Up Till Now: The Autobiography

to remember I was there to promote my book and somehow I had to do that.
    “The first order of business down here . . .” Howard explained, “. . . let’s give each other girl’s names first. Instead of Bill, you’ll be Jill Shatner. You’re Jill, all right?”
    Who booked me on this show? All I wanted to do was promote my little book. It’s a good read. Jill Shatner? The captain of the Enterprise, Jill Shatner? I realized that my only possible salvation was to play this game on his level. And then it became a game: can I amuse myself and amaze the audience? I did not let things like, oh . . . dignity hold me back. At that point Howard announced, “I’m going to sing a love song to Jill.”
    And I pointed out, “Gosh, I came here to plug a book.” “Don’t worry,” Howard told me. “You’re going to plug the book.” “Yeah,” I agreed cautiously, “but where are you going to put the book?”
    Later, after we’d gone through several very raunchy but also very funny minutes—there are people who heard this who are still laughing about that ridiculous banana—Robin complimented me. “You’re fitting right in down there.”
    I had to admit, “Fitting in isn’t quite the expression I would use.” Rather than being humiliated, because I choose not to try to defend my image, actually to defend any image of any kind, it turned out to be a very funny appearance. Because of that I’ve been invited back on the show several times. I was even given the honor of accepting the 2003–2004 Award for the Best Farting Moment for Will the Farter. In accepting the award I admitted it did have the sweet smell of success—and then I immediately began promoting my new album, Has Been .
    So I wasn’t above using Howard to promote my products, either. Eventually Howard and I actually became friends, although the factthat we’ve had dinner together has never stopped him from trying to humiliate me.
    Believe me, after just one visit to Howard’s homo room, you no longer have to worry that doing commercials is going to hurt your public image. So, for example, I had absolutely no hesitation when Kellogg’s asked me to become the spokesperson for their All Bran cereal in Canada and the U.K. When I asked them why, of all the wonderfully talented, handsome, virile actors in the world they chose me to be their All Bran man, a representative explained, “Because you’re a regular guy!”
    Think about it.
    Financially, the most desirable situation for an actor is to become the spokesperson for a company. To become so closely associated with one company that when people see you they almost automatically think of those commercials. For example, Lee Iacocca and Chrysler, Colonel Harlan Sanders and KFC, O. J. Simpson and Hertz, or what’s his name, that tall guy, and Allstate Insurance. And me and Price-line.com.
    Everybody knows about Priceline.com, the name-your-own-price-for-everything-from-airline-tickets-to-groceries Internet company. Well, at least they do now. But when the company was founded in the midst of the dot-com boom of the 1990s, it was just another one of the countless start-ups based on an original idea, desperately trying to attract attention.
    My experience with computers was limited to—all together now— plugging it in. I didn’t know what the Internet was. Apparently Priceline.com was looking for someone to do a series of radio commercials, someone, according to their chief marketing officer, who was “trustworthy, known for having futuristic ideas, and instantly identifiable across several generations.” Once again, thank you, Star Trek . Their two choices were Bill Cosby and myself.
    We met several times at my house. Finally I agreed to do the commercials in exchange for a substantial number of stock options in the company. At that point the stock had no value—but at least it wasn’t uranium.
    I did all the radio spots in one day. I was making a film in New Zealand and went into a studio in Wellington to record them. Price-line’s executives were in a studio in Boston listening and making suggestions. I’d done numerous jobs like this, and then very quickly forgot all about them. I didn’t think this one would be any different. Truthfully, I didn’t even know what a dot-com company was. In fact, when I recorded the commercials I suggested they drop the words, “dot-com,” to save a few seconds. Hey, who needs them, I wondered.
    Um, Bill. That’s the name of the company.
    Oh. I