10 Weirdest Adverts Featuring Star Trek Actors
7. Boy Scouts - George Takei
George Takei appears in this TV spot for the Boy Scouts of America which was aimed at encouraging young people to join up. Surrounded by a seemingly endless parade of uniformed young men, he tells the audience that when he was younger, his neighborhood was overrun with gangs. He was frightened by them, as you would be, so he decided to join a gang of his own... The Boy Scouts!
Takei has been candid about the troubles that he faced as a child in America. He was still a very young person when he, along with the rest of his Asian-American family, was rounded up and put in detention centres, such was the fear of Japanese spies and sympathisers in the aftermath of World War 2.
With a sense of community robbed from them, it actually makes perfect sense that Takei would seek it in such a group as the Scouts. While it does have a slightly edgy feeling to it - you could just as easily imagine the dialogue containing the phrase "if our demands aren't met, Mr President" - it is a great ad for the institution and Takei himself.