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Selects: Star Wars Holiday Spectacular · Stuff You Should Know

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