Will Shat: William Shatner Sells Raisin Bran Cereal

“Will Shat?” It sounds like the ultimate setup to a bathroom punchline, but William Shatner really did flush subtlety straight down the drain while promoting Kellogg Company’s famously fiber-packed Raisin Bran.

Let’s be honest. Shatner has never exactly been shy about chasing the spotlight. The man has conquered television, film, music, space travel headlines, and now… digestive awareness. Is there any frontier left unconquered? Does he not already have enough fame to remain on the throne of pop culture comfortably? And financially speaking, surely the man is already rolling in enough dough to buy a lifetime supply of, well, bran.

The commercial itself leans fully into potty humor, with more winks, nudges, and number-two nods than a plumber’s convention. It celebrates “regularity” with the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered the true meaning of relief. Shatner cheerfully plays along, embracing the cereal’s fiber-fueled reputation like a man who knows smooth sailing depends on proper… flow control.

William Shatner is no stranger to letting loose with outrageous humor, $#! My Dad Says*, a little CBS sitcom, was no exception. The show landed in the porcelain bowl of primetime in 2010, with Shatner as Ed Goodson, clogging the airwaves with a whopping 12 million viewers for its premiere, even if critics insisted it smelled worse than a week-old diaper.

The Twitter feed that the show was based on had already gone viral, amassing 1.7 million followers in just over a year, paving the way for a book deal and a pilot that Shatner’s star power helped flush through the network pipes. The show proves that in TV, as in life, sometimes you have to wade through a mountain of crap before the final turd lands gloriously on the primetime throne. The show was literally sh*tty!

The joke goes so far that his own name becomes part of the gag, transformed into a not-so-subtle reminder of what happens after a bowl or two. It is bold, it is ridiculous, and it absolutely refuses to hold anything back.

In the end, the campaign proves one undeniable truth. When you are selling high-fiber cereal, nothing moves the audience quite like a legendary celebrity willing to plunge headfirst into toilet humor and laugh all the way to the bathroom.