LOS ANGELES ― While still helming the U.S.S. Enterprise as rugged Captain James T. Kirk, William Shatnercouldn't fathom the concept that fans would be discussing the60th anniversary of the first "Star Trek"episode, which aired Sept. 8, 1966.
The eventual seminal TV sci-fi series lasted just three seasons, from 1966 to 1969, before NBC canceled the ratings-challenged show and filled the network's Friday night time slot with the now-forgotten drama "Bracken's World."
"If you polled the entire human population and asked, 'You know that mediocre, barely surviving television show on Friday nights at 10 o'clock with nobody watching?'" a still-bemused Shatner, 95, tells USA TODAY during a "Star Trek" anniversary interview in his Studio City, Los Angeles
office. "I don't think you'd find anyone saying it would still be in our consciousness 60 years later."
But Gene Roddenberry's vision of the 23rd-century final frontier found a passionate new audience in syndicated reruns and ultimately spawned a universe of movies, spinoff TV series and generations of devoted Trekkies. Shatner says he missed out on any residual payments, calling himself "famously poor."
He laughs that off amid the global 60th celebration that has been marked with movie screenings andTV telethons, events like"The Pitt" cast reading of the first "Star Trek" (Noah Wyle as Kirk, of course) and a Sept. 8 London Science Museum attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most people simultaneously performing the Vulcan salute.
Shatner comically derided hardcore Trekkies in the classic 1986 "Saturday Night Live" sketch featuring his famous "Get a life!" speech. But the energetic nonagenarian actor, who enjoys a healthy side gig making "Star Trek" appearances, did confirm one burning Tribble question from this fan (and Reddit) – three "Star Trek" crew members were lobbing the fast-breeding Tribbles at Shatner while filming the 1967 Season 2 comedy episode "The Trouble with Tribbles."
"They're tossing Tribbles at me, and you don't want to get hit by a Tribble," Shatner says. "It was all done in fun."
During the scene, Kirk is buried under fluffy Tribbles after opening a storage hatch, demonstrating the prodigiously reproducing powers of the adorable creatures. After the initial Tribble flood, Shatner gets repeatedly doinked in the head by seemingly errant Tribbles. But the headshots look increasingly deliberate, and Shatner appears to struggle to keep from laughing in a jaunty 60s actor kind of way.
"They were getting their rocks off. All the guys that you've never heard from, working where the lights are affixed," Shatner says, laughing. "They had the opportunity to throw things at the guy who bedeviled them from time to time."
Shatner says he almost burst into laughter. "I managed to get through it, but we all laughed when the director said cut," he recalls. "They had fun throwing things at Shatner."
Not that it had anything to do with Tribble tossing, but Shatner was a polarizing figure among his "Star Trek" castmates. The two other surviving principal cast members, Walter Koenig, 89 (Russian navigator Pavel Chekov), and the especially vocal George Takei, 89 (Hikaru Sulu), have publicly criticized Shatner over the decades for alleged prima donna behavior toward his supporting cast.
Don't expect Shatner to extend a 60th anniversary-inspired peace offering.
"These two guys have spent 60 years denigrating me, and I don't know either one of them," Shatner says. "I've never had a harsh word. ... But they started bad-mouthing me to audiences all the time."
"I've given up on those guys," Shatner says.
Shatner can still laugh about the famously wonky Enterprise sliding doors. The futuristic sight of crew members approaching doors that seemingly opened automatically fascinated a young "Star Trek" fan named Neil deGrasse Tyson, who grew up to become one of America's best-known astrophysicists – and, decades later, Shatner's unlikely stage partner in the unscripted live show "The Universe Is Absurd!"
The doors were pulled open by unseen stagehands who had a less-than-perfect track record, Shatner says.
"I would approach these sliding doors with a great deal of apprehension, not knowing if they would open or not," Shatner says. "One time out of five they wouldn't open. And I'd crash into the door."
Shatner remembers the perks of the Enterprise bridge
Shatner has fond memories of the long-dismantled Enterprise bridge set and Kirk's center command chair, where he was surrounded by crew members including First Officer Spock, played by Shatner's longtime friend Leonard Nimoy, who died in 2015.
While castmates had to stumble around the set whenever the Enterprise was hit by enemy fire, Shatner merely had to sway in his captain's chair.
"Captain Kirk would have never fallen to the floor. I wouldn't have allowed it," Shatner says, smiling.
There was another captain's perk during long shooting days: Shatner always had a seat.
"We'd be there all day, and I had a chair to sit in," Shatner says. "People would be like, 'Can I sit down?' and it was, 'No, we're shooting momentarily,' and I'd be sitting there learning my lines. For a poverty-stricken actor who would not get any residuals, it was a welcome respite."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: William Shatner reveals truth behind 'Star Trek' Tribbles scene, sliding doors
