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Related: About this forumWilliam Shatner -- Rocket Man (1978)
At the 5th Saturn Awards Ceremony, which aired as the "Science Fiction Film Awards" in January 1978, Taupin introduced William Shatner's spoken word interpretation of the song. It used chroma key video techniques to simultaneously portray three different images of Shatner, representing the different facets of the Rocket Man's character.
The performance was parodied on the U.S. animated series Animaniacs, Family Guy, Freakazoid!, Futurama, The Simpsons, the Canadian CGI series ReBoot, and in the video for "Where It's At" by Beck. On a 1992 episode of Late Night with David Letterman, Chris Elliott parodied Shatner's performance, complete with chroma key effects.
Shatner re-recorded the song for his 2011 album, Seeking Major Tom. In his book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede ranked Shatner's performance at No. 17 on the list.[53]
The performance was parodied on the U.S. animated series Animaniacs, Family Guy, Freakazoid!, Futurama, The Simpsons, the Canadian CGI series ReBoot, and in the video for "Where It's At" by Beck. On a 1992 episode of Late Night with David Letterman, Chris Elliott parodied Shatner's performance, complete with chroma key effects.
Shatner re-recorded the song for his 2011 album, Seeking Major Tom. In his book What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede ranked Shatner's performance at No. 17 on the list.[53]
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William Shatner -- Rocket Man (1978) (Original Post)
NurseJackie
Feb 2022
OP
My ex and I made the mistake is tickets to him doing this in Madison Square Garden.
3Hotdogs
Feb 2022
#4
unblock
(52,309 posts)1. showing his range and versatility
see, he's not just a bad actor. he's also a bad singer!
or a bad spoken wordist, or whatever you call... that.
sop
(10,233 posts)2. Shatner always was a bit of a ham.
Tough to get through.
3Hotdogs
(12,402 posts)4. My ex and I made the mistake is tickets to him doing this in Madison Square Garden.
You think this is bad? Try two sets on it.
I think we lasted 15 minutes, hoping it would get better.....