Up Till Now: The Autobiography

four or five flights four or five times a day while I was already exhausted. The fact that I was enjoying myself would get me through the first three shows, but those last two were difficult. There were times I just got really giddy. On The $20,000 Pyramid, for example, the celebrity would say several words or names or events that fit into a specific group or category to try to get the contestant to identify that group or category. For example, I might say Vincent van Gogh, Mr. Spock, and Evander Holyfield to lead the contestant to the desired answer: people with strange ears. Or I might say Land of No Return, Dead of Night, and The Fright to get the correct answer, movies William Shatner never should have made.
    One Saturday Leonard and I taped five shows against each other. My partner and I were winning the fourth show and were playing the bonus round, in which she was going for the $20,000 prize. I don’t know about other celebrities, but when I was playing these games I really wanted to win, I really wanted to be entertaining, but mostly I really didn’t want to look like an idiot. The contestant and I were sitting in the winner’s circle. My task was to give her enough examples to lead her to the correct answer for $20,000, which was“Things that are blessed.” I wanted to see this nice woman win all that money. I was thinking quickly, things that are blessed, things that are blessed. Okay, I got one. And I gave her my first clue, “You’re blessed!”
    That woman probably didn’t need all that money anyway. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I’d told her the answer. I’d cost her the bonus. So I did the only thing possible considering the incredibly stupid mistake I’d just made, I went berserk. I started screaming. Laughing hysterically, or perhaps manically. I picked up my chair and heaved it out of the winner’s circle. There was one rule: you can’t use the answer in the question. One rule, and I broke it.
    And just in case I didn’t feel stupid enough, they began the next show by running the tape again—as an example of what not to do!
    I liked playing the Pyramid . It was a challenging show. Once they didn’t have a good opening for the show so Mark Goodson asked me to go out and have some fun—be both the contestant and the person giving the clues. Well, I took it seriously. Strangest thing that ever happened to me. The board with the answer on it was behind the contestant so the interrogator could see it. I started playing against myself—I sat in the interrogator’s chair where I could see the answer and I gave the clues, then I raced around and sat in the contestant’s chair. I got so involved in playing the game that by the time I sat down in the contestant’s chair I’d actually forgotten the correct answer. I’m telling the truth. I completely lost sight of the fact that I knew the answer. It was a great opening spot, and they used it for several years.
    Naturally I had some game show disappointments; I never made it to the center square on Hollywood Squares; in fact, contestants most often referred to me as “William Shatner to block.” On Celebrity Bowling I believe Hugh O’Brian and I were beaten by Robert Culp and Marty Allen, although Marcy and I did well on Tattletales .
    Many years later I made the transition from permanent celebrity guest to host of two game shows. But before I tell you about that I’ve just gotten some very exciting news: I now have 53,038 friends on my MySpace page! For someone who had so few real friends growingup, that’s incredible—53,038 friends. They include laura, my bmf Big Chris, Che Guevara, old Hairball, The Dark Prince of Rainbows, the great Sid Caesar.com, and Flatface IV. I certainly hope all my new friends aren’t going to be angry when I don’t invite them to my home for one of my Monday Night Football parties. And I’m not sending out birthday cards either!
    Okay, hosting game shows. I’ve hosted two of them. The Food Network bought syndication rights to a Japanese cooking show, The Iron Chef, and translated it into English. It became a big hit so the UPN network bought the rights to the concept and hired me to host Iron Chef USA . Obviously it was not a traditional question-and-answer show, but it did have contestants, or challengers. Basically, four elite chefs comprised the Gourmet Academy and on each episode their cooking superiority is challenged by other chefs. The combatants are given a secret ingredient and, on