Speaking of William Shatner, as we must: I took time out the other day to watch Comedy Central's William Shatner Roast. Why did I do this when it would have been much simpler to shove a sharpened, #2 Dixon-Ticonderoga pencil up my nose…and the result would have been approximately the same? Beats the heck outta me.
I don't even fault the show. I fault me for not knowing better. The appeal of a roast when done properly is that (a) it's entertaining and (b) there's some genuine affection and camaraderie displayed towards the roastee. Neither occurs much on these roasts because — taking the latter first — the roasters rarely seem to have that much to do with the roastee. Jeffrey Ross, who probably knows Shatner about as well as my gardener does, is becoming the groundhog of Comedy Central. He puts in these annual appearances. showing up to insult total strangers and casting a shadow that signals we're going to have six more weeks of Bea Arthur penis jokes.
Yeah, they had a few folks present who'd worked with Shatner, like George Takei and Nichelle Nichols. But neither turned into a comedian at the rostrum and neither convinced me they had any particular affection for the honoree. Takei's presence seemed like it was because one of the producers said, "Hey, gay jokes are easy and we can't make any about Shatner. Has anyone who was on that show become a flaming spectacle? Sulu? Great. Book him at once!"
As for the humor content, it's tough for a show to make you laugh when the average punch line goes something like this…
No, but people all over Hollywood know William Shatner is a great actor. Of course, these are the same people who [BLEEP] that [BLEEP] put his [BLEEP]ing sh[BLEEP] in a bowl of Sugar Frosted [BLEEP]s."
I made that one up but you get the point. Half the time, you know what they said because of context and maybe even because they deliberately bleeped the "f" word in a way that made sure you heard a fraction of the "f" at the beginning and a strong "k" sound at the end. It's kind of a fake bleep designed to pretend they complied with rules. ("What do you mean you heard it? I definitely had them bleep that word. It's not my fault if the engineer was a thousandth of a second late.")
But then the other half the time, you don't know what was said and it's like some sick Sudoku game where you sit there, mentally plugging each of Mr. Carlin's Seven Dirty Words into the blanks to see if the sentence makes any sense. If it doesn't and you still care, you can either go to the Comedy Central website where there are online, unbleeped clips…or you can pay good money for the DVD. I'm guessing they hope for the second option.
There are, of course, some very funny, pithy lines here and there — how many hours did they tape to get the hour they aired? Three? Five? — but there are an awful lot where the joke, such as it is, is just crude and the laugh, if any, is over the fact that someone had the gall to dive that deep in search of a line. A friend who almost worked on the Shatner Roast was told that the only "taboo" subject was Mr. Shatner finding his wife dead in their swimming pool…and you know, it's almost a shame to close off such a fertile topic for humor. It's especially sad because the really, really painful insult that's "edgy" without being funny is what it's all about on these programs. It's when you get to see the acting abilities of target, dais and audience put to their fullest test as, knowing full well cameras are on them, they pretend to laugh. (Anyone remember the Chevy Chase Roast when most of those in the room couldn't even pretend?)
I like roasts when they're full of funny people who have a genuine respect or warmth for one another. Those usually flow from pre-existing relationships with speakers performing for each other, as opposed to playing to a mass TV audience. Televised roasts are generally packaged affairs based on who's available and who's willing to appear for scale. When Dean Martin did them, they were just as bogus but at least most of those performers knew one another before Tape Day and the lines weren't as nasty…which made it seem less phony when the speaker did the usual switch at the conclusion of their speech, abruptly going from calling the person an anal sphincter to saying, "I've always loved you and it's an honor to appear here to honor you."
With Dino's roasts, you weren't sitting there wondering why the "honoree" subjected himself to them, and almost wishing he'd leap up and tell everyone off for real, then storm from the set. Why did Shatner agree? He must have known it would mean sitting there for hours of taping, grinning like a demented ventriloquist as people he barely knew read quips based on the (arguable) premise that everyone agrees he's a terrible actor with no humility, no hair, no respect for his co-workers and not enough intregrity to decline any offer that gets him in front of a camera and pays…
…and maybe I just answered my own question. Okay, fine. Now I can work on the question of why I watched the thing. I suspect it has something to do with being stupid…