Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's me Josh and it's that time of
Speaker 1: year again. It's time for our annual Stuff You Should
Speaker 1: Know selects release of How these Star Wars Christmas Special Worked. Um.
Speaker 1: I hope that by now this is a tried and
Speaker 1: true American night world tradition, Uh, prior to Christmas, that
Speaker 1: everyone will stop and bask in the glory of the
Speaker 1: Star Wars Christmas Special. Technically our episode on the Star
Speaker 1: Wars Christmas Special. I hope you enjoy it and happy holidays.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuckers Bryant and Jerry
Speaker 1: Jerome Roland. Uh. Who's the Wookie mother? Yeah, Mala, that
Speaker 1: was the Wookie wife. Oh and mother? Yeah sure. Chewbacca's
Speaker 1: momb is not with them any longer. She left. She
Speaker 1: was not about to appear in that she went out
Speaker 1: the window. I'm excited about this. I have to say
Speaker 1: we should say Happy Star Wars Day. Yeah. Today is
Speaker 1: um December. Um, I have my opening night tickets? Do
Speaker 1: you really sure? Wow? You know I you into it? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I will definitely go see it in the theater,
Speaker 1: but um, why won't be the opening night? Sure, I've
Speaker 1: gotten really adept at like ignoring spoilers, people talking about
Speaker 1: stuff all like, so I can I could conceivably see
Speaker 1: this movie a month after it comes out and still
Speaker 1: going fresh. I'm an ostrich. Yeah you black yourself out,
Speaker 1: Yeah you go dark I do. I make myself go
Speaker 1: to sleep face, you go to the dark side. I've
Speaker 1: been there a while now. Uh well, Happy Star Wars
Speaker 1: Day though, I'm sure that I think this pairs nicely
Speaker 1: 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 nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: Let's do the math, shall we? Mm hmmm, quick math break.
Speaker 1: I believe that two thousand fourteen was the last Life Day.
Speaker 1: May we just missed and then again in twenty seventeen. Okay,
Speaker 1: so seventeen we'll celebrate Life Day. We'll put on our
Speaker 1: red robes, are ultralong, straight, ironed wigs, and we'll celebrate
Speaker 1: Life Day the way it was meant to. Yes, and
Speaker 1: if you have no idea what we're talking about, we
Speaker 1: are talking about Life Day, which is a celebration, uh
Speaker 1: that Wookie in the Star Wars universe have every three years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like their Christmas. Yeah, their tent Supposedly, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like Earth. They two. They celebrate the diversity of
Speaker 1: their ecosystem and also remembrance of the dead, and they
Speaker 1: also give gifts there like the Finns. Basically, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very interesting part of the Star Wars canon.
Speaker 1: It is, and it's almost entirely made up, dashed off
Speaker 1: you could possibly say, by um George Lucas in the seventies. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's the basis of what is become derided as
Speaker 1: like one of the worst things that ever happened to
Speaker 1: the Star Wars galaxy. Well, not only that, one of
Speaker 1: the worst things ever aired on television. Yeah, this galaxy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at first, that sounds like hyperbole, like, come on, it's
Speaker 1: because it was Star Wars. We had high expectations. But
Speaker 1: it's really that bad. Yeah. The people who say that
Speaker 1: haven't seen even a second of it. Yeah. Yeah, However,
Speaker 1: I watched it uh when I was a kid. Uh,
Speaker 1: then 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's a little less absurd, finishes super absurd. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just a train wreck in every single sense of the word.
Speaker 1: Talk to bottom. It's extraordinarily difficult to overstate how bad
Speaker 1: this is. And some people you know, in researching this,
Speaker 1: you read about it, you read descriptions of these things,
Speaker 1: and it just can't possibly be gotten across until you
Speaker 1: see it. So luckily, as we will see, you can
Speaker 1: go onto YouTube and watch it, and you may even
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode more if you pause, go spend two
Speaker 1: hours watching this thing, and then come back and laugh
Speaker 1: along with us. Yeah, there's a great Over the years,
Speaker 1: there have been many segments of it on YouTube from
Speaker 1: badly dub VHS tapes, but there's one really pretty good
Speaker 1: version of it in full UM brought to you by
Speaker 1: w h I O Dayton, Ohio, Channel seven. Because that
Speaker 1: flashes up on the screen periodically. Man, it is high quality,
Speaker 1: it looks good, and it has to basically be the
Speaker 1: copy that the actual UM affiliate broadcast. It's like that,
Speaker 1: that quality compared to the other stuff floating around on YouTube,
Speaker 1: clearly recorded on a pc R, which we're really expensive,
Speaker 1: very expensive. I did some calculating on west Egg, okay UM,
Speaker 1: so the average VCR went for about a thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: There were brand new it's amazing thousand dollars in nine money,
Speaker 1: so they're about thirty eight hundred dollars in two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen money. Luckily, there were some rich people out there
Speaker 1: recording this stuff, and the wealthy have saved us all
Speaker 1: again yet again, as they always do. UH need to
Speaker 1: shout out some articles that we use for this. There's
Speaker 1: great a great article in Vanity Fair called the Han
Speaker 1: Solo Comedy Our exclamation Point by Frank D. Jacomo. And
Speaker 1: then there's the Star Wars Holiday Special was the worst
Speaker 1: thing on television ever by someone we kind of know,
Speaker 1: Alex Pasternak. Uh from Motherboard, yeah, which is uh not wired,
Speaker 1: it's uh vice. We wrote a little bit for Motherboard
Speaker 1: back then and we had a call with that, like
Speaker 1: we're like old motherboard vets. Yeah, basically when there one more,
Speaker 1: there was another one and I don't know who wrote
Speaker 1: this one chuck. Uh, yeah, it's the titles the Star
Speaker 1: Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas wants to smash every copy
Speaker 1: of with a sledgehammer, which was a famous quote, uh
Speaker 1: supposedly at a convention by Lucas, Yes, which is not correct.
Speaker 1: He didn't ever say that. No, okay, that that sounded
Speaker 1: like something that people made up. Yes, but if you
Speaker 1: go on the internet you will quickly believe that he did.
Speaker 1: Apparently didn't. So I'm sure he felt that way though, clearly,
Speaker 1: because he did appear on Robot Chicken and I think
Speaker 1: two thousand five on the Therapist Couch talking about how
Speaker 1: much he hated the Space Show. Alright, so let's set
Speaker 1: the background, shall we shall we go back to summer
Speaker 1: getting the old way back machine. All right, let's do
Speaker 1: it all right, here we are there's Waterson. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just a little six year old excited about Star Wars.
Speaker 1: I am I've just turned one. Yes, you don't know
Speaker 1: what's up yet. I please forgive me if I urinate myself,
Speaker 1: no problem, Okay. Uh So what has happened is Star
Speaker 1: Wars has become a huge, huge hit, seemingly out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: establishing George Lucas is one of the brilliant young minds
Speaker 1: and filmmaking. Even though it was in his first movie,
Speaker 1: it was his first huge, huge breakout hit. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, talk I mean talk about a breakout hit
Speaker 1: like no one had ever seen anything like it before
Speaker 1: two thousand one had come out in the late sixties.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't it's still it still isn't accessible to
Speaker 1: all audiences. You know, it's kind of cerebral film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not an adventure movie. This was this is like
Speaker 1: basically swashbuckling on the screen, but you know, in a
Speaker 1: galaxy far far away. Star Wars just changed everything and
Speaker 1: it came on just like a hammer um and a
Speaker 1: new hope. By the way, Yes, and then then we're
Speaker 1: gonna get stuff wrong, nerds, So yes, just go ahead
Speaker 1: and get your little fingers ready to email us, like
Speaker 1: if it wasn't driven home that I'm not a nerd.
Speaker 1: By the fact that I don't have opening night tickets
Speaker 1: or any tickets yet, give me a break, and by
Speaker 1: proxy chuck to okay, thank you. So um, it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to stay how great Star Wars was in everyone's mind, right.
Speaker 1: Bill Murray came out with that lounge singer Star Wars thing.
Speaker 1: It was everywhere and if you if you just listen
Speaker 1: to the lyrics of it, it's really it's just Bill
Speaker 1: Murray singing about how much Star Wars is awesome. Right.
Speaker 1: So by the fall allowing year, um, George Lucas was
Speaker 1: he wanted to figure out a way to keep audiences
Speaker 1: just engaged with the whole Star Wars franchise that he
Speaker 1: was just starting to build. But he knew the Empire
Speaker 1: Strikes Back was a couple more years out, so um
Speaker 1: he I think he was approached by some TV executives
Speaker 1: who said, have you considered doing some sort of TV special?
Speaker 1: They're all the rage right now. We have a we
Speaker 1: have a graphic that's really awesome that we set aside
Speaker 1: just for TV specials here at CBS. Why don't you
Speaker 1: let us let's get together and do a Star Wars special.
Speaker 1: That's right. Producers Gary Smith and Dwight him on, Uh,
Speaker 1: we're working over at CBS, and they said, this is
Speaker 1: a great way to keep the spirit alive while you're
Speaker 1: making your other movie. Maybe move some more toys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which George Lucas got to. So it was right before Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and he said, there'll be a lot of people watching
Speaker 1: TV um pre holiday season or I guess in the
Speaker 1: holiday season. Well, the weekend before Thanksgiving, it's like everybody's shopping,
Speaker 1: sitting around family like waiting to actually do stuff. That's right,
Speaker 1: perfect time to broadcast something on TV. So Lucas says,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do this. I don't have a ton
Speaker 1: of time, but how about this. I'll get I'll get
Speaker 1: a story together and then you can go hire a
Speaker 1: whiz bang team of veteran writers and producers and directors
Speaker 1: whatever genre you think is appropriate. And those are the
Speaker 1: words that will haunt you, George Lucas to his grave. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Lucas said, here's my idea. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: based um on Wookiees, and I wanted to take place
Speaker 1: on their home planet of Kizuok or wookie planet. See
Speaker 1: is that how you say kazuk. That's how it's pronounced
Speaker 1: in the episode the Holiday Special. But it's also pronounced
Speaker 1: different ways. Other times, I would have pronounced that cashy
Speaker 1: E got spell it k a s h y y
Speaker 1: y k, which I mean, I guess that's sounds like
Speaker 1: Chewbuck's planet sure also called G five Wookie planet see
Speaker 1: or Eaton is a mid rim planet. Right. So the
Speaker 1: whole reason apparently that George Lucas was interested in featuring
Speaker 1: the Wookies was it is what we in show business
Speaker 1: call low hanging fruit. The reason why it was low
Speaker 1: hanging fruit was because they had just established the different
Speaker 1: scenes that would make the cut for Empire Strikes Back
Speaker 1: and uh, what how did you pronounce it? Again? Kazook
Speaker 1: Kazook had not made the cut. Uh. Even prior to this,
Speaker 1: apparently for a new hope, George Lucas had whipped up
Speaker 1: a forty page what's known as the Wookie Bible. It's
Speaker 1: like a forty page supplement that's all about Kazook and
Speaker 1: Wookies and Chewbacca and his family and everything about Wookie Doom. Right,
Speaker 1: So he's like, I've got this thing already, you know,
Speaker 1: established I love Wookies. Um, they didn't make the cut.
Speaker 1: I'm a little sad about that. They're not gonna kazuok
Speaker 1: is not going to show up in an Empire strike back.
Speaker 1: Let's let's build the entire special around wookies. It's basically
Speaker 1: the one demand me, George Lucas hash That's it. I'll
Speaker 1: be totally hands off from this point on which he
Speaker 1: kind of was. He totally wasn't. It was actually this
Speaker 1: experience that apparently taught him to be the very hands
Speaker 1: on a person that he is famous for being. It
Speaker 1: came out of this Christmas special. Absolutely he was burned,
Speaker 1: and um, you had an iron grip after that on everything.
Speaker 1: So here's some some of the folks behind it. Bruce Valanche,
Speaker 1: famous TV writer. You probably seen him on Hollywood Squares.
Speaker 1: Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas pinch On for a while?
Speaker 1: So I don't know, or was Thomas pinch On on
Speaker 1: Hollywood Squares? I have no idea. I maybe confabulating some
Speaker 1: stuff confounding. Yeah, there's some kind of some sort going on.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it. So Valanche was hired as a writer.
Speaker 1: A guy named Lenny Rips was hired as a writer
Speaker 1: who has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article
Speaker 1: he does. His first quote was, we were really excited
Speaker 1: because this is Star Wars. How could it lose famous?
Speaker 1: Last words? Who else was hired? There was a husband
Speaker 1: and wife team, the welch Is, who are the parents
Speaker 1: of of folk singer Gillian Welch. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of and I had no idea that her parents they
Speaker 1: were producers slash songwriters of the day. They were big
Speaker 1: on the variety show scene, which would turn out to
Speaker 1: be a really key cog in this whole experience. So
Speaker 1: I feel like, right about here, Jerry should insert a
Speaker 1: needle coming off of our records on effect. Okay, thanks Jerry,
Speaker 1: So Chuck, you just said singer songwriters. Yeah, what would
Speaker 1: that have to do with Star Wars. Yeah? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: in this Star Wars Holiday special, for those of you
Speaker 1: hadn't seen it, there are musical numbers. They decided from
Speaker 1: the outset that there should be musical numbers. And the
Speaker 1: reason that they decided that there should be musical numbers
Speaker 1: is because the people who sold George Lucas and at
Speaker 1: the time it was started, the Star Wars Corporation was
Speaker 1: what it was called um On. The idea of doing
Speaker 1: this TV special was that everyone would love a variety
Speaker 1: show the seventies. Great idea, let's do a variety show.
Speaker 1: The problem was this, Apparently George Lucas didn't watch enough
Speaker 1: TV and he also overly trusted people who talked to
Speaker 1: him because by yes, variety shows had dominated television for
Speaker 1: over ten years, but it had come to an end.
Speaker 1: It 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: Sonny and Chair had just had its last season. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean what else like he Hall was he? I
Speaker 1: was still going on probably think still on solid golden
Speaker 1: yet to come on and take up the mantel that
Speaker 1: that would a variety show. Oh, it was a little
Speaker 1: bit and there was talking in between the songs. Remember
Speaker 1: the Mandrell's Sister's show. I never watched that one. Well
Speaker 1: that'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 he's come along and been like, what are you
Speaker 1: guys doing? Well, there's a revival in like good country
Speaker 1: music again, that's great, like in the tradition of Merle
Speaker 1: Haggard and and I guess that's probably where the country
Speaker 1: she came from because there was actually good country going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Johnny cash out a variety show, did he really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I knew they did, like a Sunday singing thing like
Speaker 1: out in Virginia. Yeah, he had his own variety show.
Speaker 1: Was actually pretty good. There's some like really great performances.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many nerds are like, get back
Speaker 1: to Star Wars? I know, I'm so sorry. All right,
Speaker 1: So the Variety Show is is dying sort of, and
Speaker 1: so they figured what a great time to take the
Speaker 1: biggest movie property on the planet and wedge it into
Speaker 1: the variety show milieu. I don't know if wedge is
Speaker 1: the right word. I think maybe uh, nestle it in
Speaker 1: there and then start hitting it with the blunt edge
Speaker 1: of an axe until it mashes into that crevice, you know,
Speaker 1: because this is the time when fantasy Island had just started.
Speaker 1: Um Mork and Mindy was about to change things. Charlie's
Speaker 1: Angels was getting huge. It basically television as we knew
Speaker 1: it from two whenever the real world came along. Just
Speaker 1: escape as television is what they called it was was
Speaker 1: starting and it was the hip new thing. So basically,
Speaker 1: if they had turned Han Solo and Princess Leiah and
Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker into maybe you know, sexy detectives, it might
Speaker 1: have gone over even better. But they went the other way.
Speaker 1: They decided to latch onto this extraordinarily stale um genre
Speaker 1: of television and they hired the best in the business,
Speaker 1: like they was there was. There was a quote from
Speaker 1: I think Lenny RiPPs who was saying, like we had
Speaker 1: literally a dream team, a variety show dream team, and
Speaker 1: everybody was good. But there were probably no bad welders
Speaker 1: on the Titanic. He there. That's a great quote. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The guy they hired to direct it initially was a
Speaker 1: dude named David A. Coomba, and he had made his
Speaker 1: name for Welcome to the Fillmore East. It was a
Speaker 1: concert documentary with Van Morrison Van Morrison and the Birds
Speaker 1: in ninety one, and he actually was at usc Film
Speaker 1: School at the same time as Lucas, even though they
Speaker 1: didn't know each other. And um, he only ended up
Speaker 1: directing about three segments of the thing before he quit.
Speaker 1: Yet before he walked off, some say he was actually
Speaker 1: let go, but we'll get to him in a minute
Speaker 1: and who replaced him. As as we get along down
Speaker 1: this uh gross road, well let's let's take a little
Speaker 1: break because I'm I'm overly excited. Okay, alright, so we've
Speaker 1: established most of the main players. Well, we'll get to
Speaker 1: a few more. We should point out that um, Mark
Speaker 1: hamill And and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew,
Speaker 1: they had no grounds to refuse to be on this basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. They were not huge, huge stars, yet they
Speaker 1: could throw their weight around and say this is terrible
Speaker 1: and I'm not doing it. They were, They were big
Speaker 1: overnight because of Star Wars, for sure, but they weren't
Speaker 1: to the adoring public back at the studio. They could
Speaker 1: still be bossed around. And this is the result of it.
Speaker 1: And you can tell also, um, just from watching the
Speaker 1: actual special, like Harrison Ford is not happy to be
Speaker 1: there at any point. Um. Princess Leiah is clear really
Speaker 1: on drugs? Uh? Was she on drugs at this point?
Speaker 1: She If you watch it, she's she's on drugs. Especially
Speaker 1: the ending scene. Mark Campbell, it looks like he's happy
Speaker 1: to be there. Actually he was fine, but apparently he
Speaker 1: said no, I'm I'm not doing a musical number. And
Speaker 1: if you watch his part, wedging a musical number in
Speaker 1: there would have been even more painful. Um. But they
Speaker 1: everybody who was part of the actual Star Wars franchise
Speaker 1: that wasn't wearing like a full body costume was like,
Speaker 1: I really wish I wasn't here, And you can tell,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. In fact, in the opening uh credit sequence,
Speaker 1: they're showing the picture that you know, the faces of
Speaker 1: the people, and you see Harrison Ford as if he's
Speaker 1: flying the Millennium Falcon, and you can you can just
Speaker 1: hear the guy off screen going now look at the
Speaker 1: camera and just give a nod. Just look at the
Speaker 1: camera and give a nod. And he finally you can
Speaker 1: tell he's piste off and he looks up at the
Speaker 1: camera and just sort of smirks yeah and points at
Speaker 1: the camera like okay, I'm looking at the camera, and
Speaker 1: then goes back to what he's doing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: I felt bad for him so early on Valanche and
Speaker 1: 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. Yeah,
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 the basis the
Speaker 1: entire 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 kaz Back
Speaker 1: on Kazook, because you hear, like, okay, well, Han Solo
Speaker 1: and Chewbacca eating 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. That's what they do. It's
Speaker 1: people hanging out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him, and
Speaker 1: then killing time while they wait for him to come back. Literally,
Speaker 1: so um and so hold on. So you say there's
Speaker 1: a setup, right, Yeah, that's the initial setup and then chuck.
Speaker 1: That's followed by this. Yeah, it's followed by literally ten minutes,
Speaker 1: ten solid minutes of incomprehensible Wookie speak. So let's let's
Speaker 1: join it for a second, shall we. Let's all enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And again, you said ten minutes, and you're not exaggerating,
Speaker 1: you're not being hyperbolic. You can time it. That's it's
Speaker 1: ten minutes of Wookie's talking to each other with no subtitles. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I couldn't follow it at first, Like I didn't even
Speaker 1: know who it was. I thought it was might have
Speaker 1: been Chewbacca's mom and dada. That's a little brother. And
Speaker 1: I don't find out until later when Mark Campbell shows
Speaker 1: up via skype call and says, he really explains everything
Speaker 1: that had just happened, Like you're Chewbacca's father, your Chewbacca's son. Uh, Lumpy,
Speaker 1: Lumpy and you're Chewbacca's wife. Oh, Malaya, thank you. So
Speaker 1: before everybody starts like freaking out, we know that that's
Speaker 1: actually their nicknames. Their real names are. His father is
Speaker 1: a Ti chick cook, a Ti chick cook, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to pronounce. Mulatto Buck is his wife, and his
Speaker 1: son is Lumpo or rump but as named by Lucas.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but Lucas also named him Lumpy Itchy and
Speaker 1: Mala so um. They're all back there wringing their hands,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out ways to pass the time until
Speaker 1: they get word from Chewbacca that he's made it to
Speaker 1: uh what is it ketchuck, kazook kazook um, just like ketchup,
Speaker 1: ketchup or cats up if you're fancy um. But Chewbacca
Speaker 1: is having trouble getting back to Katchuk because there's kazook,
Speaker 1: because there's a block had by the Empire and they're
Speaker 1: looking for rebels, specifically Chewbacca. Who I didn't realize this.
Speaker 1: He's the most famous Wookie of all did you know that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I didn't know that. Well, I mean he's
Speaker 1: the only one that really appears in the movies. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're seeing like, you know, these people's view of the universe.
Speaker 1: What about back on book. Yeah, he might have just
Speaker 1: been a fly by night wookie, right, yeah, but not
Speaker 1: the case, very famous wookie. Yeah, and he really loved it,
Speaker 1: like soak in his fame. Alright, So he realizes there's
Speaker 1: a problem. Valanche. He goes to Lucas and it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, this is your world, but it
Speaker 1: may not be the strongest thing to do to set
Speaker 1: this in wookie Land and have all this incomprehensible dialogue.
Speaker 1: And he says he was met with a glacial stair. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: he put it a little differently than that. Well, he
Speaker 1: said glacial stair. He did. The glacial stair that he
Speaker 1: got was for this quote. He said, these people just
Speaker 1: talking what sounds like fat people having an orgasm. He goes,
Speaker 1: if you want, you can set up a tape recorder
Speaker 1: in my bedroom and I'll do all of the follying
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah. He's a large guy, he is, so
Speaker 1: uh that's what got the glacial stare. But Valanche later
Speaker 1: said that from this, there was one development meeting that
Speaker 1: Lucas attended, and it was here's the Wookie Bible tell
Speaker 1: me what you got, and Valanche said he and the
Speaker 1: other writers and producers and director were just kind of
Speaker 1: throwing ideas, and George Lucas would either say like, no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work, give him a glacial stare, or say, yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactly it. Yes, let's make this a variety show. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there was a little bit of um background there.
Speaker 1: The cantina players in the band had appeared on other
Speaker 1: variety shows at that point, and I think it went
Speaker 1: over a fairly well, just as a short segment on
Speaker 1: like the Richard Pryor Variety Show or Donnie Marie um Man.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of variety shows. But that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It was that was television. That's what you did,
Speaker 1: like the break these um the The show had its
Speaker 1: course and then it became a variety show. It was
Speaker 1: just everybody love variety shows. By this time, though, everybody
Speaker 1: was sick of variety shows and so it really was
Speaker 1: a terrible choice. In fact, they even hired a couple
Speaker 1: of writers from Shields and Yarnell, which I hadn't heard
Speaker 1: of it. Oh yeah, I watched it. It was creepy,
Speaker 1: this mind couple who had their own variety show, and
Speaker 1: they figured these two will be great because they are
Speaker 1: used to working without words, right, So, and so there
Speaker 1: is a certain logic to the variety show. It's not
Speaker 1: that's just that variety shows were popular at the time.
Speaker 1: Somebody was like, well, Wookie's you don't understand what they're saying.
Speaker 1: So this is all going to be very physical. So
Speaker 1: these people who who did what is it Shields and Yard, Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's a perfect choice. That that makes complete sense.
Speaker 1: You can see this whole, this whole process of leading
Speaker 1: up to the point where it was produced in and everything, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a series of like, oh we have this problem, well
Speaker 1: here's a fix. Yeah, but that leads to another problem.
Speaker 1: Well we'll fix it with this, and and no one
Speaker 1: stepping back and being like, all we've done is create
Speaker 1: a series of problems that are going to come together
Speaker 1: and make one extraordinarily large problem that will become legendary.
Speaker 1: No one did that, and so the whole thing was
Speaker 1: was made. That's right, And that eventually airs on November
Speaker 1: seventy eight, a Friday, at eight pm Eastern time. That's right.
Speaker 1: And according to Nielsen ratings, it um attracted thirteen million
Speaker 1: viewers just the second hour just in the US. It
Speaker 1: aired in six or seven countries total. Yeah, but no
Speaker 1: one cares about that, I guess not because none of
Speaker 1: those around the internet, you know. Uh. It finished second
Speaker 1: to the Love Boat in the second I'm sorry from
Speaker 1: eight to nine, and in the next hour actually finished
Speaker 1: behind part two of a mini series about Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: starring Angie Dickinson. So it didn't even win their respective
Speaker 1: hours thirty million. That's that's not bad. The thing is,
Speaker 1: apparently if you look at the Nielsen ratings graph for
Speaker 1: the first hour, yeah we know about that graph, It's okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: we do. And then after a very important part, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about soon. Um, it just drops off at
Speaker 1: the end of the first hour, and that actually probably
Speaker 1: made the executives at CBS cringe for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: Number one is this special was originally supposed to just
Speaker 1: be an hour, but so many advertisers wanted to sign
Speaker 1: on that they extended it to two hours. And it
Speaker 1: shines through you can totally tell that this thing was
Speaker 1: never supposed to I think an hour might have been
Speaker 1: stretching it. To tell you the truth, it's thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of content, forty if you're generous an hour and then
Speaker 1: two hours, it becomes one of the worst things that
Speaker 1: was ever put on television. All right, well let's take
Speaker 1: a break and then we'll talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about the actual um uh. I don't want to call
Speaker 1: it content, but it is content in the strictest definitions.
Speaker 1: Right after this, George, all right, so the show itself,
Speaker 1: we've given you the main plot line, which again is
Speaker 1: that Chewy is trying to get back to his home
Speaker 1: planet to celebrate life Day with his family. Right, that's it,
Speaker 1: And again we almost barely see Chewy. Yeah, the rest
Speaker 1: is his family on because look waiting for him to
Speaker 1: come back for a life Day. Yeah. So um. Some
Speaker 1: of the various things they did, they were guest stars.
Speaker 1: There was Harvey Corman from the Carol Burnett Show, one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorites him or Carol Carol Burnett
Speaker 1: Show both. He's great. Yeah, he actually if you watch
Speaker 1: what he's doing, you're like, this is comedy genius for sure.
Speaker 1: Apparently he too, was like the only one on set
Speaker 1: that was bringing levity. He was joking around and kind
Speaker 1: of kept spirits up. Good for him, that's what I say.
Speaker 1: And he had three different three different parts. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: played uh well, I don't even know the names. Actually
Speaker 1: we could look him up, but he played a he
Speaker 1: played a Julia child like cook. There's an actual cooking segment,
Speaker 1: a long one, a very long cooking segment where Chewbacca's
Speaker 1: wife Um makes Banta stew to kill some time, to
Speaker 1: kill some time because waiting on her planet and in
Speaker 1: our living room. Yeah, so Harvey Corman is in drag
Speaker 1: is a foe armed Julia childlike uh TV chef And
Speaker 1: I think it's Gormanda. Is her name Gormanda? That makes
Speaker 1: total sense. He also plays Um. There's this one weird
Speaker 1: bit where Chewbacca's son tries to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to trick the stormtroopers that the Empire had come and
Speaker 1: kind of because the blockade raided the house and other properties.
Speaker 1: So he tries to trick them by I think, rigging
Speaker 1: a calm link to speak in a different voice. So
Speaker 1: he has to watch the instruction manual. He watches an
Speaker 1: instruction video which was Harvey Kitel as a robot. Oh,
Speaker 1: it would have been wonderful, little big Harvey Kitel. Harvey Carvey,
Speaker 1: Oh many murder someone in the middle of the instruction
Speaker 1: Harvey Corman. And then the final role he had was
Speaker 1: as a a bar patron in the cantina that drinks.
Speaker 1: He has a hole in the top of his head
Speaker 1: like a volcano, where he pours his drinks and that's
Speaker 1: how he drinks. And he he loves be Arthur. Did
Speaker 1: we mention be Arthur was in it? B Arthur is
Speaker 1: not only in it, Chuck. She sings a song. She does.
Speaker 1: She is theodnotes to everyone she manages or maybe owns.
Speaker 1: The owner. Yeah, the what's the mos? What mos deaf cantina?
Speaker 1: Uh no, most deaf is a rapper? Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you mean Moss Eisley. Yes, yes, that cantina. She's
Speaker 1: the owner. Be Arthur is the owner be author of
Speaker 1: the Golden Girls, but in this case the Arthur of Maud, because,
Speaker 1: as one of the people who wrote one of the
Speaker 1: articles we based this on points out, she's just basically
Speaker 1: playing Maud as the owner of the cantina. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: her 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 Chew Bacca'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 tattooing is. So let's go see what's going
Speaker 1: on in the mos Eisley Cantina as it's being shut
Speaker 1: down for curfew. Alright, this is incomprehensible, but it goes on. Um,
Speaker 1: so they're in it. There's also Art Carney. Yes, he's
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 trade or
Speaker 1: not trade tour. Yeah, traders in trades humans for you know, money. No,
Speaker 1: he he sells goods. Yeah, a trader. He isn'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. Looked it up
Speaker 1: in the Star Wars Encyclopedia said that he was in
Speaker 1: the human trade. So in this Christmas special, apparently they
Speaker 1: sanitized his his background because he's basically just sell like
Speaker 1: gadgets and novelties and stuff like that to the Wookies
Speaker 1: and the Empire who were occupying the area. Yes, he
Speaker 1: 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. Right. He gives it to Grandpa Itchy.
Speaker 1: Grandpa Itchy UM sits under this hair dryer pops in
Speaker 1: this uh digital cassette, and it can only be described
Speaker 1: as softcore porn. Apparently the writers who were interviewed for
Speaker 1: this said that was totally the intent. They were trying
Speaker 1: to get what amounted to softcore porn that would pass
Speaker 1: the sensors. So it's all m You can't even say
Speaker 1: it's innuendo. It's too obvious in overt for innuendo. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's just it it's just it's just gross. It's really gross. Um.
Speaker 1: Diane Carroll, Yes she is. Um, a Vegas staple shows
Speaker 1: up and starts basically tantalizing. Um. Grandpa Itchy, who again,
Speaker 1: this is Chewbacca's elderly father who now engages in some
Speaker 1: sort of well he's he's watching virtual reality pornography now,
Speaker 1: and this is a pretty lengthy segment in and of itself.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and she literally says to him, now, I
Speaker 1: can see you're 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 ah,
Speaker 1: I know, it seems like we're jumping around, but it's
Speaker 1: it's so flow not like this is pretty much like
Speaker 1: blow for blow. Um. Actually I forgot earlier on in
Speaker 1: the in the special, um, there's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: sequences is when Grandpa Itchy goes over to Lumpy and
Speaker 1: basically sets up remember the the hologram chessboard that they
Speaker 1: played in A New Hope, basically kind of sets that
Speaker 1: up and says, here, just play this. He pushes the
Speaker 1: button which is clearly a nineteen seventies cassette recorder and
Speaker 1: another uh, like it's like a Cirque de sol acid
Speaker 1: trip um gymnast routine happens in front of the kid's eyes.
Speaker 1: And again this all just it's not like it shows
Speaker 1: a snippet. They showed the entire segments, like five, six,
Speaker 1: ten minutes long of all of these things. So you
Speaker 1: would think, Okay, they've gone to this hologram well a
Speaker 1: couple of times, why not go to it again? Well
Speaker 1: they do. They do to kill more time. While the
Speaker 1: Imperial Guard is ransacking their house. Um, Art Carney apparently,
Speaker 1: I guess it's trying to get one of the Imperial Guard,
Speaker 1: the leader I think, or one of the leaders who
Speaker 1: looks like somebody from Spaceballs by the way, very much so. Um.
Speaker 1: And the writer of the Vanity Fair article, by the
Speaker 1: way said, um, this this is so incomprehensible. The specialist
Speaker 1: George Lucas didn't even have the schwartz with him at
Speaker 1: the time. So anyway, our Carny's distracting this uh Imperial leader. Um,
Speaker 1: while they're ransacking the Wookie's house, Chewbacca's house with a hologram,
Speaker 1: and this hologram instead of being an acrobat or Diane
Speaker 1: Carroll or any kind of porn or anything, like that
Speaker 1: is Jefferson Starship and they decide that they're going to
Speaker 1: play 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
Speaker 1: like we need to escape mentally from what's going on
Speaker 1: here in our house, let's go into the video world.
Speaker 1: It not just and they don't cut back and forth.
Speaker 1: It's okay, here's five minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song.
Speaker 1: And even the Jefferson Starship guys um were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's 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 Lumpy watches. 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 Fett ever
Speaker 1: makes an appearance in the Star Wars universe. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually not a bad And you can't find it in
Speaker 1: the the one version I told you to watch. They
Speaker 1: removed it for copyright. But he 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: it's even a little more artsy than that. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: it does have a plot that you can follow that
Speaker 1: makes sense as a Star Wars thing, and it introduces
Speaker 1: Boba Fette, like you said, And um, it's actually not bad.
Speaker 1: It's like Luke and R two and C three p O. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're like they crash on a planet or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Han and Jewry you're in it, and it's the
Speaker 1: first time we see in Darth Vader, it's the first
Speaker 1: time we see Boba Fette and that he is, uh,
Speaker 1: that he is just doing whatever he can do for money.
Speaker 1: Like Luke trusts him at first, C three bos like
Speaker 1: you sure you should trust him this quick and he's like,
Speaker 1: oh three p o you and your non trusting ways.
Speaker 1: And then it turns out he's selling them out to
Speaker 1: the dark side. So it's it's basically Boba Fette is
Speaker 1: an allegory for George Lucas himself. Um, so the cartoon
Speaker 1: comes and goes, and that was the thing that came
Speaker 1: at about the end of the first hour mark, and
Speaker 1: after that everybody just turned off their television sets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Did you watch this when it came U? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I 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'll
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: sure didn't that one? Cynicism kicks into n Hes Scott
Speaker 1: holding out the fourteen fift Yeah maybe so so um chuck,
Speaker 1: the whole thing finally does in. And actually there's a
Speaker 1: guy his name Nathan RayBan, 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. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Han Solo and Chewy make it 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 Chewy good, so they have to hike
Speaker 1: over there. They eventually make it back home. Uh they
Speaker 1: find a storm the stormtroopers at their house. Um, their
Speaker 1: tree hut. Yeah, which, by the paintings that set this up,
Speaker 1: I don't think we mentioned I don't even call him
Speaker 1: Matt paintings. It looks like someone painted something on the
Speaker 1: wall and they just like put a camera in front
Speaker 1: of it pretty much. Yeah. So they get back and um, Chewbacca,
Speaker 1: Han Solo hides around the corner of Chewbacca steps in
Speaker 1: front of his son to protect him. Han Solo jumps out,
Speaker 1: and the stormtrooper trips over a pile of logs and
Speaker 1: falls over the balcony and dies in a holiday special.
Speaker 1: So they wouldn't even not only could he not shoot
Speaker 1: first with Grido, but they couldn't even have him like
Speaker 1: wrestle the storm trooper and throw him off. He trips
Speaker 1: over a log and Han Solo has his hands thrown
Speaker 1: up like wasn't me It might as well have been
Speaker 1: a banana peel, you know. But again, uh, this is
Speaker 1: basically produced by vaudevillians starring vague villians. Why not have
Speaker 1: the one death take ace from basically what amounts to
Speaker 1: somebody slipping on a banana feel it's a perfect way
Speaker 1: to end it. So that's uh that that guy basically
Speaker 1: represents the end of the imperial threat for the rest
Speaker 1: of Life Day. And um, we we then see Life
Speaker 1: Day being celebrated, which is celebrated by lots of wookies
Speaker 1: 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 zerof Okay, the whole
Speaker 1: gang there, And then they all gather around to hear
Speaker 1: a great quote from Princess Leia, which we will read
Speaker 1: um verbatim. This holiday is yours, but we all share
Speaker 1: with you the hope that this day brings us closer
Speaker 1: to freedom, into harmony, and to peace, no matter how different,
Speaker 1: we appear we're all the same in our struggle against
Speaker 1: the powers of evil and darkness. I hope that this
Speaker 1: day will always be a day of joy in which
Speaker 1: we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage, and more
Speaker 1: than anything else, our love for one another. This is
Speaker 1: 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. A sudden
Speaker 1: 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's like, I kind of like singing. Bruce Valanche calls
Speaker 1: it her Joni Mitchell period. Yeah, and she somehow convinced
Speaker 1: them to let her sing as Princess Leiah, and she does.
Speaker 1: And again I've said that she looks like she's on drugs.
Speaker 1: This is the point where she really does look like
Speaker 1: she's on drugs. And it's not just me um other
Speaker 1: writers who have written reviews of this. It's really obvious
Speaker 1: that she possibly smoked a decent amount of pot before
Speaker 1: 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 probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but you
Speaker 1: learned from those experiences. I think they even use some
Speaker 1: of the footage from the movie. At the end, it
Speaker 1: looks like some of the space like a highlight reel.
Speaker 1: The gang well, and during the um it looked like
Speaker 1: some of the they had some insert shots of like
Speaker 1: Imperial cruisers and Thai fighters and stuff that. Remember when
Speaker 1: when Chewbacca like leans back and puts his hands behind it,
Speaker 1: that's in there. It's it's like a it's just a
Speaker 1: highlight reel from the movie saying like I feel like this,
Speaker 1: go see the movie. Well, and also that means it
Speaker 1: doesn't match the look of the rest of it at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. It's just sort of inserted. They tried, They
Speaker 1: definitely tried, UM, And George Lucas is totally full of
Speaker 1: it because in seven he told star Log magazine that
Speaker 1: the Christmas Special would be out on video cassette very soon,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand seven, two years after that quote,
Speaker 1: you just read where he's like, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Basically, Um. He apparently considered releasing
Speaker 1: the christ Special is a bonus on the UM the
Speaker 1: DVDs of the first three right, but did not didn't
Speaker 1: And apparently Carrie Fisher told Lucas that if you want
Speaker 1: me to do UM DVD extras commentary commentary, then I
Speaker 1: want a clean, original copy of the Holiday Special, So
Speaker 1: why go ahead? So I can play at parties when
Speaker 1: I want people to leave. It's pretty great. It is
Speaker 1: so uh and there is one of those clean copies
Speaker 1: is floating around out there, so you can watch this
Speaker 1: in it in its entirety. Some of it, like the cartoon,
Speaker 1: was removed due to copyright infringement and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: but as as the case with the rest of the Internet,
Speaker 1: you can just go find it elsewhere and piece it together.
Speaker 1: There's also the original ads that aired in Baltimore that
Speaker 1: are just fascinating. Those are always fun GM ads where
Speaker 1: one of the guys who's in quality control is he says,
Speaker 1: did you watch it? I don't think I saw that.
Speaker 1: He goes, um, we really care about these cars and
Speaker 1: that's no job man, a GM man, and he's like
Speaker 1: they're trying to be hip. Yeah. Um, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: good stuff. Here's my final thought on it. I love it.
Speaker 1: It does not taint my Star Wars experience or my
Speaker 1: love for the franchise, and I'm glad it is out
Speaker 1: there because it it's a it's a fun little stain
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I think it adds
Speaker 1: to it actually, because it's campy and awful and I
Speaker 1: don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it. I'm
Speaker 1: with you, you like it? Oh yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: watched it twice. I wouldn't watched it a second I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it through the first time. I let
Speaker 1: me take that back, as I'm a pro, so I
Speaker 1: would have made it through the first time. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have watched it a second time if I wasn't. There
Speaker 1: wasn't something about it, and I figured out. I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I like the most about it is Lumpy,
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's son, played by an actress named Patty Maloney, who
Speaker 1: frankly is hands down the best actor in the entire thing.
Speaker 1: She like her responses and everything is just awesome. I
Speaker 1: think my favorite parts are, uh, well, there's a great
Speaker 1: Wilhelm scream trips over the law. Jerry would not have
Speaker 1: noticed it. Uh And then there's a part where all
Speaker 1: the wikie dialogue you can't understand, but there's clearly one
Speaker 1: part where we're Itchy and Lumpy. Are have any exchange
Speaker 1: where Lumpy 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 the 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. Hadn't been a laugh track, it what
Speaker 1: it might have been less bizarre, but the fact that
Speaker 1: it's missing just makes your agitates the mind. So it's
Speaker 1: this whole additional element that it is weird. I never
Speaker 1: thought about that. There's just weird moments of silence all
Speaker 1: throughout it. Ye, 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: It is. And in two thousand seven, Riff tracks The
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
Speaker 1: bucks and those guys are awesome and they are at
Speaker 1: least I think Corbett listens to us. So, hey, Corbett,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, No, I think we did this.
Speaker 1: There's some good stuff. Go read the Vanity Fair article.
Speaker 1: Uh Han Solo Comedy Hour. There's a book called How
Speaker 1: Star Wars Conquered the Universe that has a very interesting
Speaker 1: chapter about this. That's where we found it asserted that
Speaker 1: George Lucas never said that he would smash this thing
Speaker 1: with a sledge hammer. Um. And there's also an entire
Speaker 1: website 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
Speaker 1: com and it will bring up some cool stuff for you.
Speaker 1: Since I said search bar, its time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, just finished listening to the Voyage Manuscript podcast.
Speaker 1: Found it's super interesting, especially the theories on its definition
Speaker 1: or origin. No Josh Minchin Chuck sire, but being drug
Speaker 1: induced is somewhat surprising or even unlikely given 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. Thanks 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, which I love, uh and then as
Speaker 1: a way to get through traffic on my commutet 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. Moffett. Thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: Amy in San Diego. Does that mean like place of
Speaker 1: the whales in German or something like that? Uh? Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, you
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Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email The
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Speaker 1: always joined us at a home on the web Stuff
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