How Captain Kirk Changed the World

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) - Capt. James Kirk's alter-ego, William Shatner, really did shake up the cosmos.

The irreverent documentary "How William Shatner Changed the World" features the actor examining the ways "Star Trek" technology inspired real-life innovators, whose inventions include communicator-like flip phones and medical equipment reminiscent of the starship Enterprise's sick bay.

The show, which premiered Sunday on the History Channel and airs again Thursday night, kicked off the network's "Out of This World" week, featuring explorations of comets, meteors and UFOs.

The documentary studies how Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi series helped energize scientific explorers who created gadgets we could only dream about when "Star Trek" premiered in the 1960s.
http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=08678d84-0abe-421a-01d8-1b1d7d868130&TEMPLATEID=b010ff41-ac1f-02c5-0009-00c014346932

1967 and life hasn't been the same since. Love shatner.

They should have called it - How Gene Roddenberry changed the world.

Geesh.

They empahsized during the show that Roddenberry was the genius behind it all.

My wife and I, frequent viewers of the various 'science' channels on cable, noticed that it was sort of ironic how William 'Ultimate Ham' Shatner ended up narrating a lot of really respectable, hard science space shows (especially Tuesday nights) on Discovery/Science Channel, et al (and he does a good job of it), yet Nimoy ended up stuck narrating endless variations on the 'In Search Of' genre, ie., 'Did Bigfoot Build the Pyramids?'

I think it all really went downhill for Leonard when he covered "Proud Mary" back in 1970 on "The New World of Leonard Nimoy" album...Big Mistake. :shrug:

:sarcasm:

After Star Trek, the dude has lived off of his kitchiness.

are you familiar with Shatner's forays into music?
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Tambourine Man", "Rocket Man" - there may have been others. Bad Bad Bad!

But at least after his first album, he knew enough not to do another one for 30 years or so (and his second album is a wholly different 'enterprise' -- heck, Henry Rollins and Adrian Belew even play on it).

Nimoy though -- he just kept going back to the studio, over and over. Christ -- what did he do, ten albums or something?

http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/set/1931/records.html

And very interesting. :)

:) I liked the show. They say that Gene Roddenberry was "inspired".
I have both Shatner's album and Nimoy's albums. I did a reading of Shatner's "The Transformed Man" for an acting class once. The instructor loved it! I also did 2 other selections from different sources. She said, "I didn't know you had such a GOOD VOICE!" Her mouth fell open, because she was a bigot. She had said to me at the beginning of the term, "We don't have much call for YOUR KIND." I'll bet she wouldn't say that now!:wow:

The man was a stone pimp.

:D