film in which we didn’t even appear.  What were we doing there?

Think about it.  Pay big bucks to an actor who will never appear on screen and then replace his voice too! It’s gotta make you simply shake your head and smile.

From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan

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Just the other night four of us were having a discussion about M. Night Shyamalan.  All of us loved The Sixth Sense and Signs.  After that things went south.  Every other movie brought about mixed reactions… but none got the love of The Sixth Sense or Signs.  Yet all of us held on to the hope that M. Night Shyamalan would return with a movie that would once again wow us.

Famous GPS Voices

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My buddy, John Beatty, was the first person I knew to have a GPS for his car.  He took me for a test drive and showed me how the system worked.  I thought it was the coolest device going and loved how it “spoke” real time, turn-by-turn directions.  John and I got to talking about how wicked it would be if famous voices were giving the directions.   Wouldn’t it be wild to hear John Wayne, Bugs Bunny, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Elmer Fudd, Droopy or any of a gazillion other celebs helping you find your destination?

As for me, I’m still holding out for the day when I’m driving and hear from my GPS, “Yo! Turn left at the next light” and then when I make the turn, we’ll hear, “Yo!  Adrian!  He did it!”

Some Fly Kicks

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Growing up, I was never much into expensive, brand name tennis shoes.  It’s a good thing too, because we didn’t have a ton of money.  So I’d wear whatever was on sale.   I have to admit, that if the shoes above were available when I was a little kid, I’d be asking for a pair for my birthday or Christmas.