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The Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978 · Stuff You Should Know

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