 | |
List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Comedy Central
Salesrank: 7851
Released: March 20, 2007 |
| Our Price: $7.99 |
| Used Price: $7.51 |
|
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
Captain s Log stardate oh f$#@ it. It s the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner. Watch as he s feted by comics and co-stars alike ranging from Andy Dick Greg Giraldo Patton Oswalt and Fred Willard to fellow trekkers George Takei and Nichelle Nichols. Whether it s Jeffrey Ross lambasting Shatner s overacting or Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel regretting their choice of a certain Shatner-endorsed travel company you won t want to miss one Shatner-skewering minute!System Requirements:Run Time: 80 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 097368032644 Manufacturer No: 803264
Description of Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner (Uncensored):
First things first: Where's Leonard Nimoy? When Comedy Central's raucously ribald Roast of William Shatner was originally broadcast on August 20, 2006, it began with Nimoy--Shatner's beloved Star Trek costar--leaving a phone-message to Shatner, apologizing for his absence (hey, the man has class) and begging Shatner to explain why he would subject himself to the indignity of a roasting on Comedy Central. "Is it the food?" Nimoy inquired, noting the Shat-man's expanding waistline over the years, and the roasting was excellently underway. Well, guess what? Due to copyright and other legal restrictions (and possibly to Nimoy's desire to distance himself from a shamelessly filthy broadcast), Nimoy's appearance and several musical cues have been edited from this otherwise expanded DVD release, which compensates by serving up a few perfunctory bonus features along with every foul-mouthed insult in their uncensored glory. Shatner himself makes a grand equestrian entrance, riding a white stallion into the auditorium before flopping his fat ass into Star Trek's original Captain's chair (on loan from Seattle's Science Fiction Museum) and settling in for an 80-minute onslaught of verbal abuse by Comedy Central's stable of vicious comedians. It's pee-your-pants hilarious or painfully obscene, depending on your tolerance for crudeness and profanity. (As anyone who saw the previous Roast of Pamela Anderson can tell you, Comedy Central's roasting policy is unabashedly adult-oriented and strictly no-holds-barred.)
Of course, Shatner's not the only target of playful derision. After an introduction by host Jason Alexander (who, like guest comedian Kevin Pollak, built a career out of impersonating Shatner), nobody emerges unscathed, and some of the insults--particularly those aimed at Farrah Fawcett (whose inclusion here is barely justified)--are more cruel than entertaining. But everyone's a good sport, especially Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, George Takei, who'd recently gone public with his homosexuality, prompting nearly every roaster on the panel to make crude (and mostly unfunny) gay sex jokes at Takei's good-natured expense. (He later delivers a barb at Shatner that Star Trek historians will recognize as at least partially serious.) Like fellow roasters Fawcett and Shatner's Boston Legal costar Betty White, Trek veteran Nichelle Nichols endures a few insults about getting older, and in a highlight of the show, Clint Howard (in a video clip) reprises his role as the friendly alien "Balok" (from the classic Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver"), toasting Shatner with a beer-bonged shot of "Tranya." As Andy Dick proceeds to lick several of his fellow roasters (and, in the audience, Carrie Fisher--who licks back), Greg Giraldo, Patton Oswalt, Jeffrey Ross, and other Comedy Central regulars lay waste to Shatner's checkered career, including priceless film clips from Shatner's infamous post-Trek career as a "poetic interpreter" of hits like "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Rocket Man." It's all in good fun, and judging from audience reaction (including numerous cutaways to Star Trek: Voyager's sexy Jeri Ryan), everyone had a good time when they weren't slack-jawed with shock from the R-rated barrage of banter. This stuff ain't for prudes, and if you don't know what to expect, you're probably better off watching reruns of T.J. Hooker. --Jeff Shannon
Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner (Uncensored) Reviews:
Offensive, not funny 
2008-09-14 - What a dissapointment. Crude, offensive, and mean spirited sums up the attempt at "humor" in this train wreck of a roast. Not at all like the great Dean Martin roasts. This should have been a can't lose, funny, best seller. I, along with many Shatner and Star Trek fans, were really looking forward to the roast. Shatner might as well have given us middle finger. I'm sure he had some control over of the choice of comedians and content.
Intellectually lazy childish nonsense 
2008-08-05 - If you care for wit and original humour, enter not ye here! The roasters must have been sharing notes before they hit the stage because all of the jokes centred around homosexuality, bodily functions and other schoolyard themes. Extremely crude material elicited visible winces from the audience. Is America entering the final decadent slope that precipitated Rome's decline? It appears that cable TV (ie comedy channel) has truly become no-holds-barred and is running roughshod over any semblance of class. Is mainstream society getting dumber, where they cannot comprehend intellectual wit anymore, or just cruder? I leave that to you reader to ponder...
Thank God for Kevin Pollak
2008-03-25 - I'm glad I bought this, because otherwise I would never have truly known how excremental this stuff could be.
Jason Alexander is a consummate hack, and everyone on this embarrassment is a complete oxygen thief, EXCEPT for KEVIN POLLAK.
Buy this (for the deepest discounted price you can find) for Kevin Pollak utterly eviscerating the intestinal tract parasites "starring" in this pathetic piece of garbage.
Pollak redeems it. Shatner rises above it, in his utter incomprehension of the irredeemable excrement that this DVD strives for. Kill them all, except for Shatner and Pollak, and the rest of us, for hoping for better...
"You People Just Aren't That Funny!" 
2008-03-24 - William Shatner might have spoken the only line of truth during the roast when it was finally his turn to get up and take his own shots at the line of "comedians" and co-stars who gathered together to hurl insults at the legendary William Tiberius Shatner! Because, in truth, most of them weren't very funny. In fact, I felt that only four people were funny: Betty White, George Takei, Kevin Pollack, and William Shatner himself (who was arguably the best!).
Perhaps it takes a certain level of sophistication to refrain from constant sexual innuendo and profanity as the majority of the comedians used. What probably made them even more inept with their jokes is that they were actually reading them from notes! They might as well have brought a joke book to read from. It's truly pathetic when a so-called comedian has to use notes. However, Farrah Fawcett was so bad, she actually could have used a note or two as she could hardly speak.
I take you back to the classic Dean Martin Roasts. Personally I found those to be absolutely hilarious with two major differences from the Shatner roast: no profanity, and no notes! I personally do not mind some profanity, but used constantly, it begins to lose its punch, and thus the humor is somehow diminished. You'll note that Shatner himself only used a couple of swear words, Betty White used none, Pollack used a couple, and George Takei used a couple (one used the best of all at the end of his reign at the podium!). The rest of the panel hurled one profane word after another, and each using notes. Some of them started out being funny but quickly dropped off. One couldn't help but say during this barrage, "Are they using the same joke? I could swear that I just heard that one or something similar."
Bill Cosby may have said it best, "A good comedian finds that he doesn't need to rely on profanity to be funny." A good comedian also knows how to use such words to make the most impact.
This is definitely a must-see for any fan of William Shatner, but rent it, don't buy it. You will probably find that one time through is more than enough.
Not worth the money.
2008-02-11 - Several reviewers referred to an opening sequence featuring a phone call between Nimoy and Shatner; that opening is NOT on this disk. As for what IS on the disk, I have to agree with many reviewers who noted that most of the speakers were people with no connection to Shatner or the Star Trek franchise, were relative unknowns, and who spent most of their time ripping on each other in repetitive and vulgar ways.
Don't bother with this one. If you want campy Shatner, buy one of his movies. If you want good-natured fun-poking at Shatner's expense, watch the Futurama episode, "Where No Fan Has Gone Before."
