The By Gosh Man

      As we all know, William Shatner was Captain Kirk on the classic Star Trek series. There are so many things Shatner is known for – TJ Hooker, Rescue 911, Boston Legal – Denny Crane, the PriceLine commercials. But not many folks know about the commercials he did back in the sixties. Shatner is a Canadian. Buffalo is close to the Canadian border, so we would get a lot of the Canadian commercials on our channels – sometimes we could even pick up some Canadian stations – Sesame Street in French was always entertaining! Well, Canada had a thing about using only Canadians in their commercials, so it was not too surprising that they hired William Shatner to plug some products – he was rather famous, thanks to Captain Kirk.

     There was a commercial Shatner did for a Canadian grocery store chain called Loblaws. We had Loblaws in the States also. The commercial would come on, Shatner would talk about how wonderful the store was, and then he would mention the specials for that week, and finally he would finish up by saying, “Loblaws, where more than the price is right! But by Gosh, The price is right!”

      Star Trek was on Thursday nights. That first season, 1966, on Thanksgiving, I asked to be excused from my Grandparents' Thanksgiving table (after dinner) so I could go downstairs, the lower unit of the duplex, where my Uncle and Aunt lived – to watch Star Trek. I'm not sure if my brothers or two cousins joined me, but after a while, my Uncle John, who lived there, came down from the Thanksgiving dinner and promptly gave me his opinion about Star Trek and William Shatner. He said he used to watch Shatner on a television show in the fifties called Studio One the Defender. Uncle John said Shatner was a very fine actor on that show. But now he was doing this silly stuff. Can you imagine? My Uncle John called Star Trek silly!

     And then he called William Shatner the By Gosh Man! Such a fine actor lowering himself to doing commercials and performing such by gosh dialogue was silly too! Captain Kirk was the By Gosh Man!

     Over the years, I've tried to forget the silly in my Uncle John's opinion and remember the part about his thinking Shatner was a fine actor. I've never seen the Studio One Defender show, but I do like to recommend the movie The 10^th Level to others. I think the acting in it is Shatner's finest. However, when I think back on that first Thanksgiving and the two that followed – sitting in Uncle John's living room watching Star Trek – I remember vividly the commercials and the By Gosh Man.

21 20150121 the By Gosh Man