If you read science articles from the 1940s and 1950s, it was clear that they knew the basics of giving you color TV. It just required a lot of engineering that would still take a long time and money. Disney was well aware of this, and he filmed several episodes of his 1950s Disneyland TV show in color, even though virtually nobody had color TV sets back then. (The introduction to The Mickey Mouse Club was also animated in color. You can watch it in its full glory on the DVD set.)
He did two quite awesome Twilight Zone episodes. Chewing the scenery as usual, though.
Also an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, not to mention an episode of Outer Limits
Shatner was also on display as a military Captain, no less, in 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg. A small role, but perhaps one that Gene Roddenberry looked at:
Had Shatner’s heyday been a couple of decades earlier than it was, what odds the cartoon-makers might have made use of his recognizable speech patterns?
The Adventures of Superman filmed three of its five seasons in color,* starting in 1955. It was years before color TV was common. But the show was syndicated, so the producers might have seen the advantage of preparing for the future.
Disney already had color material (many of their cartoons were in color), so they didn’t have to do much to broadcast them that way.
*Though for some reason, kryptonite was blue.
I’m pretty sure the Warner revival in Animaniacs did so at least once.
“Karaoke Dokie” has Maurice LaMarche imitating Shatner and Nimoy.
Shatner (or an unreasonable facsimile thereof) also appears in an early episode of Family Guy, not voiced by the man himself.
Shatner has also appeared at least twice on The Simpsons (likewise not voiced by himself).
In the show-within-a-show “Star Trek XII: So Very Tired”:
Auditioning for the lead role in Mr. Burns’s biopic:
Maurice LaMarche is an international treasure. His Calculon (in Futurama) has more than a tad of Shatner in his makeup, both vocally and attitudinally.
Thanks to all in the thread posting Shatner-related links!
An episode in the first season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (“The Project Strikes Affair”) had William Shatner as a good guy; Warner Klemperer (Colonel Klink of Hogan’s Heroes) as the main villain; and Leonard Nimoy as Klemperer’s henchman. The series had lots of other guest stars who were either no longer or not yet at the peaks if their careers. It’s available on DVD.
Nitpick: Werner Klemperer.
As far as I remember or can find, the word “beaver” was not commonly used in its more embarrassing modern sense back then. In those days it would be more readily understood as “eager beaver”; or referring to someone with prominent front teeth like a beaver’s (Jerry Mathers’ weren’t, very); or in various other connections. In fact (as far as I understand) the character had that nickname just because one of the writers used to have a friend in the military nicknamed Beaver, and liked it. When the show was on, no one thought it was strange.
The use of the word for the pubic area arises from a much earlier usage; people would make fun of a bearded face by calling it a beaver. The secondary usage existed as early as the 1920s, but was not common slang until much later.
The first citation in the OED for “beaver” in the sense of “female genitals” is from 1927. It was also used in Finnegan’s Wake in 1939. I don’t know how common it was though. The very fact that it was used as the kid’s name on the TV show is evidence that it must not have been very well known in the 1950s.
And later in the same film, “I’ll get a job and pay you back what Walter owes you, really I will.” Combining them, this became the standard phrase for anyone who wanted to mimic Hepburn; it was so easy to say it in her style.
When I was a kid in the 70s, the slang term I knew was for someone with prominent from teeth as in buck toothed beaver. I hadn’t heard the female genital meaning until I read Slaughterhouse 5 when I was in High School.
Someone with a habit of chewing pencils, for example.
In the show, it was revealed that Wally couldn’t pronounce “Theodore” when his baby brother was born. It came out like “Tweever” or “Tweeder” or “Tweether.” Ward and June thought that sounded terrible, so they decided to call him “Beaver” instead, and the name stuck
So far as I know, this wasn’t revealed until the last show in the series, which (IIRC) was aired in December 1963.
In 1953, when this cartoon was released, the two most popular images of current science I can think of were experiments on white mice, and big explosions. It was natural to combine them. (A third popular image would be vitamins and “wonder drugs,” which were used as themes in other WB cartoons.)
- And if the voice used in the cartoon was not a direct copy of the voice on the radio show, it was a really close imitation. Check this clip for example: https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/historical/dont-you-believe-it/length-of-the-fingers-19xx-xx-xx