Mailbag Roundup: Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner

Apr 03, 2007- Permalink

Raunchy, crude and profane. But enough about my weekend.

Dipped into the mailbag last week and pulled out the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner DVD. As a reformed Trekkie — I don’t live with my parents, I have a girlfriend, and I don’t speak Klingon — I thought it would be amusing to see a roast of a man who is routinely the butt of many jokes, especially about his acting style.

Hosted by Jason Alexander, it would be an understatement to say this roast is uncensored. Nobody, not even Golden Girls’s Betty White is safe from being the target or launcher of sexually explicit and crass jokes. We’re even told Bea Arthur, a fave of the Pamela Anderson roast, won’t be attending because she’s having a testicle removed.

Sandra Bullock talks about Shatner getting his prostate massaged, Andy Dick has a bone to pick with him and Leonard Nimoy, and Farrah Fawcett seems like she’s the one lost in space. While comedians like Greg Giraldo, Patton Oswalt, and Jeffrey Ross target Shatner well, it’s Star Trek’s George Takei who takes a lot of phaser hits for coming out of the closet. Takei gives as good as he gets, but that just sounds like the setup to another joke…

The audience cutaways are quite amusing too, as we see the shocked reactions of Trek’s René Auberjonois and Jeri Ryan and TJ Hooker’s Adrian Zmed.

DVD extras include behind-the-scenes footage, red carpet interviews and a “Making of the Roast” featurette. Not for the faint of heart, but amusing nevertheless.