Unless you work for the CBS legal team, I think you shouldn't worry about it.
Shatnerquake - read it if you dare
- Thread starter Therin of Andor
- Start date
This is worthless if the Big Giant Head isn't involved.
He must have been in there somewhere, though I can't remember for sure. Hell, the character Shatner played in an obscure movie with all the dialogue in Esperanto made it into Shatnerquake.
Hey everyone – the author of “Shatnerquake” here. Thanks to everyone for all the interest and kind words on my book. I thought some of you here would be interested in knowing that this Tuesday, November 17th, I will have “Shatnerquake” available as a free PDF download at my website (www.JeffBurk.wordpress.com). If you’ve been interested in the book, now will be your chance to check it out at no cost. Thanks everyone!
Didn't Shatner play a murderer in Columbo? I know Nimoy did.
See my screen name and avatar.
Love the hat and the flower.
That's actually a scene from an unreleased TOS episode which would've been a sequel to "A Piece of the Action." The Beta Iotians experience another complete cultural shift when a visiting Federation ship leaves behind tapes containing old episodes of The Love Boat.
Two, actually. One in the original series in "Fade in to Murder" (the source of Ward Fowler's username and avatar) and one in the revival series in "Butterfly in Shades of Gray" (a title I still can't for the life of me figure out). In the former, he played an actor who portrayed a popular TV detective named Lucerne, so there was some fun metatextual stuff with him playing against Columbo, often falling into character to "help" Columbo solve the murder -- including a brilliant scene where "Lucerne" presents the hypothesis that Fowler is the killer, leading Columbo to take the opposing position (though of course it doesn't work in the long run). In the latter, a moustachioed Shatner played a Limbaughesque radio talk show host who wasn't anywhere near as much fun as Fowler/Lucerne.
Hey, Ward Fowler's got Shat class and he's got Shat style.
I tell you Christopher, that's one of my favorite scenes from Columbo and I don't think it would have been nearly as entertaining if someone other than Shatner had played the part. His style of acting was perfect for the role.
^I think Shatner was in rare form in "Fade in to Murder." It was maybe the best acting he did in the '70s, of what I've seen, anyway.
I'm trying to remember how Columbo catches Ward Fowler but it's not coming to me. For some reason I'm thinking it's rather weak and my internal confirmation for that is that I can't remember it. Guess I'll watch the DVD when I get home.
It does have a lot of inside jokes about a TV detective demanding too much money, an allusion to Falk and his on-going negotiations with Columbo's producers.
The episode also has a part by Walter Koenig.
It does have a lot of inside jokes about a TV detective demanding too much money, an allusion to Falk and his on-going negotiations with Columbo's producers.
The episode also has a part by Walter Koenig.
^ SPOILER ALERT 
Ward used a gun from his prop department to kill his former mistress/producer who was blackmailing him. He had to take out the blanks and insert bullets. Well, he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off of the blanks. There's also all sorts of circumstantial evidence. Armed with the evidence Columbo, who knows Ward is arrogant, gets him to play a game in which Ward, as his tv detective character Inspector Lucerne, lays out the case against himself. It's quite a scene.
Ward used a gun from his prop department to kill his former mistress/producer who was blackmailing him. He had to take out the blanks and insert bullets. Well, he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off of the blanks. There's also all sorts of circumstantial evidence. Armed with the evidence Columbo, who knows Ward is arrogant, gets him to play a game in which Ward, as his tv detective character Inspector Lucerne, lays out the case against himself. It's quite a scene.
^ SPOILER ALERT
Ward used a gun from his prop department to kill his former mistress/producer who was blackmailing him. He had to take out the blanks and insert bullets. Well, he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off of the blanks. There's also all sorts of circumstantial evidence. Armed with the evidence Columbo, who knows Ward is arrogant, gets him to play a game in which Ward, as his tv detective character Inspector Lucerne, lays out the case against himself. It's quite a scene.
And more SPOILERS...
It's coming back to me. The ending wasn't that bad. It was the using the a VCR to timeshift that didn't seem all that convincing, especially compared to the plots of the other episodes. Still, not that big of a deal considering how much fun that episode is for other reasons.
At the time, a VCR for home use was a new, rare technology, one that few people were familiar with. Nobody today would be fooled by a taped show, but in the mid-70s, it would've been a very clever way to establish an alibi by making someone think that a taped game was actually live.
