Turnabout toupee.

A while back, we looked at a "real hair reflex" in the last ever Star Trek original series episode "Turnabaout Intruder". But there is one more noteworthy event in this installment that no self-respecting toupologist can or should overlook. Towards the end of the episode, Bill Shatner does a spin that lifts the back of his toup up like the Elytra of a ladybird about to go into flight:

Perhaps there is a metaphor there. The show was ending, and this ladybird-esque spin was Bill Shatner's subtle farewell not just to Star Trek and its fans, but to a toupee style that had served the actor for around a decade.


Let's have a closer look at an enhanced version of the scene:

At around frame 313, this enhanced "Intruder" film clearly shows a - back...and to the left, back...and to the left - motion. Indeed, this video is credited with beginning the investigations that led to the unveiling of Bill Shatner's toupee use. Or was Bill Shatner trying to alert us to something? JFK, Nixon - had there been a cover-up?

Season 3 of Star Trek, with its notorious fall in production quality, meant that the toupee wasn't as closely attended to as previously. See these stills from "The Empath" here for more toupee lid-flipping.

Also of note is the pivot angle of the toupee. We've often suggested the possibility that Bill Shatner's toupee was a two-piece unit: a frontal section glued to the forehead and a rear piece layed cap-like over the crown. Examining this scene would appear to lend at least some credence to that - the pivot angle of the cap-like toup is at the top of the head, not at the front, suggesting a rear toup pinned down near the cross point between the parietal and frontal bones. Of course, we can't be sure about this.