Flashback Friday: That time Star Trek’s William Shatner was on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast featured Star Trek’s William Shatner once.

Let’s go back in time, the mid-1990s, to the time period where the greatest late-night talk show resides. Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. The show was a brilliant concept, using characters from a defunct Hanna-Barbera cartoon as its assorted crew for this late-night show. Space Ghost, the former hero, is the bumbling host, the band leader is Zorak, the evil mantis, and Moltar, another villain, is the show’s director.

It’s among the funniest properties of all time and the fact that no one has attempted a revival is among the most maddening things that have ever happened to the world. The show wasn’t just funny because it featured stock animations of old heroes and villains, doing beyond-dumb stuff. No, it was also funny because of how they did the interviews.

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast really brought the best out of William Shatner

They would bring the guest into the actual studios in Atlanta and film the interview with a man standing in as Space Ghost. He’d wear the whole get-up, ask all the questions that would be featured, and record the response.

It caused some wonderfully weird and out-there reactions. Now, imagine all that but with William Shatner having to sit through that process.

In the clip, Moltar is reading fan fiction to Shanter before Zorak interrupts and tells Shatner that Moltar’s fiction was far more scandalous than he originally offered up. Then Zorak follows it up with a very off-handed question, which prompts Shatner to admit his discomfort.

Discomfort, I’m sure, was genuine.

Shatner is a bit, shall we say, rigid. And to know that the above scene was more than likely acted out in front of him, all while he’s sitting there, is one of those thoughts that will stay with me forever.