“What I’ve done will be puzzled over
and studied and followed forever…”

William Shatner

Thus far in my career, I’ve been offered the opportunity to direct William Shatner twice. And twice, I turned it down. And that’s not because I don’t like William Shatner. Just the opposite. I embrace any and all things Shatnerian.

Whether Bill’s brought his talents to bear as an actor, writer, director, producer, singer, talk show guest, talk show host, commercial pitchman, game show guest, game show host, spoken word performance artist or anything else, I’ve been part of his audience.

Justifiably famous worldwide as a cultural icon, William Alan Shatner never fails to entertain. He just might be the Most Fascinating Human In The Galaxy.

And that’s why I turned down the chance to work with Mr. Shatner those two times. I simply did not want to alter my perception of him. Good collaboration or bad, I didn’t want to walk away having had Mr. Shatner humanized or demonized or anything else-ized in my eyes.

But now, within the safe confines of Cyclops Central, I get to keep an eye on William Shatner from a safe distance. Welcome to the Shatner Observatory, a regular feature devoted to Kirk, Hooker, Crane and everybody and everything that William Shatner embodies.

To kick off the feature, here’s a piece from the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. It features Mr. Shatner reprising his personas from Star Trek, T. J. Hooker and Rescue 911 in a parody of the crime film Se7en.

It is, as you might expect, Shatnerrific.

Today, we all know Black Eyes Peas member Fergie as a talented singer, songwriter, rapper, actress and fashion designer.

But back in the day, when she was 10 year-old Stacy Ann Ferguson, the daughter of two Roman Catholic schoolteachers in California’s Hacienda Heights, Fergie was just your average, straight-A student, spelling bee champion and Girl Scout.

Who better to play Charlie Brown’s little sister in a cartoon?

That’s right, the pre-Fergalicious Fergie provided the voice of Sally Brown in two different Peanuts specials: It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984) and Snoopy’s Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985), along with four episodes of Nickelodeon’s The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show (Snoopy’s Brother Spike, Snoopy’s Robot, Peppermint Patty’s School Days and Sally’s Sweet Babboo (all 1985).

A quick search of the entire Internet tells us that these six pieces of Fergie-history exist only on out-of-print VHS tape. Perhaps now would be a good time for CBS and Lee Mendelson/Bill Melendez Productions to strike with a DVD compilation while Fergie is still hot.