Host: Merv

Introduction: Merv makes a joke about Leonard's ears and goes on: As you heard, we are going to do a salute to Star Trek II...
First Guest: William Shatner (private questions and about Star Trek)


Second guest: Leonard Nimoy
As Leonard comes in he is welcomed by Merv, gets into touch with William Shatner
(indeed they have a little fight, while Bill Shatner is trying to touch his belly)
which causes Merv to say: This is delicate, remember his blood is green.
LN: Get away with the jokes, I'm really surprised.
Merv: Not jokes? These are facts.
LN: I hear you earlier about opening tin cans with my ears. I resent that, I've never done skinny jokes about you.
Merv: Could you please start? This is a dumb question, but: Are TV-ears different than your movie-ears?

So, on the television - series you have a pair of ears that might last for three or four days of shooting, take the ears off carefully and glue them on again the next day or the next and so forth... But for the movie we had to use a pair every day, a new pair every day.
And I don't know what happened to all of them... Maybe someone's selling all that stuff...

Merv: Do you die in the film?
LN: I've heard that question before, I haven't seen the picture. (laughter from the audience).

Merv: There has been something written, that there are alternate endings shot?
LN: No, no, no. We didn't shoot an ending where Spock dies and where he doesn't.
That's not true at all, but what we did shoot could be interpreted differently depending on how it's added in...
Merv: What means there's going to be a Star Trek III.
LN laughing...
Merv: Your producer is sitting at home like this (making a gesture of deep thinking)
LN: He's ready to go to work... No, I have been contacted about another Star Trek movie, so, regardless to what happens, we are looking forward to doing some more Star Trek.
Merv: Do you love it, too?
LN: I love it when the work is as exciting as it was on this one. I am really looking forward to this picture opening; I think it is going to be an enormously entertaining picture and therefore a very successful picture.
Merv: Are there pros and cons...
Bill Shatner: There's the wrath of Khan. (Pronouncing "wrath" with a long "o")
All three joke about pronunciations of the title...

Merv: To becoming cult-characters that are so strong as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock - Is that a help or a hindrance to a career?
LN: I don't know how many actors go through their lives travelling around the country and people are doing this (making the Vulcan greeting) at them?
That's unusual. And some can do it with their left hand, too. Can you do that?
(Merv is doing the greeting with his left) … So, you are a Vulcan.
Merv: Of course!

Bill Shatner: I can't do it. When Leonard tried to do this to me, I said. "Vulcan speaks with forked hands." (laughing)
Merv: Is it a hindrance to becoming such…
Bill Shatner: It can be translated into the box-office that people go see.
LN: That's not an answer to his question.
Bill Shatner: I'm getting 'round, why answer directly?
Merv: You sound like a politician there.
Bill Shatner: If you vote for me... It can't be translated.
LN: Public recognition is an opportunity.
It means that we can come and talk to you. It seems that, and I assume that I can speak for both of us that we get calls to do interesting projects and you have some choices available to you which is a wonderful thing because not all actors have that opportunity.
So being recognizable, being somebody that people know and identify with in some way is useful, is helpful in a career.

Merv: Your career has just taken you everywhere, hasn't it?
LN: Interesting experiences, yes.
Merv: Where have you been recently?
LN: China.
Merv: China for Marco Polo yes.
LN: That was fascinating. Fascinating. The first word I heard about the concern about Spock's future was in China.
Merv: The communists knew before we did?
LN: Well, no. Not really. What happened... I have been in Israel doing the Golda Meir-film and went directly from there to China. And after three days there picked up the Asian daily edition of the Wallstreet Journal which they have every day...
Merv: (surprised) they don't sell the Wallstreet Journal in communist China!
LN: Yes. I swear. Every day available in English. And on the front page of the Asian edition of the Wallstreet Journal was the story about somebody had researched the economics of it and decided that Paramount would loose 28 million dollars if Spock were to die. Front page story in China, in Beijing. I think I started to say: "Come on. I mean, really. What is happening here?"

"Merv: ...they've never seen Star Trek.
LN: No. It was really nice in a way because I could explore and discover things for myself without feeling that I was being treated as a special person other then being a Westener which is somewhat special but not as much as it used to be, I am sure.

Merv: What was the crew? American?
LN: No, the crew were Italians.
Merv: ...arguing over who brought spaghetti and...
LN: ...they brought a catering truck from Italy to China and they had Italian cooks who cooked pasta every day for the crew, for lunch.
At then at night we would have Chinese food at the hotel. We had interpreters who spoke English and Italian, we had interpreters who spoke Italian and Chinese and we had interpreters who spoke Chinese and English. Sometimes we had to go through two interpreters to get your story told. Fascinating.
Merv: What happens to your stomach in the mean time?
LN: Oh, I enjoyed the food. I put on weight. I had a great time with the food.
Merv: What does 'putting on weight' mean to you?
(Leonard is laughing + laughing from the audience)

...
Merv: We have fought it all our lives, have we, Bill?
Bill Shantner: Imagine: Having Italian food in the afternoon and Chinese food at night, what did you eat for breakfast?
LN: Bacon and eggs. Really, they make you bacon and eggs in the hotel, in the Beijing hotel.

Merv: How many of the Trekkie's conventions have you been to?
LN: A number.
Merv. Are they fascinating?
LN: More than that.
Merv: What goes on? Do you stand up on a stage...
Bill Shatner: I wonna warn you, you are on dangerous ground now,
LN: Well, it varies. It depends on who is putting the event together and what the program is. But by en large the ones that I've been to, they look at Star Trek films, or the series and the movies, they see costumes from Star trek, they have costume-contest, people who dress up in the various characters from Star Trek and have a contest to see who's got the best costume, that kind of thing.
And what we have been asked to do, what I have done in the past is talk about my experiences with the Spock-character, how it evolved, how the make-up is done.

Merv: The first question must always be -to everybody in the cast- : "Which is your favorite episode?"
LN: Yeah, that's one of the key-questions.
Merv: Is there an answer to that?
LN: Well, I am sure subjective, I am sure we all have our various reasons for loving certain episodes.
In my case there were two or three that I thought were special. When I have talked about this before I thought one was "The City on the Edge of Forever" where Bill had a fabulous love-story with Joan Collins. Lovely, lovely script by Harlan Ellison, which is a beautiful story, well told and really good Star Trek.

One of my favorites was, the episode was, when Spock had to go back to Vulcan to mate to a lady that he had been betrothed to... Once every seven years Vulcans come into heat (laughter from the audience)
Merv: There you go and get vulcanized.
Bill Shatner: Or retire. (laughing from the audience)
LN: They have to get back to the home planet just like the salmon going upstream to spawn. It's a violent experience, violent!
Merv. I loved all the Tribbles.
LN: Yeah, one of the favourites...
Break and clip from ST II

Third Guest: De Forest Kelly

Fourth Guest: Bibi Besh