Star Trek Creator's Son Calls William Shatner's 'Get a Life' SNL Skit 'Disrespectful' to Trekkies

William Shatner SNL
William Shatner SNL
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Alan Singer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

William Shatner will always be known to Trekkies (die-hard Star Trek fans) as Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

But the two-time Emmy Award winner, 90, once made a joke on live television at the beloved sci-fi show's expense that didn't quite land with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's family.

Gene's son Rod Roddenberry, who's also produced several projects for the franchise, called out Shatner over a Saturday Night Live skit, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

In the December 1986 SNL episode, the actor took questions at a fan convention. "Get a life, will you, people," he proclaimed in the now-infamous sketch.

RELATED: William Shatner Believes Captain Kirk Would Be 'Running Wild' in Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek

"For crying out loud, it's just a TV show. I mean, look at you. Look at the way you're dressed," Shatner continued on the skit. "You've turned an enjoyable little job I did as a lark for a few years into a colossal waste of time."

Although he never knew what his father thought of the skit, as Gene died when his son was only 17, Rod did not like how it portrayed fans.

"I never really appreciated that skit because I think it was demeaning to the fans," Rod told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the original show's 55th anniversary. "I think it was disrespectful, especially for a character who was an open-minded, intelligent leader."

"But I don't condemn it in any way. It's Saturday Night Live, and it's all fun," Rod added.

William Shatner in Star Trek
William Shatner in Star Trek

CBS via Getty

He admitted that he wasn't immediately a fan of his father's show himself until he met some devoted Trekkies.

"They were my introduction to Star Trek. They're the ones who came up to me and said, Star Trek inspired me. And because of Star Trek, I am now a teacher, a doctor, whatever the case is, and I owe that to Star Trek.' At the time, I was watching Knight Rider — and Knight Rider didn't do that for me," he told THR.

Shatner, despite the skit, embraces the franchise's many fans. He even used the SNL catchphrase as the title of his 1999 nonfiction book Get a Life!, for which he did research at fan conventions, before exploring the fandom even further with the 2012 documentary of the same name.

The actor did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

RELATED VIDEO: William Shatner Reveals He Has 'Never Watched' an Episode of Star Trek: 'It's All Painful'

The Golden Globe winner revealed on People (the TV Show!) that he's never seen an episode of his star-making series. "I have never watched Star Trek," he said in March. "There are many episodes I don't know, there are some movies I don't know."

"I directed one of the movies — No. 5 — I had to watch that one," Shatner added of 1989's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

"But it's all painful because I don't like the way I look and what I do."