Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, and Jimmy Fallon critique William Shatner's space trek, sans sexy 'green women'
"This morning in Texas, Blue Origin — the company founded by Jeff Bezos — Prime-delivered their second group of civilian passengers into space and back," Jimmy Kimmel said on Wednesday's Kimmel Live. "And guess who was in the rocket? T.J. Hooker himself, William Shatner." He argued you shouldn't "launch a 90-year-old man into space," because of gravity on saggy body parts, "but he made it back alive, Bill did. Thank God. Can you imagine if Jeff Bezos killed Capt. Kirk — then turned to camera and started speaking Klingon to everyone? I wouldn't be the least bit shocked."
After they landed, "Shatner was taking a moment to put his experience into words," and Bezos had no time for it, Kimmel said. "Poor William Shatner: First, no green women in bikinis trying to have sex with him in space, then he gets iced, he gets blown off by Jeff Bezos."
Blue Origin's over-the-top commentary "felt less like a rocket launch and more like a North Korean news broadcast," Kimmel said. Then he jumped to an actual North Korean broadcast of soldiers performing "cartoon-style feats of strength" for Kim Jong Un.
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"If the plan to defeat North Korea was to make them lie down, cover them with concrete blocks, and hit them with sledge hammers, America is screwed," Trevor Noah said on The Daily Show. And yes, Shatner "went into space — and not TV show space, where you travel to new worlds and have sex with green women. No, this was real space, where you go a few meters over the technical boundaries of the atmosphere for 11 minutes." He argued that "90 is actually the best age to go to space," because "at 90, dying in a rocket is basically best-case scenario." And he had a creepy theory about Bezos and clones.
The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon was a little more sympathetic about how Bezos reacted to Shatner's long, emotive musings on space travel and the nature of life and death. "Bezos was like, 'So, did you like the trip?'" he joked. "Even in the middle of an empty desert, Bezos felt like he was cornered at a party." Fallon played some local news anchors busting out "their best Shatner impressions," and he was underwhelmed — and sympathetic: "All those weathermen were like, 'You guys get your weather from your phones anyway, just let us have a good time, please.'"
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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