CBS’s “$#*! My Dad Says” has been in the news a lot, from the twitter feed that serves as its inspiration, to the casting of William Shatner as the titular dad, to bleeping the swear word instead of using the word “Stuff,” to the outrage the Parents Television Council expressed over the bleep. It’ll continue to be a buzzworthy show until it debuts in the fall.

The video below offers a first look at “$#*!” — and yes, that’s how CBS is “spelling” it — and I know that the cool thing to do is praise Shatner because he’s awesome, but I can’t help but feel that he’s miscast here. The role of the dad needed to be one of the all-time cranks, like Bryan Cox or Rip Torn or Albert Finney or Walter Matthau or drunk Orson Welles (what’s that? Matthau and Welles are dead? Well then, they’re probably crankier than ever).

Shatner has a gleeful pompous charm that’s irrepressible. It made for wonderful scenery-chewing with James Spader in “Boston Legal,” but he sanitizes Justin Halpern’s cranky, profane father to the point of sitcom stereotype. Which is probably exactly what CBS wants.

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I don’t think I’ve ever had a reason to post a clip from “Lopez Tonight” before, unless it was to detail how much George Lopez’s alleged “comedy” doesn’t appeal to me. But even a wizened old Internet cynic like me can’t hate on this magical union of Internet icons: William Shatner paired with Lin Yu Chun (the Taiwanese kid with the Whitney Houston pipes and breakdancing skills) to sing “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Watch the video below, and experience the magic.

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There’s a new Priceline “Negotiator” commercial starring William Shatner, and in this one King Shat also plays his own evil twin (you can tell he’s evil because he has a goatee and a skull ring on his pinkie — video below). In it, the Rip Torn-lookin’ Evil Shatner is giving bad advice to a man booking online travel plans when Good Shatner busts through the wall and saves the day. As AdFreak noted, the first YouTube commenter scored a win with this bon mot:

Is he really the “good” twin? After all, he did just cut a hole in the side of that guy’s house to tell him that he could save $80.

This is kind of getting away from the point, but Shatner and Rip Torn were born six weeks apart in 1931. Not only do I want them to play evil goateed brothers in a movie, I want that movie to be The Evil Bucket List. It’d just be two hours of them getting drunk and high and pistol-whipping smart-mouthed teens and stranding hookers in the desert.

Here you go, here’s my $12, I’m watching that on opening night.

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William Shatner has been confirmed to play the titular character in the television adaption of Sh*t My Dad Says, the popular Twitter feed that was picked up by CBS in November.

The casting of Shatner lifts the contingency on CBS’ multicamera family comedy project based on the Twitter account, which has enlisted more than 1.16 million followers since launching in August and has made its creator, Justin Halpern, an Internet star.

The pilot, executive produced by “Will & Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, was originally set up at CBS with a script commitment in November. Now, with Shatner on board, it has been greenlighted to pilot. [THR, via Screen Junkies]

Obviously, this is awesome. The world is a richer place with more Shatner. That’s why I put so many Shatners in the Photoshop above. I call it… “Shatkkake.” I expect it to bring in some new readers via Google search.

On Friday night’s episode of “The Tonight Show,” Conan O’Brien brought out William Shatner to read excerpts from Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue: How I Got Rich and Famous Even Though I’m Not Very Bright. (Shatner previously read Palin’s resignation speech and excerpts from Levi Johnston’s Twitter feed, which was later determined to be fake.)

The clip was enjoyable though unremarkable until Sarah Palin walked on stage, surprising even cynical ol’ me. She then read excerpts from Shatner’s autobiography while Shatner looked at her with lustful, watery eyes. As they walked off hand in hand, I said, “Man, he is gonna wear that ass OUT when they get back stage.” Then I laughed at my joke. Then I pictured Shatner and Palin getting it on, and I got grossed out. Then I pictured it some more and decided, hey, maybe I should be turned on instead.