The Best Shatner Ham Job

The Shat himself has admitted in his books that he ocassionally hams it up, or overacts to a minor degree. Which scene do you think fits his admission?

Here's mine....

 

“And the Children Shall Lead”

 

1) Evil Kirk in "Enemy Within"
2) Romancing Ruth in "Shore Leave"
3) Kirk/Janice in "Turnabout Intruder"

 

A Triple Ham Sandwich from the Shat!

 

The "Risk Is Our Business" speech, enhanced by the swelling music that starts about half-way through (ham with a side of corn).

This was parodied exceptionally well by Eric McCormack in "Free Enterprise".

 

Now playing on Ham-o-vision....

 

His faces during the attack of the energy beings in Lights of Zetar were very embarrassing I found!
JB

 

You guys are crazy. The Enemy Within? Risk is our business? Those are extremely good and even iconic performances. He was great with Ruth in Shore Leave.

The choking bit in "Triskelion" is because Kirk is suddenly being choked while exerting himself.

In Turnabout, the script called for Janice Lester to be an unlikable jerk.

In my view, the only time he was ever bad in TOS was the turbolift scene in "And the Children...", and that was because the situation and dialog as written were stunningly horrible, and Shatner was a guy who committed to sell every scene, good or bad.

OTOH, I've been watching T.J. Hooker a lot lately, and that's a show where you can see him miss the mark from time to time. He can be awkward in scenes of humorous camaraderie, for instance. And in the grimmer bits he sometimes pauses and poses too much, creating a stagey effect. But in TOS he was terrific.

 

Agreed! The Shat did give his all for the show! But sometimes he gave just a bit too much perhaps?
And for me he didn't really look that odd until he started wearing those bouffant wigs in the movies!
JB

 

I think there's a fine line between Shatner just doing his eccentric line delivery and actually hamming it up.

There are some people who just can't accept his line delivery as "natural". And there are enough cases of Shatner delivering lines in a smoother, more naturalistic way (think Wrath of Khan) that it makes you wonder how much of the pausing really was a function of his mannerisms and how much literally was him struggling to recall the lines.

 

He paused deliberately for emphasis, the way some writers build a pause into a sentence with an "em dash", to give the next phrase greater power.

Actors like to add something for emphasis, for pure effect. Julia Louis-Dreyfus said somewhere, roughly, that she only wore glasses on Seinfeld when she wanted to punch up her dialog and draw more attention to her face. Shatner would pause and punch out the next phrase, often with a big hand gesture.

 

What's the problem here? Shatner's hamming it up is part of his appeal. We can like and laugh at his performance at the same time. To say that his facial expressions weren't sometimes off the charts silly is to be in denial.

Pretty sure in one of his books he mentioned being referred to as "wooden" in an early review of TOS, and was self-aware enough to ask "Me...the hamasaurus himself...wooden?".

 

Everyone likes to impersonate Shatner....

 

To be honest I never found his KHAAANNNN shout to be realistic in WOKand especially that build up he did to it! Plus that wig didn't help either!
JB

 

The Shat would say, "What wig?"

 

"Turnabout Intruder"

 

"I'm Captain Kirk!!!"



This more theatrical style of acting makes TOS infinitely more entertaining than the spinoff shows.

Kor

 

Or as The Shat replied to a fan many years ago when asked if he wore a toupee, "None of your damn business!" Or words to that effect!
JB

 

The best Shatner ham job was the he gave Nimoy in Amok Time.