William Shatner was all over the web today.
Early this morning a video of his appearance on last night’s episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien went viral, racing around the internet as it was shared via Facebook and Twitter. In the skit, the former Star Trek actor parodied former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin by performing a poetic rendition of excerpts from her farewell speech.
Then Mr Shatner’s voice began coming through on automated phone calls to Hewlett-Packard employees. In a campaign organised by environmental group Greenpeace, Mr Shatner recorded a short message encouraging Hewlett-Packard to phase-out its use of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics.
The Shatner robocalls were timed to coincide with another Greenpeace stunt targeting HP. Early this morning 13 Greenpeace activists climbed atop the company’s headquarters and painted the words “Hazardous Products” on the roof, a play on the company’s HP logo.
Greenpeace is faulting HP for delaying by two years its pledge to phase out the use of BFRs and PVC plastics. But an HP spokesperson said that the program was underway and the delay was due to a “lack of acceptable alternatives”. Rushing the phase-out would have caused disruptions to the computermaker’s supply chain, the spokesperson said.
When asked why Greenpeace had chosen Mr Shatner to record the message, Casey Harrell, the group’s international toxics campaign co-ordinator, said it was an attempt to connect with HP’s employees. “We were trying to drive some internal conversation at the company, and the stereotype of tech workers is someone with a science fiction background,” he said. “Who doesn’t want to listen to William Shatner for 30 seconds?”
Update: The enormous buzz generated by Mr Shatner’s rendition of Ms Palin’s speech inspired a repeat performance. Last night the Star Trek actor returned, this time to read selections from Ms Palin’s tweets.
