Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Happy Hour #146: A Disturbance in the Happy Hour
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to Steffon
- 0:07Speaker 1: Never told you a protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
- 0:19Speaker 1: another edition of Happy Hour. As always, if you are
- 0:23Speaker 1: choosing to drink whatever, you're choosing to do it, to
- 0:25Speaker 1: do it, to do it, do it. It's because I've
- 0:27Speaker 1: been quoting the infra palatine a lot, which I'm going
- 0:29Speaker 1: to talk about here. Do responsively, do safely, do healthily.
- 0:36Speaker 1: Are you sipping on anything, Samantha.
- 0:38Speaker 2: I am. You know, I decided I'm going to throw
- 0:40Speaker 2: it back to like when I was a kid, when
- 0:42Speaker 2: I would mix fruit juices with like sprite. Yes, I
- 0:46Speaker 2: used to love doing that when I was younger. And
- 0:49Speaker 2: so we bought some tangerine juice from a Trader Joe's
- 0:54Speaker 2: and I like it, but it's a little too thick thick,
- 0:57Speaker 2: so I have ginger realm, so I'm mixed it to
- 1:00Speaker 2: I'm look, this is a delight. Carbonat drinks must do this.
- 1:04Speaker 2: So yes, I made myself a kid mockdel.
- 1:10Speaker 1: Well that's I mean, that sounds lovely. I don't think
- 1:12Speaker 1: it'suld be a kid mocktail. Could be like a nice
- 1:15Speaker 1: drink you enjoy.
- 1:16Speaker 2: I'm okay with that, What about you?
- 1:19Speaker 1: I have my galactic gin. Oh yeah, my sparkly purple
- 1:25Speaker 1: blue gin that changes colors. Because today we're doing a
- 1:30Speaker 1: very self indulgent episode. We're getting towards the end of
- 1:32Speaker 1: the air and so I just wanted to talk about
- 1:36Speaker 1: some Star Wars things that I've experienced lately. A gift
- 1:41Speaker 1: for me, perhaps no one else, but for me, A gift, yes,
- 1:50Speaker 1: because I talked about in the last wrap up of
- 1:54Speaker 1: the holiday special, the Star Wars Holiday Special, that the
- 1:56Speaker 1: documentary was coming out about how it got made, and
- 1:59Speaker 1: it had come out, and it was a whole thing
- 2:02Speaker 1: about how I was gonna watch it because it was
- 2:04Speaker 1: surprisingly popular perhaps and the crash the site and then
- 2:07Speaker 1: I couldn't get a hold of it. But I got
- 2:09Speaker 1: it all worked out.
- 2:11Speaker 2: I still love my twelve thirty am text about it
- 2:13Speaker 2: being release.
- 2:14Speaker 1: Yes, I was so excited. I didn't even watch it
- 2:17Speaker 1: because I was like, I just wanted to check and
- 2:19Speaker 1: see if it would work. And I had to let
- 2:22Speaker 1: you know immediately.
- 2:24Speaker 2: I'm glad it was made, party new it was.
- 2:29Speaker 1: So I did watch it the next day with a
- 2:33Speaker 1: friend of mine. And it's called a disturbance in the Forest.
- 2:35Speaker 1: Here is the quote the summary. In nineteen seventy eight,
- 2:40Speaker 1: CBS aired the Star Wars holiday special the week before
- 2:43Speaker 1: Thanksgiving to an audience of thirteen million people. Considered one
- 2:47Speaker 1: of the worst shows in television history, it only aired
- 2:50Speaker 1: once George Lucas tried to bury it and an infamous
- 2:53Speaker 1: camplagon was born. This documentary unravels the mysteries behind the
- 2:57Speaker 1: most bizarre spinoff of all time, although they pointed out
- 3:03Speaker 1: in there that there was actually what they called a
- 3:05Speaker 1: worse one, which I have on my watch list to
- 3:10Speaker 1: watch because I found it.
- 3:12Speaker 2: Oh you did find it. You're like, I don't know,
- 3:13Speaker 2: if you have family, you'll find it.
- 3:15Speaker 1: And I found it. I definitely found it. Okay, So yes,
- 3:19Speaker 1: there are a couple of things I wanted to talk
- 3:21Speaker 1: about this that I know it sounds really silly, but
- 3:24Speaker 1: I learned a lot. I learned a lot. But one
- 3:27Speaker 1: of the big things is they really dove into the
- 3:30Speaker 1: legend of it and I hadn't considered this, but at
- 3:34Speaker 1: the time a lot of people didn't have There were
- 3:36Speaker 1: no VCRs. So it comes out and there's no way
- 3:40Speaker 1: to get it if they never aired again. It's just
- 3:42Speaker 1: like some strange fever dream you experienced literally yes, And
- 3:49Speaker 1: so it became a joke of like did you see it?
- 3:54Speaker 1: Like did you see it? And like how can you
- 3:56Speaker 1: get your hands on it? But I had never thought
- 3:57Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that, of like the there's no
- 4:00Speaker 1: way to watch it again, and that becoming like kind
- 4:03Speaker 1: of a in some cases gatekeepye, like have you seen it?
- 4:08Speaker 1: Are you the real Star Wars fan? This was also
- 4:11Speaker 1: like before Empire Strikes Back came out, and so they
- 4:14Speaker 1: had just been this first movie and it was very,
- 4:16Speaker 1: very popular. But because it was just this first movie,
- 4:20Speaker 1: like no one was really sure what Star Wars was,
- 4:24Speaker 1: and so all of this wild came out, Like I'm saying,
- 4:29Speaker 1: some of the clips they were showing us go or
- 4:33Speaker 1: they were just trying all kinds of things. And a
- 4:37Speaker 1: part of that was that at the time, there was
- 4:41Speaker 1: a really big concern for George Lucas that people would
- 4:46Speaker 1: forget about Star Wars before he made the next one,
- 4:48Speaker 1: so it would just fade off, like this huge popularity
- 4:50Speaker 1: it had enjoyed would just go away and for better
- 4:55Speaker 1: or worse, And I know a lot of people would
- 4:56Speaker 1: say for worse. Star Wars was one of the first
- 4:59Speaker 1: like undizing movies, like people did it for TV shows,
- 5:04Speaker 1: but they didn't really do it for movies at this time.
- 5:07Speaker 1: So the holiday special was actually meant to sell toys
- 5:10Speaker 1: to sort of like give them some time before the
- 5:14Speaker 1: next one came out, where people didn't forget what it was. Also,
- 5:18Speaker 1: they were buying these toys which they never released at
- 5:20Speaker 1: I'll go into that. But a lot of kids didn't
- 5:26Speaker 1: really like it. A lot of the people they interviewed
- 5:28Speaker 1: saw it as kids were like, oh, yeah, I loved it.
- 5:32Speaker 2: It's you had to have been there.
- 5:35Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, yeah, And I feel like a
- 5:39Speaker 1: lot of the things that are so strange now it
- 5:42Speaker 1: still I mean, we're strange then. Also, don't get me wrong,
- 5:45Speaker 1: but like I saw it as an adult, I probably
- 5:50Speaker 1: I probably would have at least like some of it
- 5:52Speaker 1: as a kid, and it would have been like, oh
- 5:54Speaker 1: they were I feel like weird. Al Yanka Vickers in it,
- 5:57Speaker 1: and I feel like one of the lines he had
- 5:58Speaker 1: was like, we were just so desperate for any anything
- 6:03Speaker 1: Star Wars. I do. There are some random facts I learned.
- 6:07Speaker 1: Share was almost in it.
- 6:09Speaker 2: That makes sense to me.
- 6:11Speaker 1: I was shocked, but yes, that makes sense to me.
- 6:15Speaker 1: I mean, it was the time of like this was
- 6:18Speaker 1: the popular the variety show, which is what this is,
- 6:21Speaker 1: was the popular thing at the time. Share was supposed
- 6:25Speaker 1: to be in the space porn part of it.
- 6:30Speaker 2: What that didn't make sense to me? Okay, how dare you.
- 6:36Speaker 1: All? The part that's where he's the old grandfather is
- 6:39Speaker 1: watching what it's pretty clear the quarto offhe.
- 6:41Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but that's why I say it, how dare you?
- 6:46Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. It's also another thing I learned. So
- 6:50Speaker 1: there's a big like legend about how Mark Hamill, how
- 6:55Speaker 1: bad his accident was, his car accident, and about whether
- 6:59Speaker 1: or not that's why they wrote in that scene and
- 7:02Speaker 1: Empire strikes back at the beginning, which is not true
- 7:05Speaker 1: to at least according to most things I've read. But
- 7:07Speaker 1: some people thought he was wearing so much makeup, like
- 7:09Speaker 1: comical amounts. I always laugh when I see him in
- 7:11Speaker 1: this because of that scar. But apparently it was because
- 7:16Speaker 1: essentially what happened is George Lucas was like, we're gonna
- 7:20Speaker 1: make this out of spite because he was so mad
- 7:24Speaker 1: at the studios who were like, we're not gonna help
- 7:27Speaker 1: you promote and all of this stuff. So he's like
- 7:31Speaker 1: we're making this out of spite. But then he gets
- 7:33Speaker 1: locked into a contract that he can't control and basically
- 7:37Speaker 1: leaves abandons it. And this is what happened. But that
- 7:42Speaker 1: meant that the people who are running it were like
- 7:45Speaker 1: never heard of Star Wars, didn't know what it was.
- 7:48Speaker 1: They were great at variety shows though, like that was
- 7:51Speaker 1: their thing, but they had no idea what Star Wars
- 7:54Speaker 1: was and what the fan base was about. And they
- 7:58Speaker 1: hired a bunch of people who worked and brought way
- 8:00Speaker 1: and so they were doing his makeup like you're on Broadway,
- 8:05Speaker 1: which is like really heavy and stuff. But then they
- 8:08Speaker 1: had all these lights and it just looked so bad.
- 8:13Speaker 2: Amazing.
- 8:15Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a lot of good fun facts out
- 8:17Speaker 1: of this one. And I know you had asked Samantha
- 8:21Speaker 1: if b Arthur had ever spoken about this, and she
- 8:24Speaker 1: they had interviews from her in this. They weren't They
- 8:26Speaker 1: didn't interview her. They were like interviews from a long
- 8:29Speaker 1: time ago that they just had in it. And she
- 8:32Speaker 1: was basically kind of like, I didn't get it, but
- 8:35Speaker 1: I had fun with Art Kearney. I got I liked
- 8:37Speaker 1: the song because she asked for a specific type of
- 8:39Speaker 1: song and they wrote it for her. She was kind
- 8:43Speaker 1: of confused slash amused at how often she got asked
- 8:47Speaker 1: about it and how often she got like letters, that's amazing,
- 8:51Speaker 1: but she said they were generally nice. I loved you
- 8:55Speaker 1: with this, But it basically sounded like she kind of
- 8:58Speaker 1: didn't really remember, like it wasn't a big in her
- 9:00Speaker 1: life like everybody else.
- 9:01Speaker 2: I did.
- 9:02Speaker 1: What, Yes, exactly. It was kind of a funny. She
- 9:06Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I had a good time with Art Carney.
- 9:09Speaker 1: We sag some songs. It was space stuff that I
- 9:13Speaker 1: didn't get.
- 9:14Speaker 2: But hey, people love it.
- 9:17Speaker 1: Yeah, people love well. And then also apparently in that
- 9:19Speaker 1: scene they had trouble because the costumes were so hot,
- 9:22Speaker 1: so they had to film it really quickly and people
- 9:24Speaker 1: couldn't see. So that's why there's like that kind of
- 9:27Speaker 1: goofy like no one seems to be able to dance
- 9:30Speaker 1: at all. Yes. Yes, And a part of the charm
- 9:48Speaker 1: about it for people who feel there is a charm
- 9:51Speaker 1: about it is that it feels bootlegged because you can't
- 9:53Speaker 1: buy it. I actually looked recently and I found a
- 9:56Speaker 1: link and it was like, oh my gosh, you can
- 9:57Speaker 1: buy it, and it was like, no, you can't. It
- 10:00Speaker 1: was sort of a fake out. But because of that day,
- 10:02Speaker 1: the old commercials are in it, and the commercial from
- 10:06Speaker 1: the seventies and one of the news anchors and one
- 10:08Speaker 1: of the commercials got famous enough from that he's got
- 10:12Speaker 1: kind of a cult following because he says something like,
- 10:15Speaker 1: do you have a case of the Frizzies? He's about hair.
- 10:23Speaker 1: He's so confused by the whole thing. He is like,
- 10:25Speaker 1: I've done a lot in my life, but I get
- 10:27Speaker 1: asked about the.
- 10:28Speaker 2: Frizzies and he doesn't know he get.
- 10:32Speaker 1: I mean, they had an interview from him in there
- 10:37Speaker 1: that was really funny because I only have the one commercial.
- 10:39Speaker 1: Well no, no, there's a couple of commercials in mind,
- 10:41Speaker 1: but the Case of the Frizzies is not in there
- 10:43Speaker 1: in my bootlegged copy. The other part that was just
- 10:46Speaker 1: interesting was hearing from people who saw it the first
- 10:50Speaker 1: time and sort of the legacy of it, of that
- 10:55Speaker 1: wild time before it was what it became, when no
- 10:58Speaker 1: one knew it was going to happen, and it was
- 11:00Speaker 1: all of this wild stuff. I mean, disco Luke falls
- 11:02Speaker 1: under there too. It's like what was going on here?
- 11:05Speaker 1: And yes, the people who made it generally did not
- 11:09Speaker 1: know anything about Star Wars. They're much more in kind
- 11:11Speaker 1: of the variety variety world slash theater world. And they
- 11:16Speaker 1: did call it a project made out of spite, which
- 11:20Speaker 1: I feel like shows but yeah, because Georgia was basically like,
- 11:25Speaker 1: watch this, so I'm gonna find a way to promote
- 11:28Speaker 1: it myself if you won't help me, and then he
- 11:30Speaker 1: left and then this is yep. And then he hated
- 11:32Speaker 1: it and actually asked if it was possible to not
- 11:35Speaker 1: er it, but they'd spent too much money on it,
- 11:37Speaker 1: and they're like, you sign that you're in this contract.
- 11:40Speaker 1: So that was a good clarification because I've always heard
- 11:42Speaker 1: that he had nothing to do with it. He did
- 11:45Speaker 1: have something to do with the beginning, and then he
- 11:47Speaker 1: wasn't involved at all, And that was one of the
- 11:49Speaker 1: most like of a documentary about a Star Wars holiday special.
- 11:53Speaker 1: One of the most poignant moments was that they asked
- 11:56Speaker 1: somebody who had worked on it and they're like, what
- 11:58Speaker 1: do you think about him taking his name off of it?
- 12:01Speaker 1: And he was basically like, I've never taken my name
- 12:03Speaker 1: off of anything I did, whether it was bad or good.
- 12:05Speaker 1: It must be nice. Like oh, He's like, good on
- 12:11Speaker 1: you but some of that I remember. I've talked about this,
- 12:16Speaker 1: and some of the creators were like legitimately have fond
- 12:19Speaker 1: memories of making it. They still clearly remember it really well.
- 12:22Speaker 1: They were talking about all the decisions they made that
- 12:24Speaker 1: now seemed kind of silly. They had an interview with
- 12:27Speaker 1: like Jefferson Airplane in there, like we didn't know that
- 12:31Speaker 1: the effects were going to be that bad.
- 12:34Speaker 2: That's funny.
- 12:35Speaker 1: It was good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, But
- 12:39Speaker 1: it was an example of something that because Seth Green
- 12:48Speaker 1: was also big in this, and he was like, how.
- 12:50Speaker 2: Could you let Seth Green was the one that was.
- 12:53Speaker 1: He was a big part of the no not in
- 12:55Speaker 1: the in the documentary, Like.
- 12:57Speaker 2: Why was he a part of the documentary?
- 12:59Speaker 1: He's huge stars. He does like all the robot chicken stuff.
- 13:02Speaker 1: He doesn't just like oh okay, yeah, but he also
- 13:05Speaker 1: knows George Lucas and he was talking about that. He
- 13:08Speaker 1: was like, I asked him straight up, how did you
- 13:10Speaker 1: let this happen if you hated it so much? Like
- 13:12Speaker 1: how could this happen? Like it just those the studios
- 13:18Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And I've likely I've said before,
- 13:21Speaker 1: I feel like the Empire Strikes Back. Is it's an
- 13:25Speaker 1: interesting case because I believe we have the Empire Strikes
- 13:31Speaker 1: Back because of the Holiday special, and now that I've
- 13:33Speaker 1: watched the documentary, I think the reason is twofold one is.
- 13:36Speaker 1: The reason he left the Variety show George Lucas did
- 13:39Speaker 1: was because he went to go work on the Empire
- 13:41Speaker 1: Strikes Back. But also the reason he was like, I'm
- 13:44Speaker 1: not taking any studio money is because of the Holiday expressional.
- 13:48Speaker 1: Seems like I'm doing this on my own. Yeah. So
- 13:51Speaker 1: it's really interesting. I really like to it's really funny.
- 13:54Speaker 1: It's very very funny, and just to see the other
- 13:57Speaker 1: stuff in there. Because they did talk about the one
- 14:00Speaker 1: they say it's worse it has Donnie Osmond in it,
- 14:02Speaker 1: and they had him in it talking about that, he
- 14:05Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, we just thought it was
- 14:06Speaker 1: gonna be fun. We didn't know I was going to
- 14:08Speaker 1: be received.
- 14:09Speaker 2: Was Donnie Osborne like supposed to replace the camera?
- 14:13Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. I think his sister was Leah, which is interesting.
- 14:19Speaker 2: I mean thaid they didn't have to kiss.
- 14:23Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I haven't seen it yet, but it's in
- 14:25Speaker 1: my watch list.
- 14:27Speaker 2: I do not want to be a part of this Annie.
- 14:29Speaker 1: It's only seven minutes long. I'll tell you that. But
- 14:32Speaker 1: if they're saying seven minutes long, it is worse than
- 14:35Speaker 1: all this special It's pretty bad. I don't know. I'll
- 14:39Speaker 1: report back. I'll report back. I have to brace myself
- 14:42Speaker 1: for it. Which speaking of, I also have a final note.
- 14:44Speaker 1: I did go to a Star Wars theme parody Burless
- 14:47Speaker 1: show this weekend. It had a holiday Star Wars bar
- 14:52Speaker 1: attached to it, which is why I was originally there.
- 14:54Speaker 1: But then people were like, you should go see this.
- 14:56Speaker 1: It's called the Empire Strips. Back. I kept I was like,
- 15:01Speaker 1: I don't know if that's gonna be my thing, but
- 15:02Speaker 1: people kept telling people I trust We're like no, no, no,
- 15:04Speaker 1: it's gonna be a thing. It was very fun. I
- 15:06Speaker 1: laughed a lot. It is very very funny. I had
- 15:09Speaker 1: a good time. The drinks have funny descriptions, like there's
- 15:11Speaker 1: like Kylo rye of one of the ingredients is absent parents. Yeah.
- 15:20Speaker 1: I got the Layo one because solidarity. But they there
- 15:23Speaker 1: was a song between Han and Leant to Smooth Criminal,
- 15:27Speaker 1: So that was interesting experience hearing them sing and are
- 15:30Speaker 1: you okay? While there there was a song with Emperor
- 15:34Speaker 1: Palpa Pen called Wrecking Ball where he it was I
- 15:39Speaker 1: won't soon forget it. There was a sexy Luke. There's
- 15:43Speaker 1: been two sexy Luke dances. There was a whole thing
- 15:46Speaker 1: about Lea versus Padme, which everyone said Padme was sexyer
- 15:49Speaker 1: and I was like, huh, interesting. But I did like
- 15:51Speaker 1: they had the scene on tattooine and the bikini, but
- 15:57Speaker 1: they still had Lea killing Chappa in there, and I
- 15:59Speaker 1: was like, thank you. I feel like you have to
- 16:01Speaker 1: have that. If you're going to show that, you have
- 16:03Speaker 1: to have that. Yeah. But no, I had a good time.
- 16:05Speaker 1: I had I had a fun It was a fun
- 16:09Speaker 1: Star Wars end of the year things I've been enjoying.
- 16:12Speaker 2: I love it.
- 16:14Speaker 1: Yeah. So yes, this was very self indulgent. I appreciate
- 16:19Speaker 1: you all letting me share it, uh, because yeah, I
- 16:24Speaker 1: just had a good old time. I watched that documentary
- 16:31Speaker 1: several times already, did you really? Yeah, it's really funny.
- 16:36Speaker 1: There's one of the guys behind making it was like,
- 16:41Speaker 1: there's something about a train wreck like this that is
- 16:44Speaker 1: so fascinating. That's how did it happen? Yeah, that's the question.
- 16:50Speaker 1: Well that is the question. And I did learn quite
- 16:52Speaker 1: a bit, but yes, cheers, cheers to you, Cheers to
- 16:57Speaker 1: you listeners. Oh and none of this response or by
- 17:00Speaker 1: the way, anything I talked about, I've probably never heard
- 17:04Speaker 1: of me.
- 17:05Speaker 2: If they ever say, hey, would you like to be
- 17:07Speaker 2: sponsored by the Star Wars Variety Show Holiday Special? Oh
- 17:13Speaker 2: my god, I'll be like.
- 17:15Speaker 1: In what way? How would that work?
- 17:18Speaker 2: How does this work?
- 17:21Speaker 1: They did have a whole conversation about will one day
- 17:24Speaker 1: it be embraced because you still cannot get it. You
- 17:27Speaker 1: can get pieces of it on Disney Plus, but you
- 17:30Speaker 1: cannot get it.
- 17:30Speaker 2: Isn't it technically embraced. It's just that it's not embraced
- 17:33Speaker 2: by the makers.
- 17:35Speaker 1: It's not. Yes, because like I said that it has
- 17:37Speaker 1: gone mainstream in terms of like you can get merchant
- 17:40Speaker 1: like official merchandise, and you can go to Disney and
- 17:42Speaker 1: they have a day, but like they don't. You cannot
- 17:45Speaker 1: stream it anywhere, you cannot buy it anywhere. You can
- 17:48Speaker 1: see pieces of it. So will one day that happen?
- 17:51Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll see, we'll see. But in the meantime, well,
- 17:58Speaker 1: if you have any thoughts about any of this, Some people,
- 18:01Speaker 1: some of you have written in about Empire strips back thanks. Yes,
- 18:06Speaker 1: I think I got some suggestions from listeners about it.
- 18:09Speaker 1: You can all right to us about any of those
- 18:12Speaker 1: things I always love hearing about that. You can email us.
- 18:14Speaker 1: It's Steph at Media Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
- 18:17Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
- 18:19Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at stuff I Never Told You. We
- 18:22Speaker 1: have a tea public store. There is a disco Ani
- 18:25Speaker 1: shirt in there. Yes, that falls under what we were
- 18:28Speaker 1: just talking about. I would say it does. It's also
- 18:32Speaker 1: a book that we have you can get wherever you
- 18:35Speaker 1: get your books where I do talk about a lot
- 18:36Speaker 1: of this Star Wars stuff as well. Yes, thanks as
- 18:40Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
- 18:43Speaker 1: and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
- 18:45Speaker 1: for listening. Stuff I Never Told You is production of
- 18:47Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
- 18:49Speaker 1: can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or where
- 18:51Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.
- 19:02Speaker 2: Ya