William Shatner played the beloved Captain Kirk in the “Star Trek” franchise for nearly 30 years, but he wasn’t always comfortable with the role. The shows and movies themselves were good; the problem was that he didn't really know how to deal with fandom. He was perplexed by all the fantasies and seemingly obsessive questions fans asked him; at one point fans tried to rip off his clothes as he left 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and at another point someone tried to shoot him at a fan event in Germany.
Simply put: By 1986, Shatner was getting tired of the Trekkies, so when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” that year, he decided to let them have it. He played himself in a sketch at a “Star Trek” convention, where he fired back at fans, telling them: “Go ahead!… For God's sake, it's just a TV show. I mean, look at how you're dressed… You've turned a nice little job I did as a joke for a few years into a colossal waste of time.
The draft was controversial to say the least. Although many Trekkies found this petty, subsequent decades of increasingly toxic fan behavior across all types of franchises made Shatner's outburst seem more sympathetic. We've had so many examples to learn about how damaging fandoms can be, so when Shatner talks about how uncomfortable “Star Trek” fans made him, it's easy to believe him.
At the same time, the outline was pretty harsh, with Shatner shaming fans for never having “kissed a girl” and “living in his parents’ basement.” The sketch was popular outside of “Star Trek” fandom — not necessarily because it pointed out the dangers of parasocial relationships with actors, but because it was seen as a good guy messing with a group of nerds. He was the epitome of low-art, easy-target humor.
This didn't just anger fans; Rod Roddenberry, son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2021 interview, “I never really liked that skit because I think it was demeaning to the fans. I think it was disrespectful, especially for a character who was an intelligent and open-minded leader.” He also added, “I don’t condemn this at all. It’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ and it’s all fun.”
William Shatner responded to the backlash
In 1999, Shatner wrote a book titled “Get a Life!” where he talked about how he trusted fans not to take the sketch too seriously, given that it was written to be “SO over the top and SO stupid and SO cartoonish” that it was certainly clear it was all in good fun. He noted that in the weeks after the sketch aired he received far more praise than scorn, even from Gene Roddenberry at the time: “No one was more protective of Star Trek fans than Gene, and I really hoped he could get me take to the task.”
Shatner was also angered by the continued conversation about the sketch, especially after an interview introduced him to Rod Roddenberry's 2021 critical comments on the subject. He argued in a tweet at the time that the reaction to the draft today is “presentism.” By this, he meant that the modern conversation around it “applies today's value systems and beliefs about what is 'bullying' and what is 'disrespectful' to a time when those were not the values or opinions and No one was really offended, but people's mentality is that it makes them seem smart and thoughtful.”
In “Get a Life!” Shatner has shown a lot of respect for his fans in general and has even shown a bit of regret about how he felt about them early in his career.:
“Who were these people? Were they sane? Were they sober? Did they really need to 'get a life'? To be brutally and humiliatingly honest, that now infamous 'Saturday Night Live' sketch was for me, at that time, equal parts comedy and catharsis, I was oblivious to the facts. I bought into the 'Trekkie' stereotypes.
Contrary to popular belief, the Trekkies weren't all upset
While most of the discourse surrounding Shatner's famous “SNL” sketch revolves around upset fans, IIt's worth noting that many Trekkies found (and still find) this funny, often quoting it to each other during fan disagreements.. If you go to Shatner's YouTube videos discussing the incident, most Trekkies in the comments seem perfectly fine with it. Many people deeply invested in fandoms like “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” or “Doctor Who” tend to have a sense of humor about these kinds of jokes, often willing to admit that it and it's all a bit silly, even if there's a lot that's still rewarding.
That's why one of the funniest sketches on “Late Night With Conan O'Brien” took place during the opening week of “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.” The segment is just 12 minutes of recurring guest, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (Robert Smigel), talking to the “Star Wars” fans waiting outside the theater and mocking them mercilessly. When he meets a guy dressed as Darth Vader who shows him the buttons on his costume, Triumph says, “And which one of those buttons calls your parents to come get you?”
Most of Triumph's jokes are absurdly hackneyed and cruel, but they work because the fans in line are clearly finding it funny. It turns out that bullying is easier to deal with when the bully in question is a cigar-smoking dog.
The 1986 draft highlights how much our culture has changed
Since “Get a Life!” sketch aired, it became visibly much easier to be an unconditional fan of “weird” and “nerdy” franchises like “Star Trek”. This change could already be felt just 10 years later, during a 1996 controversy over a juror who appeared at the televised Whitewater trial in a “Star Trek” uniform. The radio show “This American Life” did an entire segment about it at the time, noting that although the woman in question was supposedly an “excellent juror, very serious, took copious notes,” she was nevertheless dismissed from the jury.
The public was divided over the Trekkie judge, with some people mocking her and others finding her interesting or harmless. Many “Star Trek” fans were embarrassed by his actions, seeing it as a play on the trope of “loser” Trekkies featured in Shatner's sketch, while other fans saw it as a clear shift in his favor. As media scholar Henry Jenkins explained in the episode “TAL”:
“Her choice represents a new kind of fan identity politics, as you would, that we're tired of hearing from William Shatner and others to begin with. in fact, we are a wide variety of people who believe in the cultural power of television and all art to change the way we think about the universe. So what's exciting about the fan's behavior is that she wasn't afraid. don't hide. She publicly stated who she was and what her commitments were.
The fandom's behavior became increasingly fearless in the years that followed, to the point where “Saturday Night Live” wrote a spiritual sequel to “Get a Life!” draft in 2009. This time, it was Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto (who played Kirk and Spock in JJ Abrams' “Star Trek” film) trying to allay the concerns of skeptical Trekkies, with the help of a surprise appearance from Leonard Nimoy. Yes, the sketch still portrays Trekkies as nerdy and obsessive, but it also recognizes the power shift between fans and creators that has occurred over the 23 years since Shatner's introduction. For better or worse, the creatives involved in most major franchises really need to take fans seriously now. They probably wouldn’t dare do a “Get a life!” sketch today.
