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Selects: Star Wars Holiday Spectacular · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: It's that time, everybody. It's time to kick off the
0:04
Speaker 1: holiday season with the annual playing of our episode on
0:08
Speaker 1: the patently terrible Star Wars Holiday Special. I hope the
0:12
Speaker 1: select finds you merry and bright, cozy and happy, filled
0:16
Speaker 1: with the holiday spirit, and I hope you guys are
0:19
Speaker 1: all having a wonderful Christmas time. Welcome to Stuff you
0:27
Speaker 1: should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and
0:36
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
0:40
Speaker 1: Chuckers Bryant and Jerry Jerome Roland. Uh. Who's the Wookie mother? Yeah? Mala,
0:50
Speaker 1: that was the Wookie wife. Oh and mother? Yeah? Sure,
0:53
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's bomb is not with them any longer. She left.
0:57
Speaker 1: She was not about to appear in that she went
0:59
Speaker 1: up the window. I'm excited about this. I have to
1:04
Speaker 1: say we should say Happy Star Wars Day. Yeah. Today
1:08
Speaker 1: is um December. Um, I have my opening night tickets?
1:13
Speaker 1: Do you really sure? Wow? You know? I do you
1:19
Speaker 1: into it? Oh? Yeah, well I will definitely go see
1:21
Speaker 1: it in the theater, But um, why won't be the
1:24
Speaker 1: opening night? Sure? I've gotten really adept at like ignoring spoilers,
1:29
Speaker 1: people talking about stuff all like, so I can I
1:31
Speaker 1: could conceivably see this movie a month after it comes
1:35
Speaker 1: out and still going fresh. It's I'm an ostrich. Yeah
1:40
Speaker 1: you black yourself out. Yeah you go dark? Do I
1:45
Speaker 1: make myself go to sleep face? You go to the
1:47
Speaker 1: dark side. I've been there a while now. Uh. Well,
1:51
Speaker 1: Happy Star Wars Day though, I'm sure that I think
1:54
Speaker 1: this pairs nicely with Christmas Star Wars Day. It's all
1:57
Speaker 1: come together. Yes, Um, we already missed Life Day though,
2:00
Speaker 1: so happy belated Life Day. Are they celebrating it this year? November? Yeah,
2:06
Speaker 1: but it's every three years. Mm hmm, our cane man job. Okay,
2:12
Speaker 1: so it's every three years, started in nineteen seventy eight.
2:16
Speaker 1: Let's do the math, shall we? Mm hmmm? Quick math break.
2:21
Speaker 1: I believe that two thousand fourteen was the last Life Day. Man,
2:26
Speaker 1: we just missed, and then again in twenty seventeen. Okay,
2:28
Speaker 1: so seen, we'll celebrate Life Day. Will put on our
2:31
Speaker 1: red robes, are ultralong, straight ironed wigs, and we'll celebrate
2:37
Speaker 1: Life Day the way it was meant to. Yes, and
2:39
Speaker 1: if you have no idea what we're talking about, we
2:42
Speaker 1: are talking about Life Day, which is a celebration. Uh
2:47
Speaker 1: that Wookies in the Star Wars universe have every three years. Yeah,
2:50
Speaker 1: it's like their Christmas or the Kanza their tech. Supposedly,
2:56
Speaker 1: it's sort of like Earth Day two. They celebrate the
2:58
Speaker 1: diversity of their ecosystem, uh, and also remembrance of the dead,
3:02
Speaker 1: and they also give gifts. They're like the Finns basically. Yeah,
3:06
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very interesting part of the Star
3:08
Speaker 1: Wars canon. It is, and it's almost entirely made up,
3:12
Speaker 1: dashed off you could possibly say, by um, George Lucas
3:16
Speaker 1: in the seventies. Um, And it's the basis of what
3:21
Speaker 1: is become derided as like one of the worst things
3:25
Speaker 1: that ever happened to the Star Wars galaxy. Well, not
3:28
Speaker 1: only that, one of the worst things ever aired on television. Yeah,
3:31
Speaker 1: with this galaxy. Yeah, at first that sounds like hyperbole, like,
3:36
Speaker 1: come on, it's because it was Star Wars, we had
3:38
Speaker 1: high expectations. But it's really that bad. Yeah. The people
3:41
Speaker 1: who say that haven't seen even a second of it. Yeah. Yeah, However,
3:45
Speaker 1: I watched it, uh when I was a kid. Then
3:48
Speaker 1: again this week, and you watched it twice this week. Yeah,
3:52
Speaker 1: I watched it last night and this morning. There's something
3:55
Speaker 1: about it. It's mesmerizing. It really is. It's one of
3:58
Speaker 1: those things that you start watching it and you want
4:02
Speaker 1: to turn it off, but you want to see just
4:04
Speaker 1: how absurd it can get. Almost Yeah, and it starts absurd,
4:08
Speaker 1: it stays absurd. In the middle, it's increasingly more absurd,
4:12
Speaker 1: it gets a little less absurd, finishes super absurd. Yeah,
4:15
Speaker 1: it's just a train wreck in every single sense of
4:18
Speaker 1: the word to bottom. It's extraordinarily difficult to overstate how
4:23
Speaker 1: bad this is. And some people, you know, in researching this,
4:26
Speaker 1: you read about it, you read descriptions of these things,
4:29
Speaker 1: and it just can't possibly be gotten across until you
4:33
Speaker 1: see it. So luckily, as we will see, you can
4:35
Speaker 1: go onto YouTube and watch it, and you may even
4:38
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode more if you pause, go spend two
4:42
Speaker 1: hours watching this thing, and then come back and laugh
4:46
Speaker 1: along with us. Yeah, there's a great Over the years,
4:48
Speaker 1: there have been many segments of it on YouTube from
4:51
Speaker 1: badly dub VHS tapes, but there's one really pretty good
4:55
Speaker 1: version of it in full um brought to you by
5:00
Speaker 1: w h I O Dayton, Ohio, Channel seven. Because that
5:04
Speaker 1: flashes up on the screen periodically. Man, it is high quality.
5:09
Speaker 1: It looks good. It has to basically be the copy
5:12
Speaker 1: that the actual UM affiliate broadcast. Yeah, it's like that,
5:16
Speaker 1: that quality compared to the other stuff floating around on YouTube,
5:19
Speaker 1: clearly recorded on a pc R, which we're really expensive,
5:24
Speaker 1: very expensive. I did some calculating on west Egg UM,
5:27
Speaker 1: so the average VCR went for about a thousand dollars.
5:30
Speaker 1: There were brand new it's amazing thousand dollars in ninety
5:33
Speaker 1: eight money, so they're about thirty eight hundred dollars in
5:35
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen money. Luckily, there were some rich people
5:39
Speaker 1: out there recording this stuff, and the wealthy have saved
5:43
Speaker 1: us all again yet again, as they always do. Uh.
5:47
Speaker 1: We need to shout out some articles that we use
5:50
Speaker 1: for this. There's great a great article in Vanity Fair
5:53
Speaker 1: called the Han Solo Comedy Our exclamation Point by Frank D. Jacomo.
5:59
Speaker 1: And then there's the Star Wars Holiday Special was the
6:01
Speaker 1: worst thing on television ever by So when we kind
6:04
Speaker 1: of know Alex Pasternak uh from Motherboard, Yeah, which is
6:09
Speaker 1: uh not wired, it's uh vice. We wrote a little
6:12
Speaker 1: bit for Motherboard back then and we had a call
6:15
Speaker 1: with that, like we're like old Motherboard vets basically and
6:19
Speaker 1: the one there one more, there was another one and
6:21
Speaker 1: I don't know who wrote this one chuck. Uh, yeah,
6:25
Speaker 1: it's the titles the Star Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas
6:28
Speaker 1: wants to smash every copy of with a sledgehammer, which
6:31
Speaker 1: was a famous quote, uh supposedly at a convention by Lucas. Yes,
6:36
Speaker 1: which is not correct. He didn't ever say that. No, okay,
6:39
Speaker 1: that that sounded like something that people made up. Yes,
6:42
Speaker 1: but if you go on the internet you will quickly
6:44
Speaker 1: believe that he did. Apparently didn't, so let's I'm sure
6:47
Speaker 1: he felt that way though, clearly, because he did appear
6:50
Speaker 1: on Robot Chicken and I think two thousand five on
6:53
Speaker 1: the Therapist Couch talking about how much he hated the special. Alright,
6:57
Speaker 1: so let's set the background, shall we Shall we go
6:59
Speaker 1: back to nineteen seventy summer, getting the old way back machine.
7:03
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it. All right, here we are,
7:11
Speaker 1: there's Waterson. Yeah, I'm just a little six year old
7:14
Speaker 1: excited about Star Wars. I am. I've just turned one. Yes,
7:19
Speaker 1: you don't know what's up yet. I please forgive me
7:22
Speaker 1: if I urinate myself, no problem. Ok Uh, So what
7:26
Speaker 1: has happened is Star Wars has become a huge, huge hit,
7:30
Speaker 1: seemingly out of nowhere, establishing George Lucas is one of
7:34
Speaker 1: the brilliant young minds and filmmaking. Even though it was
7:37
Speaker 1: in his first movie, it was his first huge, huge
7:39
Speaker 1: breakout hit. Oh yeah, for sure, talk don't mean to
7:42
Speaker 1: talk about a breakout hit like no one had ever
7:44
Speaker 1: seen anything like it before two thousand one had come
7:47
Speaker 1: out in the late sixties. But it wasn't it's still
7:52
Speaker 1: it still isn't accessible to all audiences, you know. Yeah,
7:54
Speaker 1: it's kind of cerebral film. Yeah, it's not an adventure movie.
7:57
Speaker 1: This was this is like basically swa s buckling on
8:00
Speaker 1: the screen, but you know, in a galaxy far far away.
8:03
Speaker 1: Star Wars just changed everything and it came on just
8:06
Speaker 1: like a hammer um and a new hope. By the way, yes,
8:11
Speaker 1: and then then we're gonna get stuff wrong, nerds, So yes,
8:13
Speaker 1: just go ahead and get your little fingers ready to
8:15
Speaker 1: email us. Like if it wasn't driven home that I'm
8:18
Speaker 1: not a nerd by the fact that I don't have
8:20
Speaker 1: opening night tickets or any tickets yet, give me a break,
8:23
Speaker 1: and by proxy chuck to okay, thank you. So, um,
8:28
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to stay how great Star Wars was
8:32
Speaker 1: in everyone's mind, right. Bill Murray came out with that
8:35
Speaker 1: lounge singer Star Wars thing. It was everywhere and if
8:38
Speaker 1: you if you just listen to the lyrics of it,
8:41
Speaker 1: he's really it's just Bill Murray singing about how much
8:44
Speaker 1: Star Wars is awesome. Right. So, by the following year, Um,
8:50
Speaker 1: George Lucas was he wanted to figure out a way
8:53
Speaker 1: to keep audiences just engaged with the whole Star Wars
8:57
Speaker 1: franchise that he was just starting to build. But he
8:59
Speaker 1: knew the Empire Strikes Back was a couple more years out,
9:03
Speaker 1: so um he I think he was approached by some
9:06
Speaker 1: TV executives who said, have you considered doing some sort
9:10
Speaker 1: of TV special? They're all the rage right now. We
9:13
Speaker 1: have a we have a graphic that's really awesome that
9:17
Speaker 1: we set aside just for TV specials here at CBS.
9:21
Speaker 1: Why don't you let us let's get together and do
9:23
Speaker 1: a Star Wars special. That's right. Producers Gary Smith and
9:26
Speaker 1: Dwight him On, Uh, we're working over at CBS, and
9:30
Speaker 1: they said, this is a great way to keep the
9:32
Speaker 1: spirit alive. While you're making your other movie, maybe move
9:36
Speaker 1: some more toys. Yeah, which George Lucas got to. So
9:41
Speaker 1: it was right before Thanksgiving, and he said, there'll be
9:43
Speaker 1: a lot of people watching TV um pre holiday season,
9:47
Speaker 1: or I guess in the holiday season. Well, the weekend
9:49
Speaker 1: before Thanksgiving, it's like everybody's shopping, sitting around family like
9:53
Speaker 1: waiting to actually do stuff. That's perfect time to broadcast
9:56
Speaker 1: something on TV. So Lucas says, all right, let's do
9:59
Speaker 1: the US. I don't have a ton of time, but
10:03
Speaker 1: how about this. I'll get I'll get a story together,
10:05
Speaker 1: and then you can go hire a whiz bang team
10:08
Speaker 1: of of veteran writers and producers and directors whatever genre
10:12
Speaker 1: you think is appropriate. And those are the words that
10:15
Speaker 1: will haunt George Lucas to his grave. Yeah, so Lucas said,
10:19
Speaker 1: here's my idea. I wanted to be based um on Wookiees,
10:23
Speaker 1: and I wanted to take place on their home planet
10:26
Speaker 1: of Kizuok or wikie planet. See is that how you
10:30
Speaker 1: say kazuk. That's how it's pronounced in the episode the
10:34
Speaker 1: Holiday Special, but it's also pronounced different ways. Other times.
10:39
Speaker 1: I would have pronounced that cassey e got spell it
10:43
Speaker 1: k a s h y y y k, which I mean,
10:47
Speaker 1: I guess that sounds like Chewbuck is planet sure also
10:50
Speaker 1: called G five, Wilkie planet see or Eaton is a
10:54
Speaker 1: mid rim planet. Right. So the whole reason, apparently that
10:57
Speaker 1: George Lucas was interested in featuring the Keys was it
11:01
Speaker 1: is what we in show business call low hanging fruit.
11:05
Speaker 1: The reason why it was low hanging fruit was because
11:07
Speaker 1: they had just established the different scenes that would make
11:11
Speaker 1: the cut for Empire Strikes Back and uh, what how
11:16
Speaker 1: did you pronounce it? Again? Kazook. Kazook had not made
11:19
Speaker 1: the cut. Uh. Even prior to this, apparently for a
11:22
Speaker 1: new hope, George Lucas had whipped up a forty page
11:25
Speaker 1: what's known as the Wookie Bible. It's like a forty
11:27
Speaker 1: page supplement that's all about Kazook and Wookies and Chewbacca
11:33
Speaker 1: and his family and everything about Wookie doom. Right, So
11:37
Speaker 1: he's like, I've got this thing already, you know established
11:40
Speaker 1: I love Wookies. Um, they didn't make the cut. I'm
11:43
Speaker 1: a little sad about that. They're not gonna Kazuok is
11:46
Speaker 1: not going to show up in an Empire strikes Back.
11:48
Speaker 1: Let's let's build the entire special around wookies. It's basically
11:52
Speaker 1: the one demand me George Lucas has that's it. I'll
11:56
Speaker 1: be totally hands off from this point on which you
11:59
Speaker 1: kind of was he totally wasn't. It was actually this
12:01
Speaker 1: experience that apparently taught him to be the very hands
12:05
Speaker 1: on a person that he is famous for being. It
12:07
Speaker 1: came out of this Christmas special. Absolutely he was burned
12:11
Speaker 1: and um had an iron grip after that on everything.
12:15
Speaker 1: So here's some some of the folks behind it. Bruce Valanche,
12:19
Speaker 1: famous uh TV writer. You probably seen him on Hollywood Squares.
12:23
Speaker 1: Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas pinch On for a while?
12:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, or was Thomas pinch On on Hollywood Squares?
12:29
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I may be confabulating some stuff confounding. Yeah,
12:35
Speaker 1: there's some kind of some sort going on. It sounds
12:37
Speaker 1: like it. So Valanche was hired as a writer. A
12:40
Speaker 1: guy named Lenny Rips was hired as a writer who
12:44
Speaker 1: has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article he does.
12:48
Speaker 1: His first quote was we were really excited because this
12:51
Speaker 1: is Star Wars. How could it lose? Famous last words?
12:56
Speaker 1: Who else was hired. There was a husband and wife team,
13:00
Speaker 1: the welch Is, who are the parents of of folk
13:04
Speaker 1: singer Gillian Welch. I'm a big fan of and I
13:07
Speaker 1: had no idea that her parents they were producers slash
13:11
Speaker 1: songwriters of the day. They were big on the variety
13:14
Speaker 1: show scene, which would turn out to be a really
13:16
Speaker 1: key cog in this whole experience. So I feel like,
13:20
Speaker 1: right about here, Jerry should insert a needle coming off
13:24
Speaker 1: of a record sound effect. Okay, thanks Jerry. So Chuck,
13:29
Speaker 1: you just said singer songwriters. What would that have to
13:32
Speaker 1: do with Star Wars. Yeah, well, actually, in this Star
13:36
Speaker 1: Wars holiday special, for those of you hadn't seen it,
13:39
Speaker 1: there are musical numbers. They decided from the outset that
13:43
Speaker 1: there should be musical numbers. And the reason that they
13:45
Speaker 1: decided that there should be musical numbers is because the
13:48
Speaker 1: people who sold George Lucas and at the time it
13:51
Speaker 1: was start the Star Wars Corporation was what it was
13:53
Speaker 1: called um On. The idea of doing this TV special
13:57
Speaker 1: was that everyone would love a variety show. Yeah, it
14:00
Speaker 1: was the seventies. Great idea, let's do a variety show.
14:03
Speaker 1: The problem was this apparently George Lucas didn't watch enough TV,
14:07
Speaker 1: and he also overly trusted people who talked to him
14:10
Speaker 1: because by yes, variety shows had dominated television for over
14:16
Speaker 1: ten years, but it had come to an end. It
14:19
Speaker 1: was getting stale. Yeah, we're talking to Carol Burnett show,
14:23
Speaker 1: one of my favorite had just been canceled after eleven seasons.
14:27
Speaker 1: Big Sonny and Chair had just had its last season.
14:31
Speaker 1: I mean, what else, like he Hall was he? I
14:33
Speaker 1: was still going on, probably still on solid golden yet
14:39
Speaker 1: to come on and take up the mantel that that
14:41
Speaker 1: would never variety show. Oh that was a little bit
14:44
Speaker 1: and there was talking in between the songs. Remember the
14:47
Speaker 1: Mandrell's Sisters show. I never watched that one. Well, it's
14:51
Speaker 1: with that country chic thing that happened. Yeah, it was
14:54
Speaker 1: a big deal in the it's kind of happening again.
14:56
Speaker 1: I think, Oh, because of that dude, the guy who
15:00
Speaker 1: won all the c m A Awards. I don't know,
15:03
Speaker 1: he's like, he's he came along. He's like actually country.
15:07
Speaker 1: His dad's like a coal miner for real from Kentucky.
15:09
Speaker 1: I think I know you mean Chris was something. Yeah,
15:12
Speaker 1: he's he is good. He's come along and been like,
15:14
Speaker 1: what are you guys doing. Well, there's a revival in
15:16
Speaker 1: like good country music. Again, that's like in the tradition
15:19
Speaker 1: of Merle, Haggard and Cash and I guess that's probably
15:22
Speaker 1: where the country sheet came from, because there was actually
15:24
Speaker 1: good country going on. Yeah, Johnny Cash out a variety show,
15:28
Speaker 1: did he really? Yeah? I knew they did, like a
15:31
Speaker 1: Sunday singing thing like out in Virginia. Yeah, he had
15:34
Speaker 1: his own variety show was actually pretty good. There's some
15:36
Speaker 1: like really great performances. Do you know how many nerds
15:39
Speaker 1: are like, get back to Star Wars? I know, I'm
15:41
Speaker 1: so sorry. All right, So the Variety Show is is
15:44
Speaker 1: dying sort of, and so they figure, what a great
15:47
Speaker 1: time to take the biggest movie property on the planet
15:51
Speaker 1: and wedge it into the variety show milieu. I don't
15:55
Speaker 1: know if wedge is the right word. I think maybe
15:57
Speaker 1: uh nestle it in there and then start hitting it
16:01
Speaker 1: with the blunt edge of an axe until it mashes
16:04
Speaker 1: into that crevice. You know. Because this is the time
16:08
Speaker 1: when Fantasy Island had just started, um Mork and Mindy
16:12
Speaker 1: was about to change things. Charlie's Angels was getting huge.
16:16
Speaker 1: It basically television as we knew it from two whenever
16:21
Speaker 1: the real world came along. Just escape as television is
16:24
Speaker 1: what they called it was was starting and it was
16:27
Speaker 1: the hip new thing. So basically, if they had turned
16:29
Speaker 1: Han Solo and Princess Leiah and Luke Skywalker into maybe
16:33
Speaker 1: you know, sexy detectives, it might have gone over even better.
16:37
Speaker 1: But they went the other way. They decided to latch
16:39
Speaker 1: onto this extraordinarily stale um genre of television and they
16:45
Speaker 1: hired the best in the business, like there was there was.
16:48
Speaker 1: There was a quote from I think Lenny RiPPs who
16:50
Speaker 1: was saying, like we had literally a dream team, a
16:53
Speaker 1: variety show dream team, and everybody was good, but there
16:58
Speaker 1: were probably no bad worlders the Titanic he there, That's
17:01
Speaker 1: a great quote. Yeah. The guy they hired too directed
17:04
Speaker 1: initially was a dude named David A. Coomba, and he
17:07
Speaker 1: had made his name for Welcome to the Fillmore East.
17:10
Speaker 1: It was a concert documentary with Van Mortrison, Van Morrison
17:14
Speaker 1: and the Birds in nine one, and he actually was
17:17
Speaker 1: at usc Film School the same time as Lucas, even
17:20
Speaker 1: though they didn't know each other, and um he only
17:23
Speaker 1: ended up directing about three segments of the thing before
17:26
Speaker 1: he quit yet before he walked off. Some say he
17:29
Speaker 1: was actually let go, but we'll get to him in
17:31
Speaker 1: a minute, and who replaced him. As as we get
17:34
Speaker 1: along down this uh gross road, well let's let's take
17:38
Speaker 1: a little break because I'm I'm overly excited, Okay, George, Alright,
18:02
Speaker 1: So we've established most of the main players. We'll we'll
18:04
Speaker 1: get to a few more. We should point out that, um,
18:08
Speaker 1: Mark hamill And and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew,
18:14
Speaker 1: they had no grounds to refuse to be on this. Basically, yeah,
18:18
Speaker 1: pretty much. They were not huge, huge stars, yet they
18:21
Speaker 1: could throw their weight around and say this is terrible
18:23
Speaker 1: and I'm not doing it. They were. They were big
18:25
Speaker 1: overnight because of Star Wars, for sure, but they weren't
18:30
Speaker 1: to the adoring public. Back at the studio. They could
18:33
Speaker 1: still be bossed around and this was the result of it.
18:36
Speaker 1: And you can tell also, um, just from watching the
18:39
Speaker 1: actual special, like Harrison Ford is not happy to be
18:43
Speaker 1: there at any point. Um. Princess Leiah is clearly on drugs.
18:49
Speaker 1: Uh was she on drugs at this point? She? If
18:53
Speaker 1: you watch it, she's she's on drugs, Especially the ending scene.
18:56
Speaker 1: Mark cambell It looks like he's happy to be there.
18:59
Speaker 1: Act he was fine, but apparently he said no, I'm
19:02
Speaker 1: I'm not doing a musical number. And if you watch
19:06
Speaker 1: his part, wedging a musical number in there would have
19:08
Speaker 1: been even more painful. Um. But they everybody who was
19:13
Speaker 1: part of the actual Star Wars franchise that wasn't wearing
19:16
Speaker 1: like a full body costume was like, I really wish
19:20
Speaker 1: I wasn't here, And you can tell, oh yeah. In fact,
19:23
Speaker 1: in the opening uh credit sequence, they're showing the picture
19:27
Speaker 1: that you know, the faces of the people, and you
19:30
Speaker 1: see Harrison Ford as if he's flying the Millennium Falcon,
19:32
Speaker 1: and you can you can just hear the guy off
19:34
Speaker 1: screen going now look at the camera and just give
19:37
Speaker 1: a nod. Just look at the camera and give a nod.
19:39
Speaker 1: And he finally you can tell he's piste off and
19:41
Speaker 1: he looks up at the camera and just sort of
19:43
Speaker 1: smirks yeah and points at the camera like okay, I'm
19:45
Speaker 1: looking at the camera, and then goes back to what
19:47
Speaker 1: he's doing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I felt bad for
19:50
Speaker 1: him so early on Valanche and others did you did
19:53
Speaker 1: you feel bad for him? Though? Really I mean, like,
19:57
Speaker 1: come on, it's Harrison Ford's hans soul. He has to
20:00
Speaker 1: go do this for like five days. Yeah, I felt
20:03
Speaker 1: terrible for him. I think it's hilarious that they had
20:06
Speaker 1: to do this, especially now. Well, early on, Valanche and
20:09
Speaker 1: others knew that they may be in trouble because they
20:11
Speaker 1: decided not to subtitle any of the Wookie dialogue and
20:16
Speaker 1: they literally started after a brief opening scene setting it
20:19
Speaker 1: up here. Here's the basic plot is, Han Solo is
20:23
Speaker 1: trying to get Chewbacca back to Kazook in time for
20:26
Speaker 1: Life Day so we can celebrate with his family. That's
20:29
Speaker 1: the basis of the entire two Yes, the basis the
20:32
Speaker 1: entire two hours. They encounter a space battle and they're delayed,
20:37
Speaker 1: and the next two hours are kind of what's going
20:39
Speaker 1: on while the delay is happening back on Kazoo, back
20:43
Speaker 1: on Kazook. Because you hear, like, okay, well, Han Solo
20:46
Speaker 1: and Chewbacca evading the Imperial Guard and all that stuff
20:50
Speaker 1: for two hours. I would watch that. I would too. Ye,
20:53
Speaker 1: that's not what they show. Killing time at the Wookie household,
20:57
Speaker 1: that is what they show. Yeah, that's what they do.
21:00
Speaker 1: It's people hanging out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him,
21:04
Speaker 1: and then killing time while they wait for him to
21:07
Speaker 1: come back. Literally, so um and so hold on. So
21:10
Speaker 1: you say there's a setup, right, Yeah, that's the initial
21:12
Speaker 1: set up, and then chuck, that's followed by this. Yeah,
21:16
Speaker 1: it's followed by literally ten minutes, ten solid minutes of
21:23
Speaker 1: incomprehensible Wookie speak. So let's let's join it for a second,
21:27
Speaker 1: shall we. Yeah, let's all enjoy it. And again, you
22:14
Speaker 1: said ten minutes, and you're not exaggerating, you're not being hyperbolic.
22:19
Speaker 1: You can time it. That's it's ten minutes of wookie's
22:22
Speaker 1: talking to each other with no subtitles. Fortunately, I couldn't
22:26
Speaker 1: follow it at first, like I didn't even know who
22:28
Speaker 1: it was. I thought it was might have been Chewbacca's
22:32
Speaker 1: mom and dad. Oh yeah, that's a little brother. And
22:36
Speaker 1: I don't find out until later when Mark Cambell shows
22:38
Speaker 1: up via skype call and says, he really explains everything
22:43
Speaker 1: that had just happened, Like, you're Chewbacca's father, itchy, you'r
22:48
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's son, uh, lumpy lumpy, and you're Chewbacca's wife. Yeah,
22:54
Speaker 1: thank you. So before everybody starts like freaking out. We
22:58
Speaker 1: know that that's actually their nick names. Their real names are.
23:02
Speaker 1: His father is a Ti chick cook, a Ti chick cook,
23:06
Speaker 1: it's really hard to pronounce. Mulatto Buck is his wife,
23:10
Speaker 1: and his son is Lumpo war Rump but as named
23:14
Speaker 1: by Lucas. But yeah, but Lucas also named him Lumpy
23:17
Speaker 1: Itchy and Mala so Um. They're all back there wringing
23:23
Speaker 1: their hands, trying to figure out ways to pass the
23:25
Speaker 1: time until they get word from Chewbacca that he's made
23:28
Speaker 1: it to uh what is it, ketchuck z kazuok um
23:34
Speaker 1: just ketchup ketchup or cats up if you're fancy um.
23:38
Speaker 1: But Chewbacca is having trouble getting back to Katchuk because
23:44
Speaker 1: there's Kazuki, because there's a blockade by the Empire and
23:49
Speaker 1: they're looking for rebels, specifically Chewbacca, who I didn't realize this.
23:53
Speaker 1: He's the most famous Wookie of all. Did you know that? Yeah,
23:55
Speaker 1: of course I didn't know that. Well, I mean he's
23:58
Speaker 1: the only one that really appears in the movie bes
24:00
Speaker 1: I mean we're seeing, like, you know, these people's view
24:04
Speaker 1: of the universe. What about back on Zook, Yeah, he
24:09
Speaker 1: might have just been a fly by night wookie, right, yeah,
24:11
Speaker 1: but not the case very famous wookie. Yeah, and he
24:14
Speaker 1: really loved it, like soak in his fame. Alright, So
24:18
Speaker 1: he realizes there's a problem. Valanche. He goes to Lucas
24:21
Speaker 1: and it's like, I don't know, man, this is your world,
24:24
Speaker 1: but it may not be the strongest thing to do
24:28
Speaker 1: to set this in wookie Land and have all this
24:30
Speaker 1: incomprehensible dialogue. And he says he was met with a
24:34
Speaker 1: glacial stare. Uh. Well, he put it a little differently
24:37
Speaker 1: than that. Well, he said glacial stair. He did. The
24:41
Speaker 1: glacial stair that he got was for this quote. He said,
24:45
Speaker 1: these people just talking what sounds like fat people having
24:48
Speaker 1: an orgasm. He goes, if you want, you can set
24:50
Speaker 1: up a tape recorder in my bedroom and I'll do
24:52
Speaker 1: all of the follying for it. Yeah. He's a large guy,
24:55
Speaker 1: he is, so uh that's what got the glacial stare.
24:58
Speaker 1: But Valanche later said that from this, there was one
25:01
Speaker 1: development meeting that Lucas attended and it was here's the
25:05
Speaker 1: Wookie Bible, tell me what you got. And Valanche said
25:09
Speaker 1: he and the other writers and producers and director were
25:12
Speaker 1: just kind of throwing ideas and George Lucas would either
25:15
Speaker 1: say like, no, that doesn't work, give him a glacial stare,
25:19
Speaker 1: or say, yes, that's exactly it. Yes, let's make this
25:22
Speaker 1: a variety show. Yeah, And there was a little bit
25:24
Speaker 1: of um background there. The cantina players in the band
25:29
Speaker 1: had appeared on other variety shows at that point, and
25:33
Speaker 1: I think it went over a fairly well, just as
25:35
Speaker 1: a short segment on like the Richard Pryor Variety Show
25:39
Speaker 1: or Donnie Marie um Man. There were a lot of
25:43
Speaker 1: variety shows. But that's what I'm saying. It was that
25:46
Speaker 1: was television. That's what you did, like the Birds um
25:50
Speaker 1: the The show had its course and then it became
25:53
Speaker 1: a variety show. It was just everybody love variety shows.
25:58
Speaker 1: By this time, though, everybody was sick of I D
26:00
Speaker 1: shows and so it really was a terrible choice. In fact,
26:04
Speaker 1: they even hired a couple of writers from Shields and Yarnell,
26:07
Speaker 1: which I hadn't heard of it. Oh yeah, I watched it.
26:10
Speaker 1: It was creepy, this mind couple who had their own
26:14
Speaker 1: variety show, and they figured these two will be great
26:19
Speaker 1: because they are used to working without words, right, so
26:22
Speaker 1: and so there is a certain logic to the variety show.
26:24
Speaker 1: It's not that's just that variety shows were popular at
26:28
Speaker 1: the time. Somebody was like, well, Wookie's you don't understand
26:32
Speaker 1: what they're saying. So this is all going to be
26:33
Speaker 1: very physical. So these people who who did what is
26:37
Speaker 1: it Shields and Yard, Now, yeah, that that's a perfect choice.
26:41
Speaker 1: That that makes complete sense. You can see this whole
26:44
Speaker 1: this whole process of leading up to the point where
26:46
Speaker 1: it was produced and shot and everything a series of like, oh,
26:50
Speaker 1: we have this problem, Well here's a fix, but that
26:53
Speaker 1: leads to another problem. Well we'll fix it with this,
26:55
Speaker 1: and and no one stepping back and being like, all
26:58
Speaker 1: we've done is create a series of problems that are
27:01
Speaker 1: going to come together and make one extraordinarily large problem
27:05
Speaker 1: that will become legendary. No one did that, and so
27:08
Speaker 1: the whole thing was was made. That's right. And it
27:11
Speaker 1: eventually airs on November seventeen, night Friday at eight pm
27:17
Speaker 1: Eastern time. That's right, and Nielsen ratings it um attracted
27:23
Speaker 1: thirteen million viewers just the second hour, just in the US.
27:28
Speaker 1: It aired in six or seven countries total. Yeah, but
27:31
Speaker 1: no one cares about that. I guess not, because none
27:33
Speaker 1: of those are on the internet, you know. Uh, it
27:35
Speaker 1: finished second to the Love Boat in the second I'm
27:38
Speaker 1: sorry from eight to nine, and in the next hour
27:40
Speaker 1: actually finished behind part two of a mini series about
27:43
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor starring Angie Dickinson. So it didn't even win
27:47
Speaker 1: their respective hours. No, thirteen million, that's that's not bad.
27:51
Speaker 1: The thing is, apparently if you look at the Nielsen
27:54
Speaker 1: ratings graph for the first hour, yeah we know about
27:57
Speaker 1: that graph. It's okay, yeah, we do. Then after a
28:02
Speaker 1: very important part, which we'll talk about soon. Um, it
28:04
Speaker 1: just drops off at the end of the first hour,
28:07
Speaker 1: and that actually probably made the executives at CBS cringe
28:11
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Number one is this special
28:14
Speaker 1: was originally supposed to just be an hour, but so
28:17
Speaker 1: many advertisers wanted to sign on that they extended it
28:21
Speaker 1: to two hours. And it shines through you can totally
28:26
Speaker 1: tell that this thing was never supposed to I think
28:29
Speaker 1: an hour might have been stretching it. To tell you
28:31
Speaker 1: the truth, it's thirty minutes of content forty if you're generous,
28:35
Speaker 1: an hour, and then two hours. It becomes one of
28:39
Speaker 1: the worst things that was ever put on television. All right, well,
28:42
Speaker 1: let's take a break and then we'll talk a little
28:44
Speaker 1: bit more about the actual um uh even I don't
28:48
Speaker 1: want to call it content, but it is content in
28:51
Speaker 1: the strictest definitions. Right after this, alright, so the show itself,
29:17
Speaker 1: we've given you the main plot line, which again is
29:20
Speaker 1: that Chewy is trying to get back to his home
29:23
Speaker 1: planet to celebrate life Day with this family. Right, that's it,
29:26
Speaker 1: and again we almost barely see Chewy. Yeah, the rest
29:31
Speaker 1: is his family on because look waiting for him to
29:35
Speaker 1: come back for a life day. Yeah. So, um, some
29:37
Speaker 1: of the various things they did, they were guest stars.
29:39
Speaker 1: There was Harvey Corman from The Carol Burnett Show, one
29:43
Speaker 1: of my all time favorites him or Carol Carol Burnett
29:47
Speaker 1: Show both. He's great. Yeah, he actually if you watch
29:50
Speaker 1: what he's doing, you're like, this is comedy genius. For apparently,
29:54
Speaker 1: he too was like the only one on set that
29:56
Speaker 1: was bringing levity. He was joking around and kind of
29:58
Speaker 1: kept spirits up good for that's what I say. And
30:01
Speaker 1: he had three three different parts. Yeah, he played uh uh,
30:06
Speaker 1: well I don't even know the names. Actually, we could
30:09
Speaker 1: look him up, but he played a. He played a
30:12
Speaker 1: Julia child like cook. There's an actual cooking segment, a
30:17
Speaker 1: long one, a very long cooking segment where Chewbacca's wife
30:21
Speaker 1: Um makes Banta stew to kill some time, to kill
30:25
Speaker 1: some time because there was on her planet and in
30:29
Speaker 1: our living room. Yeah, so Harvey Corman is in Drag
30:31
Speaker 1: is a fore armed Julia childlike uh TV chef and
30:36
Speaker 1: I think it's Gormanda. Is her name Gormanda? That makes
30:39
Speaker 1: total sense. He also plays Um. There's this one weird
30:44
Speaker 1: bit where Chewbacca's son tries to figure out a way
30:48
Speaker 1: to trick the stormtroopers that the Empire had come and
30:51
Speaker 1: kind of because of the blockade, raided the house and
30:53
Speaker 1: other properties. So he tries to trick them by I think,
30:56
Speaker 1: rigging a calm link to speak in a differ voice.
31:00
Speaker 1: So he has to watch the instruction manual. He watches
31:06
Speaker 1: an instruction video which was Harvey Kitel as a robot. Oh,
31:10
Speaker 1: it would have been wonderful lit big Harvey Kitel, Harvey
31:14
Speaker 1: Carvey Corman, man Haye murders someone in the middle of
31:19
Speaker 1: the instruction Harvey Corman. And then the final role he
31:22
Speaker 1: had was as a a bar patron in the cantina
31:27
Speaker 1: that drinks. He has a hole in the top of
31:29
Speaker 1: his head like a volcano where he pours his drinks
31:32
Speaker 1: and that's how he drinks. And he he loves be Arthur.
31:36
Speaker 1: Did we mention be Arthur was in it? B Arthur
31:38
Speaker 1: is not only in it, Chuck. She sings a song.
31:40
Speaker 1: She does. She is thenowns to everyone she manages or
31:44
Speaker 1: maybe owns the owner. Yeah, the what's the mas what
31:48
Speaker 1: moss deaf cantina? Uh? No, most deaf is a rapper?
31:53
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think you mean Moss Eisley. Yes, yes,
31:55
Speaker 1: that cantina. She's the owner. B Arthur is the owner,
31:58
Speaker 1: the author of the Golden Girls, but in this case
32:01
Speaker 1: the Arthur of Maud, because, as one of the people
32:04
Speaker 1: who wrote one of the articles we based this on
32:06
Speaker 1: points out, she's just basically playing Maud as the owner
32:09
Speaker 1: of the cantina. Yeah, and her song comes because um,
32:12
Speaker 1: they basically say, there's a lockdown, so you gotta call
32:16
Speaker 1: last call um at your bar. So she calls last
32:19
Speaker 1: call by singing a song to everyone. Right, and again,
32:23
Speaker 1: we can't possibly have the script lead anywhere else but
32:27
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's house while his family waits for it so all
32:30
Speaker 1: this takes place as part of a public service announcement
32:34
Speaker 1: basically broadcast by the Empire about how immoral life on
32:39
Speaker 1: tattooing is. So let's go see what's going on in
32:43
Speaker 1: the mas Eisley Cantina as it's being shut down for curfew. Alright,
32:50
Speaker 1: this is incomprehensible, but it goes on. Um, so they're
32:53
Speaker 1: in it. There's also Art Carney, Yes, the Honeymoon as family,
32:58
Speaker 1: the star of the whole thing. Really, he has the
33:01
Speaker 1: most lines, I would say, the most comprehensible line. Right.
33:05
Speaker 1: So he plays a trader, a human trader um that is, uh,
33:10
Speaker 1: recently been with Han Solo and Chewy and actually gets
33:13
Speaker 1: to kazuok and says they're on the way. It's all good. Yeah,
33:16
Speaker 1: a trader not trade toor Yeah, traders in trades humans
33:22
Speaker 1: for you know money. No, he he sells goods, Yeah,
33:26
Speaker 1: a trader. He doesn't trade humans. Yeah he's in the
33:30
Speaker 1: human trade. He No, he isn't. Really he trades humans
33:34
Speaker 1: like he sells humans. Looked it up in the Star
33:38
Speaker 1: Wars Encyclopedia said that he was in the human trade. Huh.
33:41
Speaker 1: So in this Christmas special, apparently they sanitized his his
33:45
Speaker 1: background because he's basically just selling like gadgets and novelties
33:49
Speaker 1: and stuff like that to the Wookies and the Empire
33:53
Speaker 1: who were occupying the area. Yes, he comes bearing gifts
33:57
Speaker 1: because he's a friend of Chewbacca's family. Yeah, so he
34:00
Speaker 1: comes bearing gifts. One of the gifts he gives is
34:02
Speaker 1: a UM sort of like a little digital insert to
34:06
Speaker 1: a Oh, I guess you would call it a virtual
34:10
Speaker 1: reality hair dryer, hair dryer, like a beauty shop hair dryer.
34:16
Speaker 1: He gives it to Grandpa Itchy. Grandpa Itchy UM sits
34:21
Speaker 1: under this hair dryer, pops in this uh digital cassette,
34:25
Speaker 1: and it can only be described as softcore porn. Apparently,
34:30
Speaker 1: the writers who were interviewed for this said that was
34:33
Speaker 1: totally the intent. They were trying to get what amounted
34:35
Speaker 1: to softcore porn that would pass the sensors. So it's
34:39
Speaker 1: all m. You can't even say it's innuendo. It's too
34:44
Speaker 1: obvious in overt for innuendo. Instead, it's just it's just
34:49
Speaker 1: it's just gross. It's really gross. Um. Diane Carroll, Yes
34:54
Speaker 1: she is UM. A Vegas staple shows up and starts
34:59
Speaker 1: basically tantalizing UM. Grandpa Itchy, who again, this is Chewbacca's
35:05
Speaker 1: elderly father who now engages in some sort of well
35:09
Speaker 1: he's he's watching virtual reality pornography now, and this is
35:13
Speaker 1: a pretty lengthy segment in and of itself. Well yeah,
35:16
Speaker 1: and she literally says to him like, now I can
35:19
Speaker 1: see her really excited. Yeah, it's pretty rough to watch. Yeah,
35:23
Speaker 1: So then you've got another musical number because also again
35:26
Speaker 1: he shutters, yeah, it's really strange, all right, So there's
35:32
Speaker 1: also ah, I know, it seems like we're jumping around,
35:35
Speaker 1: but it's it's so mind blowing, not like this is
35:37
Speaker 1: pretty much like blow for blow. Um. Actually I forgot
35:40
Speaker 1: earlier on in in the in the special Um, there's
35:44
Speaker 1: one of my favorite sequences is when Grandpa Itchy goes
35:48
Speaker 1: over to Lumpy and basically sets up remember the the
35:52
Speaker 1: hologram chessboard that they played in A New Hope, Yeah,
35:55
Speaker 1: basically kind of sets that up and says, here, just
35:58
Speaker 1: play this. He pushes the button when is clearly at
36:00
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies cassette recorder and another uh like it's like
36:08
Speaker 1: a Cirque de sol acid trip um gymnast routine happens
36:14
Speaker 1: in front of the kid's eyes. And again this all
36:17
Speaker 1: just it's not like it shows a snippet. They showed
36:20
Speaker 1: the entire segments, like five six ten minutes long of
36:24
Speaker 1: all of these things. So you would think, Okay, they've
36:26
Speaker 1: gone to this hologram well a couple of times, why
36:30
Speaker 1: not go to it again? Well they do. They do
36:33
Speaker 1: to kill more time. While the Imperial Guard is ransacking
36:36
Speaker 1: their house. Um, Art Carney apparently, I guess it's trying
36:41
Speaker 1: to get one of the Imperial Guard, the leader I think,
36:44
Speaker 1: or one of the leaders who looks like somebody from
36:46
Speaker 1: Spaceballs by the way, very much so. Um. And the
36:49
Speaker 1: writer of the Vanity Fair article, by the way said, um,
36:52
Speaker 1: this this is so incomprehensible. The specialist George Lucas didn't
36:56
Speaker 1: even have the schwartz with them method time. So anyway,
37:00
Speaker 1: our Carney's distracting this uh Imperial leader. Um, while they're
37:05
Speaker 1: ransacking the Wookiees house Chewbacca's house with a hologram, and
37:10
Speaker 1: this hologram instead of being an acrobat or Diane Carroll
37:13
Speaker 1: or any kind of porn or anything like that, is
37:16
Speaker 1: Jefferson Starship. And they decide that they're going to play
37:22
Speaker 1: Light the Sky on Fire, which apparently is about UFOs.
37:25
Speaker 1: It's a little music video. Basically it's a pretty Yeah,
37:28
Speaker 1: it's the predecessor to like video kill the radio Starr
37:31
Speaker 1: you can tell um. And again it is the whole
37:35
Speaker 1: lengthy song, the whole thing. So every time that somebody's like,
37:40
Speaker 1: we need to escape mentally from what's going on here
37:44
Speaker 1: in our house, let's go into the video world, it's
37:47
Speaker 1: not just and they don't cut back and forth. It's okay,
37:52
Speaker 1: here's five minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song. And
37:56
Speaker 1: even the Jefferson Starship guys um were like, yeah, it's
37:59
Speaker 1: sort of a weird trip, like we didn't get it,
38:02
Speaker 1: but we did it right. They gave us some money
38:05
Speaker 1: and some cocaine. Well probably, so we said, yeah, chuck.
38:10
Speaker 1: I think though, um, there yet another segment like this
38:14
Speaker 1: is actually widely regarded as the high point of the
38:17
Speaker 1: whole thing. So there is a cartoon actually yeah that
38:21
Speaker 1: Lump Lumpy watches Yeah Lump, He's like, the Imperial Guard
38:25
Speaker 1: is still ransacking my house. I think I'll entertain myself
38:29
Speaker 1: by watching a cartoon on my little um. I don't
38:32
Speaker 1: know what. I guess it was an iPad and uh,
38:36
Speaker 1: he watches this cartoon and it's it's actually remarkable for
38:39
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. It's the best part of the
38:41
Speaker 1: whole special generally agreed upon as such, not just us.
38:46
Speaker 1: And it introduces Boba Fett. It's the first time Boba
38:49
Speaker 1: Fett ever makes an appearance in the Star Wars universe. Yeah,
38:52
Speaker 1: it's actually not a bad And you can't find it
38:54
Speaker 1: in the the one version I told you to watch.
38:56
Speaker 1: They removed it for copyright, but they didn't watch a
38:59
Speaker 1: separate version. You can find it on its own. Yeah,
39:01
Speaker 1: and it's, Um, it's very much reminiscent of like the
39:04
Speaker 1: cartoon style of the day, like a he Man or
39:06
Speaker 1: something even even but it's even a little more artsy
39:10
Speaker 1: than that. Yeah. But it does have a plot that
39:13
Speaker 1: you can follow that makes sense as a Star Wars thing,
39:16
Speaker 1: and it introduces Boba Fette, like you said, And um,
39:19
Speaker 1: it's actually not bad. It's like Luke and R two
39:21
Speaker 1: and C three p O. Yeah, and there's like they
39:24
Speaker 1: crash on a planet or something. Yeah, and Han and
39:26
Speaker 1: Jewry you're in it. And it's the first time we
39:27
Speaker 1: see in Darth Vader. It's the first time we see
39:30
Speaker 1: Boba Fette. And that he is uh that he is
39:34
Speaker 1: just doing whatever he can do for money. Like Luke
39:37
Speaker 1: trusts him at first, c three pos like you sure
39:39
Speaker 1: you should trust him this quick and he's like, oh,
39:41
Speaker 1: three p o you and your non trusting ways, and
39:44
Speaker 1: then it turns out he's selling them out to the
39:45
Speaker 1: dark side. So it's it's basically Boba Fett is an
39:49
Speaker 1: allegory for George Lucas himself. Um, so the cartoon comes
39:55
Speaker 1: and goes, and that was the thing that came at
39:56
Speaker 1: about the end of the first hour mark, and after
40:00
Speaker 1: at everybody just turned off their television sets. Yeah, I
40:04
Speaker 1: don't remember. Did you watch this when it came up? Yeah?
40:07
Speaker 1: I remember watching it, but I don't remember much about it,
40:10
Speaker 1: like if I made it through it all. I mean
40:12
Speaker 1: it was I was seven and it was on until ten,
40:14
Speaker 1: so I probably didn't make it through it all. Um,
40:17
Speaker 1: you're probably disturbed. Who knows, I just remember that. I'll
40:21
Speaker 1: have to ask my brother. He might have a memory
40:22
Speaker 1: of this. Oh, Betty does I'm sure he met everybody
40:25
Speaker 1: afterwards or something like that. You know it has a picture.
40:28
Speaker 1: Well he was ten at that point, so cynicism had,
40:30
Speaker 1: you know, become a thing in his life probably by then,
40:34
Speaker 1: didn't that when cynicism kicks in he Scott, holding out
40:37
Speaker 1: the fourteen fifteen Yeah maybe so so um chuck, the
40:41
Speaker 1: whole thing finally does in. And actually there's a guy
40:44
Speaker 1: his name is Nathan Raban, he writes over at the
40:47
Speaker 1: A V Club. He had a great quote. He basically
40:49
Speaker 1: said that one of the great redeeming values of this
40:52
Speaker 1: um this special is that it does eventually end. Yeah,
40:55
Speaker 1: you know what the first part of the quote is,
40:57
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written in directed
41:00
Speaker 1: by a sentient bag of cocaine. And like, go read
41:04
Speaker 1: his his review of the Star Wars Holiday Special, because
41:07
Speaker 1: he goes on to describe exactly what that must have been,
41:10
Speaker 1: like the development meeting where the bag of cocaine is
41:12
Speaker 1: pacing back and forth talking about what should happen. That's
41:16
Speaker 1: what it feels like. But it doesn't, and it ends
41:20
Speaker 1: even more. It takes this bizarre two hours and wraps
41:24
Speaker 1: it up in just a nice bizarre bow. Yeah, so
41:26
Speaker 1: what happens is eventually Han Solo should we say spoiler alert,
41:32
Speaker 1: Eventually Han Solo and Chewy make it to the planet.
41:34
Speaker 1: They park on the far side of the planet because
41:37
Speaker 1: they know the uh the Imperial forces are there and
41:40
Speaker 1: the exercise will do Chewy good, so they have to
41:43
Speaker 1: hike over there. They eventually make it back home. Uh,
41:46
Speaker 1: they find a storm the stormtroopers at their house. Um,
41:50
Speaker 1: their tree hut. Yeah, which, by the paintings that set
41:55
Speaker 1: this up, I don't think we mentioned I don't even
41:57
Speaker 1: call him Matt paintings. It looks like someone painted something
42:00
Speaker 1: on the wall and they just like put a camera
42:02
Speaker 1: in front of it pretty much. Yeah. So they get
42:04
Speaker 1: back and um, Chewbacca, Han Solo hides around the corner
42:09
Speaker 1: of Chewbacca steps in front of his son to protect him.
42:12
Speaker 1: Han Solo jumps out, and the stormtrooper trips over a
42:17
Speaker 1: pile of logs and falls over the balcony and dies
42:21
Speaker 1: in a holiday special. So they wouldn't even not only
42:23
Speaker 1: could he not shoot first with Grido, but they couldn't
42:28
Speaker 1: even have him like wrestle the storm trooper and throw
42:30
Speaker 1: him off. He trips over a log and Han Solo
42:34
Speaker 1: has his hands thrown up like wasn't me. It might
42:37
Speaker 1: also been a banana peel, you know, but again, Uh.
42:41
Speaker 1: This is basically produced by Vaudevillians starring Vaudevillians. Why not
42:46
Speaker 1: have the one death take place from basically what it
42:49
Speaker 1: mounts to somebody slipping on a banana peel exactly. It's
42:52
Speaker 1: a perfect way to end it. So that's uh. That
42:55
Speaker 1: guy basically represents the end of the imperial threat for
42:59
Speaker 1: the rest of life. And um, we we then see
43:03
Speaker 1: Life Day being celebrated, which is celebrated by lots of
43:07
Speaker 1: wookies assembling in what looks like a giant Olden Mills portrait. Um,
43:13
Speaker 1: and all of them are wearing red robes. And I
43:19
Speaker 1: know I'm up talking, and it's because my mind is
43:21
Speaker 1: still having trouble like wrapping around this. And then um,
43:25
Speaker 1: Princess Leia comes out with C three P O is
43:29
Speaker 1: Mark Hamill There, the whole gang zerif okay, the whole
43:32
Speaker 1: gangs there. And then they all gather around to hear
43:35
Speaker 1: a great quote from Princess Leiah, which we will read
43:39
Speaker 1: um verbatim. This holiday is yours, but we all share
43:44
Speaker 1: with you the hope that this day brings us closer
43:46
Speaker 1: to freedom, into harmony, and to peace. No matter how
43:49
Speaker 1: different we appear, we're all the same in our struggle
43:52
Speaker 1: against the powers of evil and darkness. I hope that
43:55
Speaker 1: this day will always be a day of joy in
43:57
Speaker 1: which we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage, and
44:01
Speaker 1: more than anything else, our love for one another. This
44:04
Speaker 1: is the promise of the Tree of Life que song, right,
44:08
Speaker 1: And we should also point out the tree of Life
44:10
Speaker 1: has never been mentioned up to this point. Takes a
44:13
Speaker 1: sudden appearance at the end. And when you said que song,
44:16
Speaker 1: by que Song, you mean Princess Leiah starts singing. Yeah.
44:21
Speaker 1: And apparently that was one of the big contingencies on
44:24
Speaker 1: Carrie Fischer being involved. She's going through the phase where
44:27
Speaker 1: she was like, I kind of like singing. Bruce Valanche
44:29
Speaker 1: calls it her Joni Mitchell period. Yeah, and she somehow
44:32
Speaker 1: convinced them to let her sing as Princess Leiah. And
44:35
Speaker 1: she does. And again I've said that she looks like
44:39
Speaker 1: she's on drugs. This is the point where she really
44:41
Speaker 1: does look like she's on drugs. And it's not just
44:43
Speaker 1: me Um other writers who have written reviews of this.
44:47
Speaker 1: It's really obvious that she possibly smoked a decent amount
44:52
Speaker 1: of pot before she shot this shot this scene. But
44:56
Speaker 1: she sings, Oh, okay, it's fine, it's just the fact it, Um,
45:01
Speaker 1: Princess Leigh is singing. And actually Bruce Valanche had a
45:04
Speaker 1: really great quote too. He says that, um, she very
45:07
Speaker 1: much wanted to show this side of her talent, and
45:10
Speaker 1: there was general dismay because this was not what we
45:12
Speaker 1: wanted Princess Leia to be doing. She did it anyway.
45:16
Speaker 1: So the whole thing ends with her singing this song
45:18
Speaker 1: about life day, which is set loosely to the John
45:23
Speaker 1: Williams Star Wars theme. Uh So along the way, the director,
45:28
Speaker 1: original director quit, A new director, Steve Binder was hired
45:32
Speaker 1: to finish the job and bring it in. Uh, and
45:34
Speaker 1: he did over the original one million dollar budget, of course.
45:38
Speaker 1: Always Uh, he did bring it in and um at
45:41
Speaker 1: this point George Lucas had uh. He was he was
45:46
Speaker 1: working on Empire Strikes Back. He didn't know what was
45:48
Speaker 1: going on. He wasn't around for the shoot. No, it
45:50
Speaker 1: wasn't until it aired. I think that he actually saw it. Yes,
45:53
Speaker 1: and it was a travesty obviously, if you haven't noticed
45:57
Speaker 1: that by now. Critics hated it hours, fans really hated it.
46:01
Speaker 1: Everybody hate The people who were in it hated it.
46:04
Speaker 1: Lucas hated it. You've been. Harvey Corman secretly hated it.
46:07
Speaker 1: Even Harvey Kitel hated Actually he loved it. But Lucas
46:12
Speaker 1: has been asked over the years about it a lot,
46:15
Speaker 1: and he doesn't talk about it much. But in two
46:17
Speaker 1: thousand five, and I don't buy this for a second,
46:20
Speaker 1: he says, Um, it was an interview, he said special
46:23
Speaker 1: from I really didn't have much to do with us.
46:27
Speaker 1: You know that part is true. I can't remember what
46:29
Speaker 1: network it was even on, but it was a thing
46:31
Speaker 1: that they did. That's a lie. There's no way he
46:34
Speaker 1: doesn't know. That was CBS. Uh. We kind of just
46:37
Speaker 1: let them do it. I believe that it was done
46:39
Speaker 1: by I can't even remember who the group was, but
46:42
Speaker 1: they were variety TV guys. I'm sure he remembers a
46:44
Speaker 1: few of them. We let them use the characters and stuff,
46:47
Speaker 1: and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but
46:49
Speaker 1: you learned from those experiences. I think they even used
46:53
Speaker 1: some of the footage from the movie. At the end,
46:57
Speaker 1: it looks like some space like a highlight reel. Yeah
47:00
Speaker 1: the gang well, and during the um it looked like
47:03
Speaker 1: some of the they had some insert shots of like
47:06
Speaker 1: imperial cruisers and Thai fighters and stuff that. Remember when
47:11
Speaker 1: when Chewbacca like leans back and puts his hands behind it,
47:14
Speaker 1: that's in there. It's it's like a it's just a
47:16
Speaker 1: highlight reel from the movie saying like I feel like this,
47:19
Speaker 1: go see the movie. Well, and also that means it
47:22
Speaker 1: doesn't match the look of the rest of it at all. Yeah,
47:24
Speaker 1: that's true. It's just sort of inserted. They tried. They
47:27
Speaker 1: definitely tried. Um, And George Lucas is totally full of
47:30
Speaker 1: it because in seven he told star Log magazine that
47:34
Speaker 1: the Christmas Special would be out on video cassette very soon,
47:38
Speaker 1: and in two thousand seven, two years after that quote,
47:40
Speaker 1: you just read where he's like, I don't even know
47:42
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Basically, um. He apparently considered releasing
47:47
Speaker 1: the Christmas Special as a bonus on the the DVDs
47:51
Speaker 1: of the first three right, but did not didn't And
47:55
Speaker 1: apparently Carrie Fisher told Lucas that if you want me
47:57
Speaker 1: to do um DVD extra commentary commentary, then I want
48:02
Speaker 1: a clean, original copy of the Holiday Special, So why
48:07
Speaker 1: go ahead so I can play at parties when I
48:09
Speaker 1: want people to leave. It's pretty great, it is so
48:14
Speaker 1: uh and there is one of those clean copies is
48:17
Speaker 1: floating around out there, so you can watch this in
48:19
Speaker 1: it in its entirety. Some of it, like the cartoon,
48:22
Speaker 1: was removed due to copyright infringement and that kind of stuff,
48:26
Speaker 1: but as as the case with the rest of the Internet,
48:28
Speaker 1: you can just go find it elsewhere and piece it together.
48:31
Speaker 1: There's also the original ads that aired in Baltimore that
48:36
Speaker 1: are just fascinating. Those are always fun gm ads where
48:41
Speaker 1: one of the guys who's in quality control is he says,
48:44
Speaker 1: did you watch it? I don't think I saw that.
48:46
Speaker 1: He goes, um, we really care about these cars and
48:48
Speaker 1: that's no job man on a GM and he's like,
48:52
Speaker 1: it's serious. They're trying to be hip. Yeah. Um, it's
48:55
Speaker 1: a pretty good stuff. Here's my final thought on it.
49:00
Speaker 1: I love it. It does not taint my Star Wars
49:03
Speaker 1: experience or my love for the franchise, and I'm glad
49:06
Speaker 1: it is out there because it it's a it's a
49:10
Speaker 1: fun little stain that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I
49:16
Speaker 1: think it adds to it actually, because it's campy and awful,
49:20
Speaker 1: and I don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it.
49:23
Speaker 1: I'm with you. You like it? Oh yeah, I mean
49:26
Speaker 1: I watched it twice. I wouldn't watch it a second
49:28
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have made it through the first time. I
49:30
Speaker 1: let me take that back, as I'm a pro, so
49:33
Speaker 1: I would have made it through the first time. I
49:34
Speaker 1: wouldn't have watched it a second time if I wasn't.
49:36
Speaker 1: There wasn't something about it, and I figured out I
49:38
Speaker 1: think the thing that I like the most about it
49:40
Speaker 1: is Lumpy, Chewbacca's son, played by an actress named Patty Maloney,
49:46
Speaker 1: who frankly is hands down the best actor in the
49:49
Speaker 1: entire thing. She like her responses and everything. It's just awesome.
49:54
Speaker 1: I think my favorite parts are, uh, well, there's a
49:58
Speaker 1: great Wilhelm scream trips over the law. Jerry would not
50:02
Speaker 1: have noticed it. Uh And then there's a part where
50:06
Speaker 1: all the wiki dialogue you can't understand, but there's clearly
50:09
Speaker 1: one part where we're Itchy and Lumpy are having exchange
50:13
Speaker 1: where Lumpy, you can make it out, goes yeah, yeah, yeah,
50:18
Speaker 1: I noticed that, but it's covered up. But someone was like,
50:21
Speaker 1: we have to have at least one exchange where you
50:23
Speaker 1: sort of know what they're saying or they were like,
50:26
Speaker 1: I think she just said I love you. Should we
50:27
Speaker 1: have them redo it? And then directors like no, I
50:30
Speaker 1: want to go and Chuck. There's one other thing that
50:33
Speaker 1: I figured out from watching this. It's not readily apparent
50:36
Speaker 1: the whole thing is made all the more odd, and
50:39
Speaker 1: that there's situation after situation after situation where we, as
50:43
Speaker 1: normal audiences, were trained to expect the laugh track, but
50:47
Speaker 1: there's not a laugh track. Had there been a laugh track,
50:51
Speaker 1: it what it might have been less bizarre, But the
50:56
Speaker 1: fact that it's missing just makes your agitates the mind.
50:59
Speaker 1: So it's this whole additional element that it is weird.
51:02
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. There's just weird moments of
51:04
Speaker 1: silence all throughout it. Yeah, like when Art Carney's doing
51:06
Speaker 1: this thing, Yeah, telling jokes. Yeah, Okay, I agree with you, Chuck,
51:11
Speaker 1: don't take things too seriously. I think that's the great
51:13
Speaker 1: lesson in this. Yeah, and then's the lesson of life
51:16
Speaker 1: day it is and in two thousand seven Rift Tracks
51:20
Speaker 1: Great Mystery Science Theater three thousand Guys Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett,
51:23
Speaker 1: and Kevin Murphy uh provided audio commentary for the full
51:28
Speaker 1: version of the special. So try and go grab that
51:31
Speaker 1: if you can as well, so you can. It's on
51:32
Speaker 1: the site because it's great. I think it's like eight
51:34
Speaker 1: bucks and those guys are awesome, and at least I
51:37
Speaker 1: think Corbett listens to us. So, hey, Corbett, you got
51:43
Speaker 1: anything else? No, No, I think we did this. There's
51:48
Speaker 1: some good stuff. Go read the Vanity Fair article. Uh
51:51
Speaker 1: Han Solo Comedy Hour. There's a book called How Star
51:54
Speaker 1: Wars Conquered the Universe that has a very interesting chapter
51:56
Speaker 1: about this. That's where we found it asserted that George
51:58
Speaker 1: Lucas never said that he matched this thing with a
52:01
Speaker 1: sledge hammer. Um. And there's also an entire website dedicated
52:05
Speaker 1: to its Star Wars Holiday Special dot com. Yeah, and
52:08
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the Star Wars
52:10
Speaker 1: Holiday special, we have a ton of heart Star Wars
52:13
Speaker 1: stuff on how Stuff Works by the way, Yeah, we
52:15
Speaker 1: have cool, um sort of fun articles about the Death
52:18
Speaker 1: Star and Lightsabers videos with the Holly Fry from stuff
52:21
Speaker 1: you missed in history class? Yeah, who she knows her stuff?
52:24
Speaker 1: She does. Um. So you can just type star Wars
52:27
Speaker 1: in the search bar how stuff Works dot com and
52:29
Speaker 1: it will bring up some cool stuff for you. Since
52:31
Speaker 1: I said search bar, its time for listener mail. Hey guys,
52:36
Speaker 1: just finished listening to the Voytage Manuscript podcast. Found it's
52:39
Speaker 1: super interesting, especially the theories on its definition or origin.
52:43
Speaker 1: No Josh mentioned Chuck sory, but being drug induced somewhat
52:46
Speaker 1: surprising or even unlikely given the language in the manuscript
52:49
Speaker 1: follows linguistic laws only founded in the past one years.
52:53
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, it's a tough. It's
52:56
Speaker 1: tough to stray away from familiar structures, especially for some
53:00
Speaker 1: thing like language. I think back to when I was
53:02
Speaker 1: younger and friends invented their own languages, or even in
53:04
Speaker 1: writing a song or poetry. Creativity can sometimes be limited
53:08
Speaker 1: by what we know. Uh, So I just thought I
53:10
Speaker 1: contribute that the conversation nice. Thanks big, thanks for all
53:13
Speaker 1: you guys do. I found the podcast after moving to
53:15
Speaker 1: San Diego in the last few years for some noise
53:19
Speaker 1: around my apartment, so basically we were blocking out noise
53:24
Speaker 1: we do that, which I love, uh and then as
53:26
Speaker 1: a way to get through traffic on my commute home
53:28
Speaker 1: from work. You guys are far more interesting and enjoyable
53:30
Speaker 1: than television and YouTube videos. Sure, I've listened to hundreds
53:33
Speaker 1: and will continue to listen to hundreds more Keep on
53:36
Speaker 1: Keeping on. That is from Amy J. Moffatt. Thanks a lot,
53:39
Speaker 1: Amy in San Diego. Does that mean like place of
53:42
Speaker 1: the whales in German or something like that. Uh yeah.
53:48
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch of this, you
53:49
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
53:52
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53:54
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email the
53:55
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at house Stuff Works dot Com has always
53:58
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54:00
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54:05
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