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