Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner!

Apparently it's also the 3rd Annual Talk Like William Shatner Day. I did break out my Shatner impression a few times today. Unlike most people's, mine isn't based on Kevin Pollak's famous impression. No, I go to the source-- Shatner himself, portraying Capt. James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek.



I don't do as many... strange... pauses... or SUDDEN EMPHASIS. Which isn't to say mine is better than his, yours or anybody else's. No, it's terrible. Terrible indeed. Mostly what I do is contort my face as if I were Kirk about to use good old human reasoning to defeat a godlike alien or an infallible supercomputer, or I do that sly Kirk grin-- the one he uses before he explains the earthly concept of love or the boy-girl game. Then I sit in our sofa with my legs crossed, my hips rotated slightly to one side, my elbow resting on the arm, my hand raised as I wait for a yeoman to bring me my daily reports. The intrepid explorer, in repose, but ready to jump to my feet to confront Space Apollo and argue that we humans, as imperfect as we are... are still learning and growing... with... great, almost limitless potential for good. If allowed to survive, to explore, to seek the best of all worlds and species and races of the galaxy... to learn from them, certainly capable of emerging from our relative infancy...

We need this chance. A chance for meaningful contact. For peace. Don't let your own arrogance blind you to the fact that you were once what we are now... and that in time, we may come... to be as you are.

Here's a good Shatner by voice acting legend Maurice LaMarche, in which he also drops some exciting news about Futurama:



As fantastic as Pollak's and LaMarche's imitations are, they're still just imitations. There is no Shatner like the One True Shatner, William Shatner himself:



I've been a fan of William Shatner since I was a kindergartner. So Happy Birthday, Mr. Shatner! To celebrate, I'm going to kick back with Checker Book Publishing Group's Gold Key Star Trek reprints-- the best Star Trek comics ever published, bar none.