What happens when Airport (1970) becomes Airplane! (1980)? When Blofeld becomes Dr. Evil, and James Bond becomes Austin Powers?
Where do you go after deconstruction? Is there a way back?
In the very last episode of the iconic 1960s TV series The Prisoner, "Fall Out", Number Six earns the right to be an individual. For he has so incessantly and relentlessly resisted all the efforts to have him settle into the Village, that the powers-that-be are left with no choice: have the chair yourself. You win...
Only Bill Shatner has the privilege of seeing his unmasked bald self...
Václav Havel. Nelson Mandela. William Shatner?
Post deconstruction. Post parody...
William Shatner in a 1976 appearance in the game show Storybook Squares (thanks to a reader for the tip).
There's no two ways about it anymore, William Shatner has earned the right to say whatever he wants about his hair, their hair, your hair. Anyone's hair. And he has earned the right, after years of uncompromising battles, to have us believe his hair is real, too. It really is "Shatner's World: We Just Live in It"...
Witness two recent example of this Brave New World:
A May interview with Vanity Fair to promote Bill Shatner's new TV series William Shatner's Brown Bag Wine Tasting.
(Interviewer) Jessica Pilot: I love wine. I only really drink white wine.
William Shatner: There you are. So, if you like the wine and we engage in a conversation about the wine, we ease our way into why your hair is as beautiful and long as it is; and let’s talk about your hair as well as the wine. And now we’re into something personal and hopefully get some human information about you that you and everybody else doesn’t know about. [emphasis ours]
William Shatner: There you are. So, if you like the wine and we engage in a conversation about the wine, we ease our way into why your hair is as beautiful and long as it is; and let’s talk about your hair as well as the wine. And now we’re into something personal and hopefully get some human information about you that you and everybody else doesn’t know about. [emphasis ours]
Jessica Pilot: I wanted to ask you about comedy. Are you interested in it?
Jessica Pilot
Pilot knows. Bill Shatner knows. We know. For he can "ease" his way into talking about someone else's hair all he likes. He can "hopefully get some human information about you that you and everybody else doesn’t know about". Those are the rules. All we can do in return is: "ask you about comedy". That's what happens when you've finally won.
Need more proof?
News came out at the end of May that William Shatner would be playing writer Mark Twain in an episode of Canadian detective series Murdoch Mysteries. Mark Twain!
This Mark Twain:
In on-screen versions, he can be made to look pretty much like the real thing, as in an exceptional performance by actor Jerry Hardin in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Image via Trekcore.com
And he can even mention that fact to CBC reporters:
"Twain was tall and slim with white hair, at least when he got older, so I am playing my version of it."
What else can we do but offer a Jessica Pilot-style non-follow-up akin to: "I wanted to ask you about comedy. Are you interested in it?"
After almost 60 years of toupee-wearing, the 84-year-old has elevated himself and his toupee-wearing beyond parody, beyond deconstruction. And the mystery of Patrick McGoohan's controversial, surreal ending to his iconic TV show may at last be solved...
Did Patrick McGoohan predict that Bill Shatner's toupee would survive "intact and secure"
To quote the character of The President in the final episode of The Prisoner:
"He has revolted. Resisted. Fought. Held fast. Maintained. Destroyed resistance. Overcome coercion. The right to be a Person, Someone, or Individual. We applaud his private war and concede that despite materialistic efforts he has survived intact and secure. All that remains is recognition of a Man."
UPDATE:
We wanted to remind our readers that on Tuesday, July 14, the New Horizons probe will be flying its closest approach past the dwarf planet Pluto, yielding some amazing photographs. Of the old Solar System count of nine planets, this is the last one we have yet to photograph up close. So it really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
This Hubble image was the best we had...
Naturally, given our huge experience of studying images of William Shatner's scalp for
potential bald spots, lace lines and other phenomena, the WSSTS has been
working very, very closely with the New Horizons team since the start
of the project, including adapting our ultra-powerful touposcopes for
use in outer space.
More here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php
Plutoup? A never-before-seen surface!
Seeing Mr Shatner dressed as Kirk in non trek scenarios (especially when he was younger post TOS/pre Movies) creates such wonder for me. Storybook Squares - on the one hand its just an actor dressing up in something similar to his costume he used to wear for a relatively low budget Sci Fi tv show that was cancelled ahead of its time....but on the other hand its like seeing a photo from a 'lost years' Trek episode where of Captain Kirk in a strange circumstances...that Storybook Squares photo above its like a lost episode where Kirk is encountering other people from history like in the Savage Curtain..
ReplyDeleteThat's the worst attempt at mark twain I have ever seen.
ReplyDeletehe's worn wigs atop the katz before, why not now?
Yes! It is all him, she could have, had the opportunity to say, "ok if you would like to talk, about my hair, what's the hell, stuck on your head buster!"
ReplyDeleteshe could have, but he would have just looked uncomfortable, laughed a little, and said something like "I'll tell you when I'm dead". Real info on shatners hair will only come from his co-workers and others close to him. And if they don't put out info I would bet real money that some grip or teamster from star trek has a pic of him sans toupee.
DeleteYour very likely right, baldyb. Shatner, plays a game that he is so used to playing! Basically, no information on the toupee at all. Yes, he leaves tiny hints, here and there. Also, he made damn sure that he started wearing a toupee full time, before his supporting frontal hairline got too thin! And for all of shattoups hard work, we can't see, a non-toupeed shot beyond 1959! With a possible very poor quality photo from 1961! For all the clever backcombing, he used, heavily sprayed into place, the toup was the only way forward for him.
DeleteIt's sweet that excommunicated planet Pluto wants to sit on Shatner's dome after all the abuse it's taken (Pluto, not Shatner's dome), but holy mother of frozen planets that picture haunts my dreams. :-(
ReplyDeleteWe can't help but ponder the cosmic significance of the fact that Pluto matches the color and shape of Bill Shatner's scalp so closely...
Delete-ST
...and closeups show eerily similar surface features. What a scientific treasure-house for the WSSTS.
DeleteYes, if transposed to a scalpular level, this image would indicate a bare, lifeless surface, with some visible glue deposits (bottom right), which have built up over time:
DeletePluto/Shatner
-ST
the "wind streaks" (surface ridges putatively caused by wind, thus fully interpretable at a toupular level without need of transposition) make my life complete.
Delete(NB: they're on a different photo.)
Also, "scalpular". Heh.
DeleteHas this fine site covered all of Shatner's Star Trek movie toups, yet? I can't recall, exactly... would be nice, though. :-)
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ReplyDeleteIf we could survive seeing Shatner carry a dwarf on his back while pretending to be a horse, we could make it through seeing him bald.
DeleteBesides, the TJ Curly toupee is a much more grotesque proposition
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DeleteHere is a video from the 1978 era toup that I had not seen before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lul-Y8vSr0I
ReplyDeletewait you'd never seen this? Oh, dear, life without "Rocket Man" must have hopeless, barren - hardly worth living. My heart goes out to you for what you must have suffered all those years.
DeleteIs the following tween from Shatner a tacit admission in the post deconstruction, brave new era?
ReplyDelete7/23/15, 8:29 PM
"Just an actor..."??? I'm a hell of a lot more than that. twitter.com/tjwoodstockny/…
Is Bill actually saying "Yes, I am much more than actor - I am a toupee wearer, and have been so for more than half a century!"
"I'm not just the Hair Club president, I'm also a client"
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DeleteI fear that Shatner, like Christopher Lee, will never remove his toupee in public. :-(
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ReplyDeleteNice. Could there be a whole album in this idea? -ST
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Deleteyes, each song fetes or gently mocks a toupe or toupe period. Some toupes deserve a whole anthem. Some deserve harsh denunciation, but skip those models unless you like to write bloodthirsty war songs! I like this better than idea of shaming shatner for his toupes. Some time back, ST hinted that Goldsmith's great hymn to the Enterprise from TMP might as well have been about the early movie "TJ". However, you can sing the virtues of that toupe yourself! What deserves to have its essence captured in music better than the toupes?
DeleteFor the un-toupe initiated, the acronyms mean:
ST - our host, Shat Toup
TMP - The Motion Picture
TJ - TJ Curly toupe style
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DeleteOh, that's beautiful [eyes get misty] [**sniff**]
DeleteYou must mean Freddie Mercury, and I agree that a toupee tribute calls for his soulful musicality. My mind also went to this Freddie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller. In writing verses (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_Joy) about the unifying influence of an emotion (Joy), was Schiller anticipating the power of the JKL to harmonize a diverse and discordant humanity? Is it possible that centuries before the invention of lace toupee, the artist envisioned the JKL in its wondrous sparkling golden-ness? All the verses are worth reading, as they resonate in a way that whispers "toupee! toupee!". Below, the lines describe a flowing forth of good will and fellow feeling in the presence of Joy (Freude), a scenario familiar to those who have seen and felt the toupee spark beneficence and fraternal love in all who behold her. (In what follows, the pronouns "she and her" stand for the emotion joy, which the translator personified as female. For the toupee effect, substitute "the JKL" for those pronouns (and for "joy" in the first line)
All creatures drink of joy
At natures breast.
Just and unjust
Alike taste of her gift;
She gave us kisses and the fruit of the vine,
A tried friend to the end.
Even the worm can feel contentment….
I think we can locate the birth of JKL praise in song and verse in the work of this prophetic Romantic poet.
[link to lyrics: http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/romanticperiodsymphonies/qt/Beethovenjoytxt.htm and scroll down for the English translation]
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DeleteWho will step up and photoshop the JKL onto the King?* Whoever does it stakes a place at the frontier of art appreciation as part of an exciting modern strain of art criticism. The possibilities for rethinking our understanding of art in a toupee framework are exciting and terrifying. I can imagine a Tut sarcophagus or the Lascaux cave paintings with the toupee rendered within or on top…
DeleteStepping down a level: the actor (R.I.P) that played David really took after after his fictional dad, and his TJ - Blond Edition (™) is visible in Star Trek III. Lots of grist for toupee scholars there.
*I can't do it, no clue how to photoshop
I should clarify that I know nothing about Mr. Buttrick's hair; I *assume* his follicles had gone barren because why else attach that yellow shrub to his head?
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DeleteI found the song to be quite amiable
ReplyDeleteThere are still many many interesting, maybe even toupless photos of bill out there. What's really interesting, is there's a lot of photos, of stars, without their toupees. Even a couple with rex harrison! There's plenty of tony curtis, without it on, especially in the late 70's early 80's. But the frontal hairline, was getting quite pitiful, by then. Never seen one, of Chalton Heston, without the toup! I would even believe, he had a toupee, his whole career.
ReplyDeleteHeston only started wearing a toup regularly in the 1970's. That's his real hair in Planet of the Apes. Anyway, I always liked this pic: "That's going to be my future hair"
Deletehttp://scumcine.preview.ns60.webhostsg.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/omega-man-3.jpg
You don't get it,do you?Not only you will never see Shatner toupless but before he is done he will have all of us doubt if he ever wore a toup..He has the power to do it.
ReplyDeleteShatner was later quoted by the CBC, "We all know Samuel Langhorne Clemens never wore a toupee. What this performance presupposes is...maybe he did??
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ReplyDeleteThe way that Shatner revealed the toupee (by protesting too much) during the MJ Kelly interview was classic while still leaving something for the listener's imagination.
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Deleteperhaps Mj could be called an early toupologist?
DeleteI would love if Shattoup could track down MJ Kelly for an interview.
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DeleteI usually post earlier to thi blog, sorry for the delay. I think we may be experiencing a generational shift in toup analysis. Shats debateley worst years were in the 80's. Most people from 2000 onward have seen the Katz appliance.
ReplyDeleteI always though that during the 80's if he hadn't gone full Tj hooker, most people would have given him as pass.
I think we are seeing the demographics change. Millenniums for instance never really saw the god awful looks he was sporting in 70's and 80's, unless the catch a late night re-run.
So it think Shat has played this well. He actually waited for demogrPhics to change. True, there were uncomfortable interviews for around 20 years. But the shat, being immortal could wait this out.
Amazing man and hair!
The trouble is, that the shat, holds all the cards! He can say, toupee or he can not say toupee. Only he has all the answers! But as this site has shown, bills hair is not all it has been, cracked up to be! (mostly because it is fake as hell) But as we rapidly, move towards the 60th anniversary of his first bald spot (1956) let's reflect on one thing, his never openly admitted to being bald, only made a few weak references, to indicate anything of the sort! And like liberace, who would have sue, your butt off, for merely suggesting he was gay (another great toup wearer) likewise the shat, has made waves against anybody even slightly hinting that all is not well, on the top of his head.
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DeleteThat is the truth about Liberace, he did sue someone's butt off (their butt is now gone!) for merely suggesting he was gay! Unless teh google is lying, that's what happened. What a story. It is striking how calling someone gay could be considered defamatory back then. How the world has changed for the better. But the comparison is apt because Shatner thinks if you call him bald you have defamed him! Unfortunately, the Truth dooms all of Shatner's claims of bald-libel*.
Delete*I WILL BE MAD IF NO ONE LAUGHS
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