Oh, he was. He spent pretty much all of TOS and the movies like that, but afterward, mellowed out and made parodies of his own patterns. There's a reason he made peace with the other ST cast members; because he acknowledged how bad he was before.

And besides, it's not like he can't choose to make a surprise 'serious' return. It's just part of the fun, as he's knowingly being serious when he knows he isn't taking himself too seriously like before.

He's never been a pathetic joke. Funny though, yes.

Well said, Revo!

I don't remember when he released his autobiography (maybe the late 80s? I'm pretty sure this was all before ST6), but the whole thing was him admitting to being a complete and total jackass to everyone and apologizing for it.

George Takei's problem, last I read up on it, is that he accepted the apology only to have Shatner squeeze him out of screen time once again in the following Trek movie.

So I say he's both.

I agree. Not a big fan of Seth though.

Samuel L. Jackson (second or third row in the crowd) was NOT amused.

But I was so that's OK.

Thank you for the link OP!

Thought Bill was great, always good to see him back in uniform, and indeed fantastic to see an 81 year old having a laugh.

As for the rest of the performance, as a Brit I did not know who Seth was, but I found his entire performance cringe worthy and uncomfortable, however I understand that's what he does so those that did not like it should blame the Oscar organisers for their poor choice of host.

Yeah, Seth has made his name making crude jokes and cartoons. It gets really bad during election season here in the US, especially if you are on the right side of the political spectrum. If you want to see some of his work, go to fox.com (I guess it works in the same overseas as in the US) and watch some episodes of Family Guy. American Dad and The Cleveland Show are spin-offs of that one and he's involved in both.

I knew it was going to be a cringe-worthy event as soon as I heard he was going to be the host, but I'm really surprised at all the outrage over what he did. I mean, what did they expect?

He did laugh a couple of times so I think he really did enjoy it, but was trying to keep his tough guy persona / righteous indignation intact.

As my cousin once said, Seth makes stuff that causes you to say "What?? I can't believe they just said/did that!! That's not right!!... Can we see it again?"

He comes across as a cocky cocaine addict with too much money and the whole sock puppet bit pretty much confirms this.