George Takei’s Ghostwriting Controversy Is A Non-Story, It’s Time To Move On
George Takei has a ghostwriter who helps him create the hilarious tweets he posts on Twitter and Facebook wall posts he places on his fan page. As The Inquisitr previously reported, journalist Rick Polito was being paid $10 per joke for his work with the famed Star Trek actor.
After news of the ghostwriting broke, some Star Trek fans were outraged while others simply didn’t care because, let’s be honest, the daily posts are hilarious — so hilarious, in fact, that the average George Takei Facebook update can easily command tens and even hundreds of thousands of likes, shares, and comments from his four million FB followers.
When asked about the controversy, George Takei took what might be the best response to a non-story of all time:
“What is this hoo-ha about my FB posts? I have Brad, my husband, to help me and interns to assist. What is important is the reliability of my posts being there to greet my fans with a smile or a giggle every morning. That’s how we keep on growing.”
Realizing that Takei was correct, Rick Polito quickly realized the error of his ways and apologized with a simple message:
“I wrote an apology to George and Brad and their guy said he’d pass it on. I just said that I’d been looking for any mention of my book I could get and that I hadn’t meant to expose anything.”
What I find hard to understand is how anyone could believe that the numerous daily updates from George Takei were all his own. Anyone in the stand-up comedy business who has made it to the top of their game will tell you that assistance from friends, family, and even a team of comedy writers is often the key for long-term success. Let’s face it: You can be one of the funniest men or women on the planet, and you may still find yourself hurting for material. Just take a look at Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, even a more recent example of Dane Cook. Maintaining your “funny” is not an easy process, especially outside of acting roles where you are handed a pre-made script.
Guys like Martin and Chase and Cook have months, sometimes years to create a single one- or two-hour comedy special. George Takei is creating hilarity on a daily basis.
So was George Takei manipulating or even lying to fans? Of course not. Instead, just has he has done for years, he was providing entertainment to a group of people who like his work.
Here’s another shocker: George Takei never actually flew through space aboard a ship called the USS Enterprise. It was all shot inside a studio with a script, which was also written by other people.
