National Association of Broadcasters' Hall of Fame - Part 3/3
William, Leonard, Bill were invited to say a few words. De's speech is at the bottom. But first-
Backstory: In the article posted in Part 1, it mentions how a man rushed the same stage where Ronald Reagan was giving a speech the day before, smashing his award, glass flying everywhere, before getting tackled by the Secret Service (video is online).
William gets up to the podium and says, "Leonard, if somebody comes to grab this and smash it, pinch 'em."
During Leonard's speech, he read the very first Variety review Star Trek got. If you haven't heard it, this is the funniest version of it, along with the actual review. If you haven't seen it, go watch/read it, and then come back:
https://www.tumblr.com/spawksstuff/730307018235281408/variety-review-of-star-trek-september-14-1966-the?source=share
Leonard reads "William Shatner appears wooden."
Then reads "The same goes for Leonard Nimoy, co-stared as Mr. Spock, so-called chief science officer whos bizarre hairdo is a dilly. And DeForest Kelly as chief medico is the same." As soon as he said "DeForest Kelley", De did this:
De's speech. (FYI Brandon Tartikoff is the one that introduced them for their awards and is standing behind De on the left). The transcript is below.
Thank you. There's something very weird about this. We have a new godfather at Paramount now, Mr. Tartikoff. We lost Mancuso so Tartikoff is here to take over our family. Since he's been here we have been celebrated in some very strange ways. I received a Star on Hollywood Boulevard. Then we were immortalized in cement on December the Fifth at Mann's Chinese Theater. Next time I saw Mr. Tartikoff was in Washington, D.C. where we were installed in the National Space Museum where they have a bunch of artifacts for OLD museum pieces. I shudder to think where he's taking us next. I want to express my deepest and heartfelt feelings for you bestowing this honor upon us today. We are, indeed, grateful. But I cannot leave here without quoting a poem, a little short poem that I read, in lieu of some of those smart-ass remarks that Don Rickles made. I wrote a poem sometime ago, and in the body of it, there were a few lines about the critics. You see, what we've done in the motion pictures, we've made a few bucks for Paramount. They haven't done badly. But it seems to be its the critics of someone who can't stand the fact that we're growing older. So I wrote a little thing that said they have critiqued our bellies, our wrinkles, our hair, we just keep going, we don't care. It seems to me that they've never been told that all of us are growing old. Thank you very much.