I was planning to write today about that big fire at Universal Studios a couple weeks ago, and how annoying it is that most of the media coverage has centered on the loss of backlot sets and tourist attractions that can be rebuilt, while ignoring or downplaying the far more significant loss of hundreds of 35mm film prints spanning the entire history of both Universal’s and Paramount’s catalogs. (The original elements are safely stored elsewhere, but given the expense of striking new prints and the industry’s determined march toward all-digital exhibition, it is unlikely that most of the affected movies will ever again be seen the way they were meant to be, i.e., projected by means of light shining through a strip of actual film, and I — being the unabashed analog-phile that I am — find that unutterably sad.)

I also thought I’d comment on the sad reports that one of the classiest guys ever to grace a movie screen, the legendary Paul Newman, is fighting cancer.

But you know what? After all the crapstorms I’ve weathered the last couple of weeks, I’ve about had it with the doom ‘n’ gloom stuff, so why don’t we just watch a fun video clip? The audio here is William Shatner performing Pulp’s “Common People” — stop rolling your eyes, this is actually a good song, a cut off The Shat’s album Has Been, which I found to be a surprise in about a dozen different ways, not least of which is how much it doesn’t suck — and the video is footage from the old animated Star Trek series, an early-70s Saturday morning classic. Enjoy:

I love how the mouth movements actually kinda-sorta synch up with the vocals, at least as well as they ever did back on Saturday mornings. As for that last scene with Kirk and Spock… well, that’s why these two have an entire genre of homoerotic fanfiction named after them.