Selects: Star Wars Holiday Spectacular

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuckers Bryant and Jerry Jerome Roland. Who's the Wookie mother? Yeah? Mala, that was the Wookie wife. Oh and mother? Yeah? Sure. Chewbacca's bomb is not with them any longer. She left, she was not about to appear in that. She went out the window. I'm excited about this. I have to say we should say Happy Star Wars Day. Yeah, today is um December seventeenth. I have my opening night tickets?

Do you really sure? Wow? You know? I you into it? Oh? Yeah, well I will definitely go see it in the theater. But um, why won't be the opening night? Sure? I've gotten really adept at like ignoring spoilers, people talking about stuff all like, so I can I could conceivably see this movie a month after it comes out and still going fresh. Yeah it's I'm an ostrich. Yeah you black yourself out. Yeah, you go dark I do. I make myself go to sleep face, you go to the dark side.

I've been there a while now. Uh well, Happy Star Wars Day though, I'm sure that I think this pairs nicely with Chris Smiths Star Wars Day. It's all come together. Yes, Um, we already missed Life Day though, so happy belated Life Day. Are they celebrating it this year? November seventeenth? Yeah, but it's every three years. M hmm, our cane yeah, man job, Okay, so it's every three years, started in nineteen seventy eight. Let's do the math, shall we m? Quick? Math break?

I believe that twenty fourteen was the last Life Day. Man, we just missed it, and then again in twenty seventeen. Okay, so twenty seventeen we'll celebrate Life Day. We'll put on our red robes, our ultralong, straight ironed wigs, sure, and we'll celebrate Life Day. The way it was meant to. Yes, and if you have no idea what we're talking about, we are talking about Life Day, which is a celebration, uh that Wookies in the Star Wars universe have every

three years. Yeah. It's like their Christmas, Yeah, or their Quanza there. Supposedly, it's sort of like Earth. They two. They celebrate the diversity of their ecosystem and also remembrance of the dead, and they also give the gifts. They're like the Finns basically. Yeah, it's it's a very interesting part of the Star Wars canon. It is, and it's almost entirely made up, dashed off you could possibly say,

by George Lucas in the seventies. Yeah, and it's the basis of what has become derided as like one of the worst things that ever happened to the Star Wars galaxy. Well, not only that, one of the worst things ever aired on television. Yeah, this galaxy. Yeah, at first that sounds like hyperbole, like, come on, it's because it was Star Wars, we had high expectations, but it's really that bad. Yeah. The people who say that haven't seen even a second of it. Yeah. Yeah, However, I watched it when I

was a kid, then again this week. Yeah, and you watched it twice this week. Yeah, I watched it last night and this morning. There's something about it. It's mesmerizing, it really is. It's one of those things that you start watching it and you want to turn it off, but you want to see just how absurd it can get. Almost Yeah, and it starts absurd, it stays absurd in the middle. Yeah, it's increasingly more absurd, it gets a little less absurd, finishes super absurd. Yeah. It's just a

train wreck in every single sense of the word. Talk to bottom. It's extraordinarily difficult to overstate how bad this is. Yeah, and some people, you know, in researching this, you read about it, you read descriptions of these things, and it just can't possibly be gotten across until you see it. So luckily, as we will see, you can go onto YouTube and watch it, and you may even enjoy this episode more if you pause, go spend two hours watching

this thing, and then come back and laugh along with us. Yeah, there's a great Over the years, there have been many segments of it on YouTube from badly dubbed VHS tapes, but there is one really pretty good version of it in full, brought to you by a w HIO Dayton, Ohio channel seven. Who because that flashes up on the screen periodically. Man, it is high quality. It looks good. It has to basically be the copy that the actual affiliate broadcast. Yeah, it's like that, that quality compared to

the other stuff floating around ninety two. It's clearly recorded on a nineteen seventy eight PCR, which we're really expensive, very expensive. I did some calculating on west Egg. Okay, so the average VCR went for about one thousand dollars. There were brand new it's amazing one thousand dollars in nineteen seventy eight money. So they were about thirty eight

hundred dollars in twenty fourteen money. Crazy. Luckily there were some rich people out there recording this stuff, and the wealthy have saved us all again, yes, yet again, as they always do. Yes, we need to shout out some articles that we use for this. There's great a great article in Vanity Fair called the Han Solo Comedy Hour X Glamation Point Yes by Frank D. Jacomo. And then there's the Star Wars Holiday Special was the worst thing

on television ever by someone we kind of know, Alex Pasternak. Yeah, from Motherboard, Yeah, which is not wired. It's a vice. Yes, we wrote a little bit for Motherboard back then and we had a call without like we're like old Motherboard vets, yeah, basically, and when they're one more, there was another one and I don't know who wrote this one. Chuck uh, yeah,

it's the titles the Star Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas wants to smash every copy of with a sledgehammer, which was a famous quote supposedly at a convention by Lucas, Yes, which is not correct. He didn't ever say that. No, Okay, that that sounded like something that people made up. Yes, but if you go on the internet you will quickly

believe that he did. Sure apparently didn't. So I'm sure he felt that way though, clearly, you know, because he did appear on Robot Chicken and I think two thousand and five on the Therapist Couch talking about how much he hate did the Speci show. All right, so let's set the background, shall we Shall we go back to nineteen seventy seven, Yeah, summer getting the old wayback machine, all right, let's do it, all right, here we are, there's Waterson. Yeah, I'm just a little six year old

excited about Star Wars. I am, I've just turned one. Yes, you don't know what's up yet. I please forgive me if I urinate myself, no problem. Okay. So what has happened is Star Wars has become a huge, huge hit, seemingly out of nowhere. Yeah, establishing George Lucas is one of the brilliant young minds in filmmaking. Even though it was in his first movie, it was his first huge,

huge breakout hit. Oh yeah, for sure. Don't mean to talk about a breakout hit like no one had ever seen anything like it before two thousand and one had come out in the late sixties. Yeah, but it wasn't it still isn't accessible to all audiences, you know. Yeah, it's kind of a rebral film. Yeah, it's not an adventure movie. This was this is like basically swashbuckling on the screen. But you know, in a galaxy far far away, Star Wars just changed everything and it came on just

like a hammer. Yeah, um, a new hope by the way, yes, and then then we're gonna get stuff wrong, nerds, So yes, just go ahead, and get your little fingers ready to email us, like if it wasn't driven home that I'm not a nerd by the fact that I don't have opening night tickets or any tickets yet, give me a break, okay, and by proxy Chuck too, Okay, thank you. So um, it's it's hard to state how great Star Wars was in everyone's mind. Yeah right. Bill Murray came out with

that lounge singer Star Wars thing. Yeah, it was everywhere and if you if you just listen to the lyrics of it, he's really it's just Bill Murray singing about how much Star Wars is awesome. Yeah right. So by the following year, George Lucas was he wanted to figure out a way to keep audiences just to engaged with the whole Star Wars franchise that he was just starting

to build. But he knew the Empire Strikes Back was a couple more years out, sure, so um he I think he was approached by some TV executives who said, have you considered doing some sort of TV special? They're all the rage right now. We have a we have a graphic that's really awesome that we set aside just for TV. Specials here at CBS. Why don't you let us let's get together and do a Star Wars special.

That's right, producers Gary Smith and Dwight Himeon, we're working over at CBS, and they say, this is a great way to keep the spirit alive while you're making your other movie. Maybe move some more toys. Yeah, which George Lucas got to cut. So it was right before Thanksgiving, and he said there'd be a lot of people watching TV pre holiday season, or I guess in the holiday season. Well, the weekend before Thanksgiving, it's like everybody's shopping, sitting around

family like waiting to actually do stuff. That's right, perfect time to broadcast something on TV. So Lucas says, all right, let's do this. I don't have a ton of time, but how about this. I'll get I'll get a story together and then you can go hire a whiz bang team of veteran writers and producers and directors whatever genre you think is appropriate. And those are the words that will haunt George Lucas to his grave. Yeah. So Lucas said,

here's my idea. I want it to be based on Wookie's and I want it to take place on their home planet of Kizuk or Wookie Planet C. Is that how you say kazuk? That's how it's pronounced in the episode the Holiday Special, but it's also pronounced different ways other times. I would have pronounced that cash E E got spell it k A s h y y y k yeah, which I mean. I guess that sounds like Chewbacca's planet sure also called G five six twenty three. Wookie Planet C or edon is a mid rim planet. Right.

So the whole reason apparently that George Lucas was interested in featuring the Wookies was it is what we in show business call low hanging fruit. The reason why it was low hanging fruit was because they had just established the different scenes that would make the cut for Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, and how did you pronounce it? Again? Kaz Kazuok had not made the cut. Even prior to this, apparently, for a new hope, George Lucas had whipped up a

forty page what's known as the Wookie Bible. It's like a forty page supplement that's all about Kazuok and Wookies and Chewbacca and his family and everything about wookieedom. Right. So he's like, I've got this thing already. You know established I love Wookies. They didn't make the cut. I'm a little sad about that. They're not gonna kazuk is not gonna show up in an Empire strikes back. Let's let's build the entire special around wookies. It's basically the

one demand me, George Lucas y. Yeah, that's it. I'll be totally hands off from this point on which he kind of was. He totally wasn't. It was actually this experience that apparently taught him to be the very hands on person that he is famous for being. It came out of this Christmas special. Absolutely, he was burned and he had an iron grip after that on everything. So here's some some of the folks behind it. Bruce Valanche, famous TV writer. You probably seen him on Hollywood Squares.

Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas Pinchon for a while? Oh? I don't know, Or was Thomas Pinchon on Hollywood Squares? I have no idea. I maybe confabulating some stuff confounding. Yeah, there's some kind of some sort going on. It sounds like it. Yeah, so Valanche was hired as a writer. A guy named Lenny RiPPs was hired as a writer who has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article he does. His first quote was, we were really excited because this is Star Wars. How could it lose? Yeah?

Famous last words? Who else was hired? There was a husband and wife team, the Welch's. Yeah, who are the parents of folk singer Gillian Welch. I'm a big fan of and I had no idea that her parents. They were producers slash songwriters of the day. They were big on the variety show scene, which would turn out to be a really key cog in this whole experience. So I feel like a right about here, Jerry should insert a needle coming off of a record sound effect. Yeah, okay,

thanks Jerry, So Chuck, you just said singer songwriters. Yeah, what would that have to do with Star Wars? Yeah? Well, actually, in this Star Wars Holiday special, for those of you who hadn't seen it, there are musical numbers. They decided from the outset that there should be musical numbers. And the reason that they decided that there should be musical numbers is because the people who sold George Lucas and at the time it was Star the Star Wars Corporation

was what it was called. Yeah, on the idea of doing this TV special was that everyone would love a variety show. Yeah, it was the seventies. Great idea, let's do a variety show. The problem was this, Apparently George Lucas didn't watch enough TV and he also overly trusted people who talk to him. Sure, because by nineteen seventy eight, yes, variety shows had dominated television for over ten years, but it had come to an end. It was getting stale. Yeah,

we're talking. Carol Burnett Show, one of my favorites had just been canceled after eleven seasons, a big red flag. Sonny and Chair had just had its last season. Yeah, I mean what else, Like he Hall was tall was still going on probably, I think he was still on solid Gold. It yet to come on and take up the mantel. That wouldn't a variety show. Oh that was a little bit and there was talking in between the songs. Yeah, I remember the Mandrell's Sisters show. I never watched that one. Well,

it's with that country chic thing that happen. Yeah, it was a big deal in this it's kind of happening again. I think, oh, because of that dude, the guy who won all the CMA Awards. I don't know, he's like he's he came along and he's like, actually country. His dad's like a coal miner for real from Kentucky. I think, I know you mean Chris something. Yeah, yeah, he is good. He's come along and been like, what are you guys doing? Well,

there's a revival in like good country music again. That's great, like in the tradition of Merle Haggard and Shash And I guess it's probably where the Country sheet came from, because there was actually good country going on. Yeah, Johnny Cash out of a variety show, did he really? Oh yeah, I knew they did, like a Sunday singing thing like out in Virginia. Yeah, he had his own variety show is actually pretty good. There's some like really great performances.

Do you know how many nerds are like, get back to Star Wars. I know, I'm so sorry. All right, So the Variety Show is is dying sort of, and so they figure what a great time to take the biggest movie property on the planet and wedge it into the Variety Show. Milieu. I don't know if wedge is the right word. I think maybe nestle it in there, yeah, and then start hitting it with the blunt edge of an axe until it mashes into that crevice. You know.

Because this is the time when Fantasy Island had just started, Mork and Mindy was about to change things, Charlie's Angels was getting huge. It basically television as we knew it from nineteen eighty two, whenever the real world came along. Yeah, just escape as television is what they called. It was starting and it was the hip new thing. So basically, if they had turned Han Solo and Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker into maybe you know, sexy detectives, it might

have gone over even better. But they went the other way. They decided to latch onto this extraordinarily stale genre of television, and they hired the best in the business. Yeah, like there was there was. There was a quote from I think Lenny RiPPs who was saying, like we had literally a dream team, a variety show dream team, and everybody was good, but there were probably no bad welders on

the Titanic. He there, That's a great quote. Yeah, the guy they hired to direct it initially was a dude named David A. Coomba, and he had made his name for Welcome to the Fillmore East. It was a concert documentary with Van Morrison Van Morrison and the Birds in nineteen seventy one, and he actually was at usc Film School at the same time as Lucas, even though they didn't know each other. And he only ended up directing

about three segments of the thing before he quit. Yet before he walked off, some say he was actually let go, but we'll get to him in a minute and who replaced him. Okay, as we get along down this gross road, well let's let's take a little break because I'm overly excited. Okay, all right, so we've established most of the main players. Well we'll get to a few more. We should point out that um Mark hamill And and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, they had no grounds to refuse

to be on this basically, yeah, pretty much. They were not huge, huge stars. Yet they could throw their weight around and say this is terrible and I'm not doing it. They were. They were big overnight because of Star Wars, for sure, but they weren't to the adoring public. Sure, back at the studio they could still be bossed around and this was the result of it. And you can tell also, um, just from watching the actual special, like Harrison Ford is not happy to be there at any point.

Oh no, Um, Princess Leia is clearly on drugs. Uh was she on drugs at this point? She? If you watch it, she's she's on drugs. Especially the ending scene. Mark Hambell, it looks like he's happy to be there. Actually he was fine, but apparently he said, no, I'm not doing a musical number. Yeah, and if you watch his part, wedging a musical number in there would have been even more painful. Sure, but they everybody who was part of the actual Star Wars franchise that wasn't wearing

like a full body costume. Yeah, it was like I really wish I wasn't here. And you can tell, oh yeah. In fact, in the opening credit sequence, they're showing the picture, you know, the faces of the people, and you see Harrison Ford as if he's flying the Millennium Falcon and you can you can just hear the guy off screen going now look at the camera and just give a nod.

Just look at the camera and give a nod, and he finally you can tell he's pissed off, and he looks up at the camera and just sort of smirks yeah, and points at the camera like okay, I'm looking at the camera, and then goes back to what he's doing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I felt bad for him so early on Valanche and others did. Did you feel bad for him? Though? Really? I mean, like, come on, it's Harrison Ford, it's Hans Solo. He has to go do this for like five days. Yeah,

I felt terrible for him. I think it's hilarious that they had to do this, especially now. Well, early on, Valanche and others knew that they may be in trouble because they decided not to subtitle any of the Wookie dialogue, and they literally started after a brief opening scene setting it up here. Here's the basic plot is Han Solo is trying to get Chewbacca back to Kazuok in time for Life Day so we can celebrate with his family. That's the basis of the entire two hours. The basis

the entire two hours. They encounter a space battle and they're delayed, and the next two hours are kind of what's going on while the delay is happening back on Kazuk because you hear like, okay, well Han Solo and Chewbacca evading the Imperial Guard and all that stuff for two hours. I would watch that, Sure, I would too. Yeah, that's not what they show. Killing time at the Wookie household, that is what they show. Yeah, that's what they do.

It's people hanging out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him, yeah, and then killing time while they wait for him to come back. Yeah. Literally, so um and so hold on. So you say there's a setup, right, Yeah, that's the initial setup and then chuck. That's followed by this. Yeah, it's followed by literally ten minutes, ten solid minutes of incomprehensible Wookie speak. So let's let's join it for a second,

shall we. Yeah, let's all enjoy it. And again, you said ten minutes, and you're not exaggerating, you're not being hyperbolic. You can time it. That's it's ten minutes of Wookie's talking to each other with no subtitles. Fortunately, I couldn't follow it at first, Like I didn't even know who it was. I thought it was might have been Chewbacca's

mom and dad. Oh yeah, that's a little brother. And I don't find out until later when Mark Camill shows up via skype call and says, he really explains everything that had just happened, Like, you're Chewbacca's father, right, Itchy, your Chewbacca's son, Lumpy Lumpy, and you're Chebacca's wife. Oh mama, yeah, thank you. So before everybody starts like freaking out, we know that that's actually their nicknames. Their real names are. His father is a tichik cook a cook it's really

hard to pronounce. Mulatto buck is his wife, and his son is Lumpo or rump but as named by Lucas. But yeah, but Lucas also named him Lumpy, Itchy and Malaya. So um. They're all back there wringing their hands, trying to figure out ways to pass the time until they get word from Chewbacca that he's made it to uh what is it? Ketchukaz kazuk um just like ketchup, ketchup

or cats up if you're fancy um. But Chewbacca is having trouble getting back to ketchuk because there's kazuk because there's a blockade by the Empire and they're looking for rebels, specifically Chewbacca, who I didn't realize this. He's the most famous Wookie of all. Did you know that? Yeah, of course I didn't know that. Well, I mean he's the only one that really appears in the movies. I mean we're seeing, like, you know, these people's view of the universe.

What about back on Kazook. Yeah, he might have just been a fly by night wookie, right, Yeah, but not the case very famous wookie. Yeah, and he really loved it, like soak in his fame. All right, So he realizes there's a problem Valanche. He goes to Lucas and was like, I don't know, man, this is your world, but it may not be the strongest thing to do to set this in wookie Land and have all this incomprehensible dialogue. And he says he was met with a glacial stair. Well,

he put it a little differently than that. Well, he said glacial stair. He did. The glacial stair that he got was for this quote. He said, these people just talk and what sounds like fat people having an orgasm. Yeah. He goes, if you want, you can set up a tape recorder in my bedroom and I'll do all of the follying for it. Yeah. He's a large guy, he is,

so that's what got the glacial stare. But Valanche later said that from this, there was one development meeting that Lucas attended, and it was here's the Wookie Bible, tell me what you got. And Valanche said he and the other writers and producers and director were just kind of throwing ideas, and George Lucas would either say like, no, that doesn't work, give him a glacial stare, or say, yes, that's exactly it. Yes, let's make this a variety show. Yeah.

And there was a little bit of background there. The cantina players in the band had appeared on other variety shows at that point. Yeah, and I think it went over fairly well, just as a short segment on like the Richard Pryor Variety Show or Donnie Marie yep Man. There were a lot of variety shows. But that's what I'm saying. It was that was television. That's what you did, like the breaks. The show had its course, and then it became a variety show. It was everybody love variety shows. Yeah.

By this time, though, everybody was sick of variety shows, and so it really was a terrible choice. In fact, they even hired a couple of writers from Shields and Yarnell, which I hadn't heard of, had you? Oh yeah, I watched it. It was creepy, this mime couple who had their own variety show, and they figured these two will be great because they are used to working without words, right, So, and so there is a certain logic to the variety show.

It's not that's just that variety shows were popular. Yeah, at the time, somebody was like, well, Wookie's you don't understand what they're saying. So this is all going to be very physical. So these people who who did what is it? Shields and Yarnell. Yeah, that's a perfect choice. That that makes complete sense. You can see this whole this whole process of leading up to the point where it was produced and shot and everything. Yeah, a series

of like, oh we have this problem, well here's a fix. Yeah, but that leads to another problem. Well we'll fix it with this, and no one stepping back and being like, all we've done is create a series of problems that are going to come together and make one extraordinarily large problem that will become legendary. No one did that, and so the whole thing was made. That's right, and it eventually airs on November seventeenth, nineteen seventy eight, a Friday,

at eight pm Eastern time. That's right, And according to CBS Nielsen ratings, it attracted thirteen million viewers lost the second hour just in the US. It aired in six or seven countries total. Yeah, but no one cares about that, I guess not because none of those are on the internet. You know. It finished second to the Love Boat in the second I'm sorry, from eight to nine, and in the next hour I actually finished behind part two of a mini series about Pearl Harbor starring Angie Dickinson. So

it didn't even win their respective hours. No, thirteen million, that's that's not bad. The thing is, apparently if you look at the Nielsen ratings graph for the first hour, Yeah we know about that graph, It's okay, Yeah, we do. And then after a very important part, which we'll talk about soon, it just drops off at the end of the first hour, and that actually probably made the executives

at CBS cringe for a number of reasons. Number one is this special was originally supposed to just be an hour, but so many advertisers wanted to sign one that they extended it to two hours. And it shines through. You can totally tell that this thing was never supposed to I think an hour might have been stretching it, to tell you the truth. Yeah, it's thirty minutes of content, forty if you're generous, an hour and then two hours. It becomes one of the worst things that was ever

put on television. All right, Well, let's take a break and then we'll talk a little bit more about the actual even don't want to call it content, but it is content in the strictest definitions. Right after this, all right, so the show itself, we've given you the main plot line, which again is that Chewy is trying to get back to his home planet to celebrate life Day with his family. Right, that's it, And again we almost barely see Chewy. Yeah, the rest is his family on because look waiting for

him to come back for a life Day. Yeah. So, um. Some of the various things they did there were guest stars. There was Harvey Corman from the Carol Burnette Show. Okay, one of my all time favorites him or Carol Carol Burnette show both. He's great. Yeah, he actually if you watch what he's doing, you're like, this is comedy genius for sure. Apparently he too was like the only one on set that was bringing levity. He was joking around and kind of kept spirits up. Good for him, that's

what I say. And he had three, three different parts. Yeah, he played uh well, I don't even know the names. Actually, we could look him up, but he played a he played a Julia child like cook. There's an actual cooking segment, a long one, a very long cooking segment where Chewbacca's wife makes Banta stew to kill some time, to kill some time because there was waiting on her planet and in our living room. Yeah, so Harvey Corman is in Drag as a foe armed Julia childlike TV chef and

I think it's Gormanda. It's her name, Gormanda. That makes total sense. Yeah, he also plays um. There's this one weird bit where Chewbacca's son tries to figure out a way to trick the stormtroopers that the Empire had come and kind of because the blockade raided the house and other properties, so he tries to trick them by I think rigging a calm link to speak in a different voice. So he has to watch the instruction manual. He watches an instruction video which was Harvey Kitel as a robot. Oh,

it would have been wonderful of big Harvey Kitel. What I'd say, Harvey Carvey Corman. Oh, many Kite murders someone in the middle of the instruction grade Harvey Corman. And then the final role he had was as a bar patron in the cantina that drinks. He has a hole in the top of his head like a volcano where he pours his drinks in. That's how he drinks. And he he loves be Arthur. Did we mention be Arthur was in it? Be Arthur is not only in it, Chuck. She sings a song. She does. She is the unknownst

to everyone. She manages or maybe owns the owner. Yeah, the what's the mos? What mos def cantina? Uh No, most deaf is a rapper? Oh yeah, I think you mean Moss Eisley. Yes, yes, that cantina. She's the owner. Be Arthur is the owner. Be Arthur of the Golden Girls, but in this case be Arthur of Maude because as one of the people who wrote one of the articles we based this on points out she's just basically playing

Maude as the owner of the cantina. Yeah, and her song comes because they basically say there's a lockdown, so you gotta call last call at your bar. So she calls last call by singing a song to everyone. Right, and again, we can't possibly have the script lead anywhere else but Chewbacca's house while his family waits for it. So all this takes place as part of a public service announcement basically broadcast by the Empire about how immoral

life on Tattooen is. So let's go see what's going on in the mos Eisley Cantina as it's being shut down for curfew. Yeah, all right, this is incomprehensible, but it goes on. So they're in it. There's also Art Carney, yes, of the Honeymooners, finally the star of the whole thing. Really, he has the most lines, I would say, the most comprehensible line, right, Yeah, So he plays a trader, a human trader that has recently been with Han Solo and Chewy and actually gets to Kazuk and says they're on

the way, it's all good. Yeah, a trader, not trade tour. Yeah, traders in trades humans for you know, money. No, he sells goods. Yeah, a trader. He isn't trade humans. Yeah, he's in the human trade. He No, he isn't really, Yeah, he trades humans like he sells humans. Looked it up in the Star Wars Encyclopedia said that he was in

the human trade. Huh so in this Christmas special, Yeah, apparently they sanitized his background because he's basically just selling like gadgets and novelties and stuff like that to the Wookies and the Empire who were occupying the area. Yes, he comes bearing gifts because he's a friend of Chewbacca's family. Yeah,

so he comes bearing gifts. One of the gifts he gives is a sort of like a little digital insert to a Oh, I guess you would call it a virtual reality hair dryer hair dryer, like a beauty shop hair dryer. Right. He gives it to Grandpa Itchy. Grandpa Itchy sits under this hair dryer, pops in this digital cassette, and it can only be described as softcore porn. Apparently, the writers who were interviewed for this said that was totally the intent. They were trying to get what amounted

to softcore porn that would pass the sensors. That's right. So it's all you can't even say it's innuendo. It's too obvious in overt for innuendo. Instead, it's just it's just it's just gross. It's really gross. Diane Carroll, great singer, Yes she is a Vegas staple, shows up and starts basically tantalizing. M Grandpa Itchy, who again, this is Chewbacca's elderly father who now engages in some sort of well he's he's watching virtual reality pornography now, and this is

a pretty lengthy segment in and of itself. Well yeah, and she literally says to him like, now I can see you're really excited. Yeah, it's pretty rough to watch. Yeah, So then you've got another musical number because also again he shudders, Yeah, it's really strange. All right. So there's also a I know, it seems like we're jumping around, but it's it's so mind blowing, not like this is

pretty much like blow for blow. Um. Actually I forgot earlier on in the in the special, there's one of my favorite sequences is when Grandpa Itchy goes over to Lumpy and basically sets up remember the hologram chessboard that they played in a New Hope. Yeah, basically kind of sets that up and says, here, just play this. He pushes the button which is clearly a nineteen seventies cassette recorder, and another like it's like a cirque desolate acid trip

gymnast routine happens in front of the kid's eyes. Yeah, and again this all just it's not like it shows a snippet. They show the entire segments, like five, six, ten minutes long. Sure of all of these things. So you would think, Okay, they've gone to this hologram well a couple of times, why not go to it again? Well they do. They do to kill more time. While

the Imperial Guard is ransacking their house. Art Carney apparently, I guess, is trying to get one of the Imperial Guard, the leader I think, or one of the leaders who looks like somebody from Spaceballs, by the way, very much so. Yeah, And the writer of the Vanity Fair article, by the way, said this, this is so incomprehensible. The specialist George Lucas didn't even have the Schwartz with him at the time.

So anyway, Art Carney's distracting this Imperial leader while they're ransacking the Wookie's house Chewbacca's house with a hologram, and this hologram, instead of being an acrobat or Diane Carroll or any kind of porn or anything like that, is Jefferson Starship. And they decide that they're going to play Light the Sky on Fire, which apparently is about UFOs. It's a little music video basically, it's a Yeah, it's the predecessor to like video Kill the Radio Star, you

can tell. And again it is the whole lengthy song. Yeah, the whole thing. So every time that somebody's like we need to escape mentally from what's going on here in our house, let's go into the video world, it's not just and they don't cut back and forth. It's okay, here's five minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song. Yeah, and even the Jefferson Starship guys m were like, yeah, it's sort of a weird trip, like we didn't get it, but we did it right. They gave us some money

and some cocaine. Well probably, so we said yeah, chuck, I think though there yet another segment like this is actually widely regarded as the high point of the whole thing. Oh sure, so there is a cartoon actually, yeah, that lump Lumpy watches Yeah lumpies, like the Imperial Guard is still ransacking my house. I think I'll entertain myself by watching a cartoon on my little um, I don't know what.

I guess it was an iPad and he watches this cartoon and it's it's actually remarkable for a number of reasons. It's the best part of the whole special. Yeah, generally agreed upon as such, right, not just us. And it introduces Boba Fett. It's the first time Boba Fett ever makes an appearance in the Star Wars universe. Yeah, it's actually not a bad And you can't find it in the the one version I told you to watch. They removed it for copyright, but they didn't watch a separate version, right,

you can find it on its own. Yeah, and it's um it's very much reminiscent of like the cartoon style of the day, like a he Man or something. Sure, even even it's even a little more artsy than that. Yeah, but it does have a plot that you can follow that makes sense as a Star Wars thing. Yeah, and it introduces Boba Fett, like you said, and it's actually not bad. It's like Luke and R two and C three po Yeah, and they're like they crash on a

planet or something. Yeah, and Han and chewhere you're in it. And it's the first time we see in Darth Vader. It's first time we see Boba Fett and that he is that he is just doing whatever he can do for money, right, Like Luke trusts him at first. C three pos like you sure you should trust him this quick? And he's like, oh, three po, you and your non trusting ways, and then it turns out he's selling them out to the dark side. So it's it's basically Boba

Fett is an allegory for George Lucas himself. Um. So the cartoon comes and goes, and that was the thing that came at about the end of the first hour mark and after that everybody just turned off their television sets. Yeah, I don't remember. Did you watch this when it came out? Yeah? I remember watching it, but I don't remember much about it, Like if I made it through at all, I mean it was I was seven and it was on till ten, so I probably didn't make it through it all. Yeah, um,

plus you're probably disturbed. Who knows, I just remember that. I'll have to ask my brother. He might have a memory of this. Oh, Betty does. I'm sure he met everybody afterwards or something like that. You know, it has a picture. Well, he was ten at that point, so cynicism had, you know, become a thing in his life probably by then. Sure didn't that when cynicism kicks into Scott holding out the fourteen fifteen Yeah maybe so so um, chuck,

the whole thing finally does end. And actually there's a guy his name is Nathan Raban, he writes over at the av Club. He had a great quote. He basically said that one of the great redeeming values of this um this special is that it does eventually end. Yeah, you know, the first part of the quote is, I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written and directed by

a sentient bag of cocaine. And like, go read his review of the Star Wars Holiday Special, because he goes on to describe exactly what that must have been like development meeting where the bag of cocaine is pacing back and forth talking about what should happen. That's what it feels like. But it doesn't, and it ends even more. It takes this bizarre two hours and wraps it up in just a nice bizarre bow. Yeah, so what happens is eventually Han Solo should we say spoiler alert. Eventually

Han Solo and Chewy make it to the planet. They park on the far side of the planet because they know the Imperial forces are there and the exercise will do Chewy good. Yeah, so they have to hike over there. They eventually make it back home. They find a storm the stormtroopers at their house, their tree hut. Yeah, which way by the paintings that set this up, I don't think we mentioned I don't even call him Matt paintings.

It looks like someone painted something on the wall and they just like put a camera in front of it. Pretty much. Yeah. So they get back and Chewbacca, Han Solo hides around the corner of Chebacca steps in front of his son to protect him. Han Solo jumps out and the stormtrooper trips over a pile of logs and falls over the balcony. And dies in a holiday special, So they wouldn't even not only could he not shoot first with Grido, but they couldn't even have him like

wrestle the stormtrooper and throw him off. He trips over a log, right and Han Solo has his hands thrown up like wasn't me? It might as well been a banana peel, you know. But again, this is basically produced by Vaudevillians starring vaudevillians. Why not have the one death take place from basically what it mounts to somebody slipping on a banana peel? Exactly, It's a it's a perfect way to end it. So that's that guy basically represents the end of the Imperial threat for the rest of

Life Day. Yeah. And we then see Life Day being celebrated, which is celebrated by lots of wookies assembling in what looks like a giant Olan Mills portrait. Yea, and all of them are wearing red robes sor and I know I'm up talking, and it's because my mind is still having trouble like wrapping around us. And then Princess Leia comes out with C three po is Mark Hamill. There the whole gang Zerifi. Okay, the whole gangs there, and then they all gather around to hear a great quote

from Princess Leia, which we will read verbatim. This holiday is yours, but we all share with you the hope that this day brings us closer to freedom, into harmony, and to peace. No matter how different we appear, we're all the same in our struggle against the powers of evil and darkness. I hope that this day will always be a day of joy in which we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage, and, more than anything else,

our love for one another. This is the promise of the Tree of Life que song, right, And we should also point out the tree of Life has never been mentioned up to this point, no idea what this takes a sudden appearance at the end. And when you said Q song, by Q song, you mean Princess Leia starts singing. Yeah. And apparently that was one of the big contingencies on Carrie Fischer being involved. Yeah, she's going through a phase where she's like, I kind of like singing. Bruce Valancie

calls it her Joni Mitchell period. Yeah, And she somehow convinced them to let her sing as Princess Leiah and she does. And again I've said that she looks like she's on drugs. This is the point where she really does look like she's on drugs. And it's not just me other writers who've written reviews of this. It's really obvious that she possibly smoked a decent amount of pot before she shot this, shot this, but she sings, Oh, okay, it's fine. It's just the fact that Princess leigh is singing.

And actually, Bruce Valanche had a really great quote too. He says that she very much wanted to show this side of her talent, and there was general dismay because this was not what we wanted Princess Leia to be doing. Yeah, she did it anyway. So the whole thing ends with her singing this song about life day, which is set

loosely to the John Williams Star Wars theme. Yeah. So along the way, the director original director quit, A new director, Steve Binder, was hired to finish the job and bring it in, and he did over the original one million dollar budget. Of course, always he did bring it in and at this point George Lucas said he was he was working on Empire Strikes Back. He didn't know what was going on. He wasn't around for the shoot. No, it wasn't until it aired. I think that he actually

saw it. Yes, and it was a travesty, obviously, if you haven't noticed that by now. Critics hated it. Star Wars fans really hated it. Everybody hate The people who were in it hated it. Lucas hated it. Even Harvey Corman secretly hated it. Yeah, even Harvey Keitel hated it. Actually he loved it. But Lucas has been asked over the years about it a lot, and he doesn't talk

about it much. But in two thousand and five, and I don't buy this for a second, he says it was an interview he said special from nineteen seventy eight. I really didn't have much to do with us. You know that part is true. I can't remember what network it was even on, but it was a thing that they did. That's a lie. There's no way he doesn't know. That was CBS. Yeah, we kind of just let them do it. I believe that it was done by I can't even remember who the group was, but they were

Variety TV guys. I'm sure he remembers a few of them. We let them use the characters and stuff, and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but you learn from those experiences. Yeah, I think they even use some of the footage from the movie. At the end. It looks like some of the space like a highlight reel. Yeah, the gang. Well, and during the um it looked like some of the they had some insert shots of like

Imperial cruisers and Taie fighters and stuff that. Yeah, and remember when when Chewbacca like leans back and puts his hands behind it, Yeah, that's in there. It's it's like a it's just a highlight reel from the movie. Saying like I feel like this, go see the movie. Well, and also that means it doesn't match the look of the rest of it at all. Yeah, that's true. It's

just sort of inserted. They tried, They definitely tried. And George Lucas is totally full of it, because in nineteen eighty seven he told Starlog magazine that the Christmas Special would be out on video cassette very soon. Yes, And in two thousand and seven, two years after that quote, you just read where he's like, I don't even know

what you're talking about. Basically, he apparently considered releasing the Christmas Special as a bonus on the DVDs of the first three right, but did not did and apparently Carrie Fisher told Lucas that if you want me to do DVD extras commentary, yeah, commentary, then I want a clean original copy of the Holiday Special? Yes, so why go ahead so I can play at parties when I want

people to leave. It's pretty great, it is so, and there is one of those clean copies is floating around out there, so you can watch this in its entirety. Some of it, like the cartoon, was removed due to copyright infringement and that kind of stuff, but as as the case with the rest of the Internet, you can just go find it elsewhere and piece it together. There's also the original ads that aired in Baltimore. Yeah, that

are just fascinating. Yeah, those are always fun gm ads where one of the guys who's in quality control is he says, did you watch it? I don't think I saw that. He goes, um, we really care about these cars and that's no job, man, I'm a gm ad and he's like, that's serious. They're trying to be hip. Yeah, it's pretty good stuff. Here's my final thought on it. I love it. It does not taint my Star Wars experience or my love for the franchise. And I'm glad it is out there because it's a it's a fun

little stain that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I think it adds to it actually, because it's campy and awful. Yeah, and I don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it. I'm with you, you like it? Oh yeah, I mean I watched it twice. I wouldn't watched it a second I wouldn't have made it through the first time. Let me take that back, as I'm a pro. Yeah, so I would have made it through the first time. I wouldn't have watched it a second time if I wasn't.

There wasn't something about it, and I figured out. I think the thing that I liked the most about it is Lumpy Chewbacca's son, played by an actress named Patty Maloney, who frankly is hands down the best actor in the entire thing. She like her responses and everything. It's just awesome. I think my favorite parts are well there's a great Wilhelm scream yes, trips over the law. Jerry would not

have noticed it. Uh. And then there's a part where all the Wookie dialogue you can't understand, but there's clearly one part where where Itchy and Lumpy are have any exchange where Lumpy you can make it out, goes I love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I noticed that, but it's covered up. But someone was like, we have to have at least one exchange where you sort of know what they're saying, or they were like, I think she just said I love you. Should we have them redo it?

And then director's like, no, I want to go and chuck. There's one other thing that I figured out from watching this. What's that it's not readily apparent the whole thing is made all the more odd, and that there's situation after situation after situation where we, as normal audiences, were trained to expect the laugh track, but there's not a laugh track. Had there been a laugh track, yeah, it it might have been less bizarre. Yeah, but the fact that it's

missing just makes your It agitates the mind. So it's this whole additional element that it is weird. I never thought about that there's just weird moments of silence all throughout it. Yeah, like when Art Carney's doing his thing, Yeah, telling jokes. Yeah, okay, I agree with you, Chuck. Don't take things too seriously. I think that's the great lesson in this. Yeah, and then it's the lesson of life day it is. And in two thousand and seven, Riff

tracks The Great Mystery Science Theater. Three thousand guys. Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy provided audio commentary for the full version of the special. So try and go grab that if you can as well. Oh you can, it's on their site because it's great. I think it's like eight bucks. And those guys are awesome. And yeah, at least I think Corbett listens to us. So, hey, Corbett, you got anything else? No, No, I think we did this. There's some good stuff. Go read the Vanity Fair article

a Han Solo comedy hour. There's a book called How Star Wars Conquered the Universe has a very interesting chapter about this. That's where we found it. Asserted that George Lucas never said that he would smash this thing with a sledgehammer, right, And there's also an entire website dedicated

to a Star Wars holiday special dot com. Yeah, and if you want to know more about the Star Wars holiday special, we have a ton of Star Wars stuff on how Stuff Works by the way, Yeah, we have cool, sort of fun articles about the Death Star and Lightsabers videos with Holly Fry from Stuff you missed in history class. Yeah, who she knows her stuff. She does. So you can just type star Wars in the search bar how stuff works dot com and it will bring up some cool

stuff for you. Since I said search bar's time for listener mail. Hey guys, just finished listening to the Voytage Manuscript podcast. Found it's super interesting, especially the theories on its definition or origin. I know, Josh Menchin Chuck Siri, but being drug induced a somewhat surprising or even unlikely given the language in the manuscript follows linguistic laws only founded in the past one hundred years. But if you think about it, it's a tough. It's tough to stray

away from familiar structures, especially for something like language. I think back to when I was younger and friends invented their own languages, or even in writing a song or poetry. Creativity can sometimes be limited by what we know, so just thought I contribute that to the conversation. Nice. Thanks big,

thanks for all you guys do. I found the podcast after moving to San Diego in the last few years for some noise around my apartment, so basically we were blocking out noise if we do that, jo love and then as a way to get through traffic on my commutet home from work. You guys are far more interesting and enjoyable than television and YouTube videos. Sure, I've listened to hundreds and we'll continue to listen to hundreds more. Keep on Keeping on. That is from Amy Jay Moffatt.

Thanks a lot, Amy in San Diego. Does that mean like place of the whales in German or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with this, you can tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us to email the Stuff podcast at houstufforch dot com has always joined us at at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com. Stuff

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