Speaker 1: Happy Life Day. Everyone to longtime listeners of Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, or at least once who've been listening for just.
Speaker 2: Over a year.
Speaker 1: We released this episode the Star Wars Holiday Special every
Speaker 1: year and it's kind of considered the official start of
Speaker 1: the holiday season throughout the Western Hemisphere. And if you
Speaker 1: are new to the podcast, well, then say hello to
Speaker 1: your newest holiday tradition. Enjoy this year's annual holiday presentation
Speaker 1: of the Star Wars Holiday Special, and let the holiday
Speaker 1: season begin.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuckers Bryant and Jerry Jerome Roland.
Speaker 2: Who's the Wookie mother? Yeah, Mala, that was the Wookie wife.
Speaker 2: Oh and mother? Yeah sure.
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's momb is not with them any longer.
Speaker 3: She left.
Speaker 2: She was not about to appear in that. She went
Speaker 2: out the window. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1: I have to say we should say Happy Star Wars Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, today is December seventeenth. I have my opening night tickets.
Speaker 2: Do you really sure? Wow? You know you into it? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will definitely go see it in the theater.
Speaker 1: But well, I won't be their 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm an ostrich. Yeah you black yourself out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you go dark. I do. I make myself go to
Speaker 2: sleep face, you go to the dark side.
Speaker 1: I've been there a while now.
Speaker 2: Well, Happy Star Wars Day though, I'm sure that I
Speaker 2: think this pairs nicely with Christmas Star Wars Day. It's
Speaker 2: all come together.
Speaker 1: Yes, we already missed Life Day though, so happy belated
Speaker 1: Life Day.
Speaker 2: Cha. Are they celebrating it this year?
Speaker 1: November seventeenth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's every three years, our Caine. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: weird job.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's every three years. Started in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: Let's do the math, shall we?
Speaker 2: Quick? Math break? I believe that twenty fourteen was the
Speaker 2: last Life Day. Man, we just missed it, and then
Speaker 2: again in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so twenty seventeen we'll celebrate Life Day. We'll put
Speaker 1: on our red robes, our ultra long straight ironed wigs, sure,
Speaker 1: and we'll celebrate Life Day. The way it was meant to.
Speaker 2: Yes, and if you have no idea what we're talking about,
Speaker 2: we are talking about Life Day, which is a celebration
Speaker 2: that Wookies in the Star Wars universe have every three years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like their Christmas. Yeah, they cele or their Quanta,
Speaker 1: their tent.
Speaker 2: Supposedly, it's sort of like Earth Day too. They celebrate
Speaker 2: the diversity of their ecosystem and also remembrance of the dead,
Speaker 2: and they also give the gifts. They're like the Finns basically. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a very interesting part of the Star Wars cannon.
Speaker 1: It is, and it's almost entirely made up, dashed off
Speaker 1: you could possibly say, by George Lucas in the seventies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's the basis of what has become derided as
Speaker 1: like one of the worst things that ever happened to
Speaker 1: the Star Wars galaxy.
Speaker 2: Well, not only that, one of the worst things ever
Speaker 2: aired on television. Yeah, with this galaxy. Yeah, at first
Speaker 2: that sounds like hyperbole, like, come on, it's because it
Speaker 2: was Star Wars and we had high expectations. But it's
Speaker 2: really that bad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The people who say that haven't seen even a second
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, However, I watched it when I was a
Speaker 2: kid again this week. Yeah, and you watched it twice
Speaker 2: this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched it last night and this morning.
Speaker 2: There's something about it.
Speaker 1: It's mesmerizing, it really is.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things that you start watching it
Speaker 2: and you want to turn it off, but you want
Speaker 2: to see just how absurd it can get.
Speaker 1: Almost Yeah, and it starts absurd, it stays absurd in
Speaker 1: the middle. Yeah, it's increasingly more absurd, it's a little
Speaker 1: less absurd, finishes super absurd.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just a train wreck in every single sense
Speaker 2: of the word, top to bottom.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinarily difficult to overstate how bad this is. And
Speaker 1: some people, you know, in researching this, you read about it,
Speaker 1: you read descriptions of these things, and it just can't
Speaker 1: possibly be gotten across until you see it. So luckily,
Speaker 1: as we will see, you can go onto YouTube and
Speaker 1: watch it, and you may even enjoy this episode more
Speaker 1: if you pause, go spend two hours watching this thing,
Speaker 1: and then come back and laugh along with us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great Over the years, there been many
Speaker 2: segments of it on YouTube from badly DUBBEDVHS tapes, but
Speaker 2: there's one really pretty good version of it in full,
Speaker 2: brought to you by w HIO Dayton, Ohio, Channel seven, Ohio.
Speaker 2: Because that flashes up on the screen periodically.
Speaker 1: Man, it is high quality. Yeah, it looks good, and
Speaker 1: it has to basically be the copy that the actual
Speaker 1: affiliate broadcast. Yeah, it's like that, that quality compared to
Speaker 1: the other stuff floating around on YouTube. It's clearly recorded
Speaker 1: on a nineteen seventy eight PCR.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which were really expensive.
Speaker 1: Very expensive. I did some calculating on West Egg. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the average VCR went for about one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: There were brand new, it's amazing one.
Speaker 1: Thousand dollars in nineteen seventy eight money, So they were
Speaker 1: about thirty eight hundred dollars in twenty fourteen money.
Speaker 2: Crazy.
Speaker 1: Luckily, there were some rich people out there recording this stuff,
Speaker 1: and the wealthy have saved us all again, yes, yet again,
Speaker 1: as they always do.
Speaker 2: Yes. And we need to shout out some articles that
Speaker 2: we use for this. There's great a great article in
Speaker 2: Vanity Fair called the Han Solo Comedy Our exclamation Point,
Speaker 2: Yes by Frank de Jacomo. And then there's the Star
Speaker 2: Wars Holiday Special was the worst thing on television ever
Speaker 2: by someone we kind of know, Alex pasternakah from Motherboard, yeah,
Speaker 2: which is not wired. It's vice. Yes, we wrote a
Speaker 2: little bit for Motherboard back then and we had a
Speaker 2: call with that.
Speaker 1: We're like, we're like old Motherboard vets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, wasn't there one more?
Speaker 1: There was another one and I don't know who wrote
Speaker 1: this one, chuck, Yeah, it's the titles the Star Wars
Speaker 1: Holiday Special. George Lucas wants to smash every copy of
Speaker 1: with a sledgehammer.
Speaker 2: Which was a famous quote supposedly at a convention by Lucas. Yes,
Speaker 2: which is not correct. He didn't ever say that. No, Okay,
Speaker 2: that sounded like something that people made up.
Speaker 1: Yes, but if you go on the internet you will
Speaker 1: quickly believe that he did.
Speaker 2: Sure apparently didn't.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure he felt that way though, clearly, you know,
Speaker 1: because he did appear on Robot Chicken and I think
Speaker 1: two thousand and five on the Therapist's Couch talking about
Speaker 1: how much he hated.
Speaker 2: The Spec show.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's set the background, shall we Shall
Speaker 1: we go back to nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, summer getting the old wayback machine.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it. All right, here we are,
Speaker 1: there's Waterson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just a little six year old excited about
Speaker 2: Star Wars.
Speaker 1: I am, I've just turned one.
Speaker 2: Yes, you don't know what's up yet.
Speaker 1: I please forgive me if I urinate myself, no problem.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what has happened is Star Wars has become
Speaker 2: a huge, huge hit, seemingly out of nowhere. Yeah, establishing
Speaker 2: George Lucas is one of the brilliant young minds in filmmaking,
Speaker 2: even though in his first movie it was his first huge,
Speaker 2: huge breakout hit. Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean talk about a breakout hit like no one
Speaker 1: had ever seen anything like it before. No, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one had come out in the late six these,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't it's still still is inaccessible to all audiences.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of a cerebral film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not an adventure movie. This was Star Wars.
Speaker 1: This is like basically swashbuckling on the screen. But you know,
Speaker 1: in a galaxy far far away, Star Wars just changed
Speaker 1: everything and it came on just like a hammer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a new hope by the way, yes, and
Speaker 2: then we're going to get stuff wrong, nerds. So yes,
Speaker 2: just go ahead and get your little fingers ready to
Speaker 2: email us.
Speaker 1: Like if it wasn't driven home that I'm not a
Speaker 1: nerd by the fact that I don't have opening night
Speaker 1: tickets or any tickets yet, give me a break, and
Speaker 1: by proxy Chuck too, Okay, thank you. So it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to state how great Star Wars was in everyone's mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 1: Bill Murray came out with that lounge singer Star Wars thing. Yeah,
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.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 1: So by the following year, George Lucas was he wanted
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to keep audiences just engaged
Speaker 1: with the whole Star Wars franchise, so that he was
Speaker 1: just starting to build, but he knew the Empire Strikes
Speaker 1: Back was a couple more years out, sure, So I
Speaker 1: think he was approached by some TV executives who said,
Speaker 1: have you considered doing some sort of TV special? They're
Speaker 1: all the rage right now. We have a graphic that's
Speaker 1: really awesome that we set aside just for TV specials
Speaker 1: here at CBS why don't you let us let's get
Speaker 1: together and do a Star Wars special.
Speaker 2: That's right. Producers Gary Smith and Dwight Hemi on we're
Speaker 2: working over at CBS, and they say, this is a
Speaker 2: great way to keep the spirit alive while you're making
Speaker 2: your other movie. Maybe move some more toys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which George Lucas got a cut of all the toys.
Speaker 2: Sure. So it was right before Thanksgiving, and he said
Speaker 2: there'd be a lot of people watching TV pre holiday season,
Speaker 2: or I guess in the holiday season.
Speaker 1: The weekend before Thanksgiving, it's like everybody's shopping, sitting around
Speaker 1: family like waiting to actually do stuff. That's right, perfect
Speaker 1: time to broadcast something on TV.
Speaker 2: So Lucas says, all right, let's do this. I don't
Speaker 2: have a ton of time, but how about this. I'll
Speaker 2: get I'll get a story together and then you can
Speaker 2: go hire a whiz bang team of veteran writers and
Speaker 2: producers and directors.
Speaker 1: Whatever genre you think is appropriate. And those are the
Speaker 1: words that will haunt George Lucas to his grave.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Lucas said, here's my idea. I want it
Speaker 2: to be based on Wookies, and I want it to
Speaker 2: take place on their home planet of Kazuk or Wookie
Speaker 2: planet C. Is that what he's saying, Kazuk. That's how
Speaker 2: it's pronounced in the episode the Holiday Special, but it's
Speaker 2: also pronounced different ways other times.
Speaker 1: I would have pronounced that Cashie spell it k a
Speaker 1: s h y y y k, which I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess that sounds like Chewbuck is sure.
Speaker 2: Also called G five six twenty three. Wookie planet ce
Speaker 2: or Eedeon 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how did you pronounce it again? Kazuk.
Speaker 1: Kazuk had not made the cut. 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 Kazuk and
Speaker 1: Wookies and Chewbacca and his family and everything about wookiedom.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I've got this thing already. You know
Speaker 1: established I love Wookies. They didn't make the cut. I'm
Speaker 1: a little sad about that. They're not gonna kazuk is
Speaker 1: not going to show up in Empire Strikes Back. Let's
Speaker 1: build the entire special around wookies. It's basically the one
Speaker 1: demand me George Lucas has. Yeah, that's it. I'll be
Speaker 1: totally hands off from this point on which.
Speaker 2: He kind of was.
Speaker 1: He totally was, And it was actually this experience that
Speaker 1: apparently taught him to be the very hands on person
Speaker 1: that he is famous for being. It came out of
Speaker 1: this Christmas special.
Speaker 2: Absolutely he was burned and he had an iron grip
Speaker 2: after that on everything. So here's some of the folks
Speaker 2: behind it. Bruce Valanche, famous TV writer. You probably had
Speaker 2: seen him on Hollywood Squares.
Speaker 1: Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas Pynchon for a while.
Speaker 1: I don't know, or was Thomas Pynchon on Hollywood Squares?
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I may be confabulating some stuff confounding. Yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: con of some sort going on.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it. Yeah, So Valanche was hired as
Speaker 2: a writer. A guy named Lenny Rips was hired as
Speaker 2: a writer who.
Speaker 1: Has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article.
Speaker 2: He does quote was, we were really excited because this
Speaker 2: is Star Wars. How could it lose? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Famous last words?
Speaker 2: Who else was hired? There was a husband and wife team,
Speaker 2: the Welches. Yeah, who are the parents of folk singer
Speaker 2: Gillian Welch, who I'm a big fan of And I
Speaker 2: had no idea that her parents. They were producers slash
Speaker 2: songwriters of the day. They were big on the variety
Speaker 2: show scene, which would turn out to be a really
Speaker 2: key cog in this whole experience.
Speaker 1: So I feel like, write about here, Jerry should insert
Speaker 1: a needle coming off of our record sound effect. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: thanks Jerry, So Chuck, you just said singer songwriters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what would that have to do with Star Wars? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, actually, in this Star Wars Holiday special, for those
Speaker 1: of you who hadn't seen it, there are musical numbers.
Speaker 1: They decided from the outset 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 the Star Wars Corporation
Speaker 1: was what it was called.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the idea of doing this TV special was that
Speaker 1: everyone would love.
Speaker 2: A variety show. Yeah, it was the seventies.
Speaker 1: Great idea, let's do a variety show. The problem was this,
Speaker 1: apparently George Lucas didn't watch enough TV. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: also overly trusted people who talk to him. Sure, because
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy eight, yes, variety shows had dominated television
Speaker 1: for over ten years, but it had come to an end.
Speaker 1: It was getting stale.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking to Carol Burnett show, one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: Had just been canceled after eleven seasons.
Speaker 2: Ye, Big Red Flag, Sonny and Chaer had just had
Speaker 2: its last season. Yeah, I mean what else, like he
Speaker 2: was still going on.
Speaker 1: Probably the KiHa still on Solid Gold had yet to
Speaker 1: come on and take up the mantle.
Speaker 2: That would never variety show.
Speaker 1: No, it was a little bit there's talking in between
Speaker 1: the songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Remember the Mandrell Sisters show.
Speaker 1: I never watched that one. Well it was with that
Speaker 1: country chic thing that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big deal in the it's kind
Speaker 2: of happening again.
Speaker 1: I think, Oh, because of that dude, the guy who
Speaker 1: won all the CMA Awards.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: He's like he's he came along and he's like, actually country.
Speaker 1: His dad's like a coal miner for real from Kentucky.
Speaker 2: I think I know you mean Chris something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he is good. He's come along and been like,
Speaker 1: what are you guys doing?
Speaker 2: Well, there's a revival in like good country music. Again,
Speaker 2: that's great, like in the tradition of Merle Haggard and
Speaker 2: show Cash.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's probably where the country she came from,
Speaker 1: because there was actually good country going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Johnny Cash out of a variety show? Did he really?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I knew they did, like a Sunday singing
Speaker 1: thing like out in Virginia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had his own variety show was actually pretty good.
Speaker 2: There's some like really great performances.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many nerds are like, get back
Speaker 1: to Star Wars?
Speaker 2: I know, I'm so sorry. All right, So the Variety
Speaker 2: Show is dying sort of, and so they figure, what
Speaker 2: a great time to take the biggest movie property on
Speaker 2: the planet and wedge it into the variety show milieu.
Speaker 1: I don't know if wedge is the right word. I
Speaker 1: think maybe nestle it in there and then start hitting
Speaker 1: it with the blunt edge of an axe until it
Speaker 1: mashes into that Crevis. You know that's right, because this
Speaker 1: is the time when Fantasy Island had just started Morecamindi
Speaker 1: was about to change things. Charlie's Angels was getting huge.
Speaker 1: It basically television as we knew it from nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: to whenever the real world came along. Just escape ast
Speaker 1: television is what they called. It was starting and it
Speaker 1: was the hip new thing. So basically, if they had
Speaker 1: turned Han Solo and Princess Leah and Luke Skywalker into
Speaker 1: maybe you know, sexy detectives, it might have gone over
Speaker 1: even better. But they went the other way. They decided
Speaker 1: to latch onto this extraordinarily stale genre of television, and
Speaker 1: they hired the best in the business.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, there was a quote from I think Lenny Rips
Speaker 1: who was saying, like we had literally a dream team, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a variety show dream team, and everybody was good. But
Speaker 1: there were probably no bad welders on the Titanic either.
Speaker 2: That's a great quote. Yeah. The guy they hired to
Speaker 2: direct it initially was a dude named David at Coomba
Speaker 2: and he had made his name for Welcome to the
Speaker 2: Fillmore East. It was a concert documentary with Van mor
Speaker 2: Van Morrison and the Birds in nineteen seventy one, and
Speaker 2: he actually was at usc Film School the same time
Speaker 2: as Lucas, even though they didn't know each other, and
Speaker 2: he only ended up directing about three segments of the
Speaker 2: thing before he quit, yep, before he walked off. Some
Speaker 2: say he was actually let go, but we'll get to
Speaker 2: him in a minute and who replaced him. Okay, as
Speaker 2: we get along down this gross road, well.
Speaker 1: Let's take a little break because I'm overly excited.
Speaker 3: Okay, softly jaws.
Speaker 2: All right, So we've established most of the main players.
Speaker 2: We'll get to a few more. We should point out
Speaker 2: that Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, they.
Speaker 1: Had no grounds to refuse to be on this.
Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, pretty much. They were not huge, huge stars,
Speaker 2: yet they could throw their weight around and say this
Speaker 2: is terrible and I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: They were big overnight because of Star Wars, for sure,
Speaker 1: but they weren't to the adoring public.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Back at the studio they could still be bossed around,
Speaker 1: and this was the result of it. And you can
Speaker 1: tell also just from watching the actual special, like Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford is not happy to be there at any point.
Speaker 1: Oh no, Princess Leiah is clearly on drugs.
Speaker 2: Was she on drugs at this point?
Speaker 1: If you watch it, she's on drugs. Especially the ending scene,
Speaker 1: Mark Hambell.
Speaker 2: Looks like he's happy to be there. Actually he was.
Speaker 1: Fine, but apparently he said no, 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. Sure,
Speaker 1: but everybody who was part of the actual Star Wars
Speaker 1: franchise that wasn't wearing like a full body costume, yeah,
Speaker 1: was like I really wish I wasn't here, And you can.
Speaker 2: Tell, oh yeah. In fact, in the opening credit sequence,
Speaker 2: they're showing the picture the you know, the faces of
Speaker 2: the people, and you see Harrison Ford as if he's
Speaker 2: flying the Millennium Falcon, and you can you can just
Speaker 2: hear the guy all screen going, now look at the
Speaker 2: camera and just give a nod. Just look at the
Speaker 2: camera and give a nod. And he finally you can
Speaker 2: tell he's pissed off and he looks up at the
Speaker 2: camera and just sort of smirks.
Speaker 1: Yeah and points at the camera like okay, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the camera, and then goes back to what he's doing.
Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2: It felt bad for him so early on Valanche and others.
Speaker 1: Did you feel bad for him?
Speaker 2: Though? Really?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, come on, it's Harrison for it's Hans Solo.
Speaker 1: He has to go do this for like five days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt terrible for him.
Speaker 1: I think it's hilarious that they had to do this,
Speaker 1: especially now.
Speaker 2: Well, early on, Valanche and others knew that they may
Speaker 2: be in trouble because they decided not to subtitle any
Speaker 2: of the Wookie dialogue right and they literally started after
Speaker 2: a brief opening scene setting it up here. Here's the
Speaker 2: basic plot is Han Solo is trying to get Chewbacca
Speaker 2: back to Kazuok in time for Life Day so he
Speaker 2: can celebrate with his family. That's the basis of the
Speaker 2: entire two hours I see, basis the entire two hours.
Speaker 2: They encounter a space battle and they're delayed, and the
Speaker 2: next two hours are kind of what's going on while
Speaker 2: the delay is happening.
Speaker 1: Back on Kazuk. Back on Kazuk, because you hear like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 1: Han Solo and Chewbacca evading the Imperial Guard and all
Speaker 1: that stuff for two hours. I would watch that, Sure,
Speaker 1: I would too. Yeah, that's not what they show.
Speaker 2: Killing time at the Wookie household, that is what they show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what they do.
Speaker 1: It's people hanging out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then killing time while they wait for him to
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Literally, so and so hold on, So you say there's
Speaker 1: a setup.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's the initial setup.
Speaker 1: And then chuck, that's followed by this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's followed by literally ten minutes, ten solid minutes
Speaker 2: of incomprehensible Wookie speak.
Speaker 1: So let's let's join it for a second, shall we. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's all enjoy it. And again, you said ten minutes,
Speaker 1: and you're not exaggerating, you're not being hyperbolic. You can
Speaker 1: time it. That's it's ten minutes of Wookie's talking to
Speaker 1: each other with no subtitles.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, I couldn't follow it at first, Like I didn't
Speaker 2: even know who it was. I thought it might have
Speaker 2: been Chewbacca's mom and dad. Oh yeah, that's and little brother. Sure,
Speaker 2: And I don't find out until later when Mark Camill
Speaker 2: shows up via skype call and says he really explains
Speaker 2: everything that had just happened, Like, you're Chewbacca's father, Itchy,
Speaker 2: your cub, his son Lumpy Lumpy yeah, and you are
Speaker 2: Chewbacca's wife. Oh, Mala, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: So before everybody starts like freaking out, we know that
Speaker 1: that's actually their nicknames. Their real names are. His father
Speaker 1: is a Tichik cook, a Titchik cook.
Speaker 2: It's really hard to pronounce.
Speaker 1: Mulatto Buck is his wife, and his son is Lumpo
Speaker 1: or ump but.
Speaker 2: As named by Lucas. But yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Lucas also named him Lumpy Itchy and Mala yeah. So
Speaker 1: they're all back there wringing their hands trying to figure
Speaker 1: out ways to pass the time until they get word
Speaker 1: from Chewbacca that he's made it to uh what is it?
Speaker 1: Ketchukuk Kazuk. Say ketchup, ketchup or cats up if you're fancy.
Speaker 1: But Chewbacca is having trouble getting back to Kochuk because
Speaker 1: there's Kazuk, because there's a blockade by them 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?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I didn't know that. Well, I mean
Speaker 2: he's the only one that really appears in the movies, right,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're seeing, like, you know, these people's view of
Speaker 1: the universe. What about back on Kazook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he might have just been a fly by night wookie, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but not the case very famous wookie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he really loved to like soak in his fame.
Speaker 2: All right, So he realizes there's a problem Valanche. He
Speaker 2: goes to Lucas and is like, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: this is your world, but it may not be the
Speaker 2: strongest thing to do to set this in Wokieland and
Speaker 2: have all this comprehensible dialogue. And he says he was
Speaker 2: met with a glacial stare.
Speaker 1: Well he put it a little differently than that.
Speaker 2: Well, he said glacial stare. He did.
Speaker 1: The glacial steir 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 organic Yeah. 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 it for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's a large guy.
Speaker 1: He is. So that's what got the glacial stare. But
Speaker 1: Valanche later said that from this there was one development
Speaker 1: meeting that Lucas attended, and it was here's the Wookie Bible,
Speaker 1: tell me what you got. And Valanche said he and
Speaker 1: the other writers and producers and director were just kind
Speaker 1: of 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there was a little bit of background there.
Speaker 2: The cantena players in the band had appeared on other
Speaker 2: variety shows at that point, and I think it went
Speaker 2: over fairly well, just as a short segment on like
Speaker 2: the Richard Pryor Variety Show or Donnie Marie yep Man.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of variety shows.
Speaker 1: But that's what I'm saying. That was television. That's what
Speaker 1: you did. Like the Bradys. The show had its course
Speaker 1: and then it became a variety show. It was just
Speaker 1: everybody loved variety shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By this time, though, everybody was sick of variety shows, right,
Speaker 1: and so it really was a terrible choice.
Speaker 2: In fact, they even hired a couple of writers from
Speaker 2: Shields and Yarnell, which I hadn't heard of I do.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I watched it. It was at least creepy.
Speaker 2: This mind couple who had their own variety show, and
Speaker 2: they figured these two will be great because they are
Speaker 2: used to working without words.
Speaker 1: Right, and so there is a certain logic to the
Speaker 1: variety show. It's not just all the p's just that
Speaker 1: variety shows were popular.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: At the time, somebody was like, well, wookies, you don't
Speaker 1: understand what they're saying. So this is all going to
Speaker 1: be very physical. So these people who who did what
Speaker 1: is it Shields and Yarnell. Yeah, that's a perfect choice.
Speaker 1: That makes complete sense. You can see this whole this
Speaker 1: whole process of leading up to the point where it
Speaker 1: was produced and shot and everything. Yeah, a series of like,
Speaker 1: oh we have this problem, well here's a fix. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well but that leads to another problem. Well we'll fix
Speaker 1: it with this. And no one's 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 made.
Speaker 2: That's right, and It eventually airs on.
Speaker 1: November seventeenth, nineteen seventy eight, a Friday, at eight pm
Speaker 1: Eastern time.
Speaker 2: That's right, and according to Nielsen ratings, it attracted thirteen
Speaker 2: million viewers lost the second hour.
Speaker 1: Just in the US. It aired in six or seven
Speaker 1: countries total.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but no one cares about that, I guess not
Speaker 2: because none of those are on the internet. You know.
Speaker 2: It finished second to the Love Boat in the second
Speaker 2: ar I'm sorry, from eight to nine, and in the
Speaker 2: next hour actually finished behind part two of a mini
Speaker 2: series about Pearl Harbor starring Angie Dickinson. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: didn't even win their respective hours.
Speaker 1: No, thirteen million, that's not bad. The thing is, apparently,
Speaker 1: if you look at the Nielsen ratings graph for the
Speaker 1: first hour.
Speaker 2: Yeah we know about that graph, It's okay, yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: And then after a very important part, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about soon, it just drops off at the end of
Speaker 1: the first hour, and that actually probably made the executives
Speaker 1: at CBS cringe for a number of reasons. Number one
Speaker 1: is this special was originally supposed to just be an hour,
Speaker 1: but so many advertisers wanted to sign one that they
Speaker 1: extended it to two hours. And it shines through. You
Speaker 1: can totally tell that this thing was never supposed to
Speaker 1: I think an hour might have been stretching it to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. Oh yeah, it's thirty minutes of content,
Speaker 1: forty if you're generous, an hour and then two hours.
Speaker 1: It becomes one of the worst things that was ever
Speaker 1: put on television.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's take a break and then we'll
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about the actual even don't
Speaker 2: want to call it content, but it is content in
Speaker 2: the strictest definition. Right after this.
Speaker 3: Staffy jawsh shop.
Speaker 2: All right, so the show itself, we've given you the
Speaker 2: main plot line, which again is that Chewy is trying
Speaker 2: to get back to his home planet to celebrate life
Speaker 2: Day with his family.
Speaker 1: Right, that's it, And again we almost barely see Chewy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The rest is his family on Kazook waiting for him
Speaker 1: to come back for a life Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So some of the various things they did there
Speaker 2: were guest stars. There was Harvey Korman from the Carol
Speaker 2: Burnett Show. Okay, one of my all time favorites.
Speaker 1: Him or Carol Burnett Show both. He's great. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: actually if you watch what he's doing, like.
Speaker 2: This is sure. Apparently he too was like the only
Speaker 2: one on set that was bringing levity. He was joking
Speaker 2: around and kind of kept spirits up. Good for him,
Speaker 2: that's what I say.
Speaker 1: And he had three different parts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he played uh well, I don't even know the names. Actually,
Speaker 2: we could look him up, but he played a h
Speaker 2: He played a Julia child like cook. There's an actual
Speaker 2: cooking segment, a long one, a very long cooking segment
Speaker 2: where Chewbacca's wife makes banthas stew.
Speaker 1: To kill some time, to kill some time on her
Speaker 1: planet and in our living room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Harvey Corman is in drag is a four
Speaker 2: armed Julia childlike TV chef right, And I think it's Gormanda.
Speaker 2: It's her name, Gormonda. That makes total sense. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: also plays There's this one weird bit where Chewbacca's son
Speaker 2: tries to figure out a way to trick the story
Speaker 2: or troopers that the Empire had come and kind of
Speaker 2: because the blockade raided the house and other properties. So
Speaker 2: he tries to trick them by I think, rigging a
Speaker 2: calm link to speak in a different voice. So he
Speaker 2: has to watch the instruction manual. He watches an instruction
Speaker 2: video which was Harvey Kytel as a robot.
Speaker 1: Oh, it would have been wonderful of big Harvey Kyel.
Speaker 2: Oh I did say Harvey Harvey Korm.
Speaker 1: Oh Man Harvey kit Tell murders someone in the middle
Speaker 1: of the instruction.
Speaker 2: Rad Harvey Korman. And then the final role he had
Speaker 2: was as a bar patron in the cantina that drinks.
Speaker 2: He has a hole in the top of his head
Speaker 2: like a volcano where he pours his drinks in. That's
Speaker 2: how he drinks. And he loves b Arthur. Did we
Speaker 2: mention b Arthur was in it?
Speaker 1: B Arthur is not only in it, Chuck. She sings
Speaker 1: a song.
Speaker 2: She does she is the unpronounce to everyone she manages
Speaker 2: or maybe owns the owner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the mas What ma def cantina?
Speaker 2: No, most def is a rapper? Oh yeah, think you
Speaker 2: mean Moss Eisley.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that cantina. She's the owner. Be Arthur is
Speaker 1: the owner be Arthur of the Golden Girls, but in
Speaker 1: this case be Arthur of Maud, because, as one of
Speaker 1: the people who wrote one of the articles we based
Speaker 1: this on points out, she's just basically playing Maud as
Speaker 1: the owner of the cantina.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and her song comes because they basically say there's
Speaker 2: a lockdown, so you gotta call last call at your bar.
Speaker 2: So she calls last call by singing a song to everyone.
Speaker 1: Right, and again, we can't possibly have the script lead
Speaker 1: anywhere 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 Tattooin 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, this is incomprehensible, but it goes on.
Speaker 2: So they're in it. There's also Art Carney. Yes, he's
Speaker 2: the Honeymooner family, the star of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Really, he has the most lines, I would say, the
Speaker 1: most comprehensible line, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he plays a trader, a human trader that
Speaker 2: is recently been with Han, Solo and Chewy and actually
Speaker 2: gets to Kazook and says they're on the way. It's
Speaker 2: all good. Yeah, a trade or not trade tour. Yeah,
Speaker 2: traders and trades humans for you know, money.
Speaker 1: No, he he sells goods. Yeah, a trader he doesn't
Speaker 1: trade humans. Yeah, he's in the human trade.
Speaker 2: He No, he isn't.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, he trades humans like he sells humans.
Speaker 2: I looked it up in the Star Wars Encyclopedia said
Speaker 2: that he was in the human trade. Huh.
Speaker 1: So in this Christmas special, Yeah, apparently they sanitized his
Speaker 1: background because he's basically just selling like gadgets and novelties
Speaker 1: and stuff like that to the Wookies and the Empire
Speaker 1: who were occupying the area.
Speaker 2: Yes, he comes bearing gifts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he's a friend of Chewbac's family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he comes bearing gifts. One of the gifts
Speaker 2: he gives is a sort of like a little digital
Speaker 2: insert to a Oh, I guess you would call it
Speaker 2: a virtual reality hair dryer hair dryer, like a beauty
Speaker 2: shop hair dryer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: He gives it to Grandpa Itchy. Grandpa Itchy sits under
Speaker 2: this hair dryer, pops in this digital cassette, and it
Speaker 2: can only be described as soft core porn.
Speaker 1: Apparently, the writers who were interviewed for this said that
Speaker 1: was totally the intent. They were trying to get what
Speaker 1: amounted to soft core porn that would pass the sensors.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: So it's all. You can't even say it's innuendo. It's
Speaker 1: too obvious an overt for innuendo. Instead, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just it's just gross. It's really gross. Diane Carroll, great singer,
Speaker 1: Yes she is a Vegas staple, shows up and starts
Speaker 1: basically tantalizing Grandpa Itchy again. This is Chewbacca's elderly father
Speaker 1: who now engages in some sort of well he's watching
Speaker 1: virtual reality pornography now, and this is a pretty lengthy
Speaker 1: segment in and of itself.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and she literally says to him, like, now
Speaker 2: I can see you're really excited. Yeah, it's pretty rough
Speaker 2: to watch. Yeah, so then you've got another musical.
Speaker 1: Number because also again he shudders, Yeah, it's really strange.
Speaker 2: All right. So there's also a I know, it seems
Speaker 2: like we're jumping around, but it's it's so mind blowing.
Speaker 1: Like this is pretty much like blow for blow.
Speaker 2: Actually I forgot earlier on in the In the special,
Speaker 2: there's one of my favorite sequences is when Grandpa Itchy
Speaker 2: goes over to Lumpy and basically sets up remember the
Speaker 2: hologram chess board that they played in A New Hope,
Speaker 2: basically kind of sets that up and says, here, just
Speaker 2: play this. He pushes the button which is clearly a
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies cassette recorder, and another like it's like a
Speaker 2: circ desole acid trip gymnast routine happens in front of
Speaker 2: the kid's eyes. And again this all just it's not
Speaker 2: like it shows a snippet. They show the entire segments,
Speaker 2: like five, six, ten minutes long. Sure of all of
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 1: So you would think, Okay, they've gone to this hologram
Speaker 1: well a couple of times, why not go to it again?
Speaker 1: Well they do. They do to kill more time while
Speaker 1: the Imperial Guard is ransacking their house. 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.
Speaker 2: Who looks like somebody from Spaceballs, by the way.
Speaker 1: Very much so, And the writer of the Vanity Fair article,
Speaker 1: by the way said 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 Carney's distracting this Imperial leader
Speaker 1: while they're ransacking the Wookies house, Chewbacca's house with a hologram.
Speaker 1: In 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 Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the predecessor to like video kill the radio story you
Speaker 1: can tell. And again it is the whole lengthy song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So every time that somebody's like we need to escape
Speaker 1: mentally from what's going on here in our house, let's
Speaker 1: go into the video world, it's not just and they
Speaker 1: don't cut back and forth. No, it's okay, here's five
Speaker 1: minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And even the Jefferson Starship guys were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's sort of a weird trip, like we didn't get it,
Speaker 2: but we did it right.
Speaker 1: They gave us some money, yeah, and some cocaine. Well,
Speaker 1: so we said, yeah, chuck. I think though, there yet
Speaker 1: another segment like this is actually widely regarded as the
Speaker 1: high point of the whole thing. Oh sure, great, there
Speaker 1: is a cartoon actually, yeah, that Lump Lumpy watches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Lumpy's like the Imperial Guard is still ransacking my house.
Speaker 1: I think I'll entertain myself by watching a cartoon on
Speaker 1: my little I.
Speaker 2: Don't know what.
Speaker 1: I guess it was an iPad and he watches this
Speaker 1: cartoon and it's it's actually remarkable for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: It's the best part of the whole special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, generally agreed upon as such, right, not just us.
Speaker 1: And it introduces Boba Fett time Boba fet ever makes
Speaker 1: an appearance in the Star Wars universe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually not a bad And you can't find
Speaker 2: it in the the one version I told you to watch.
Speaker 2: They removed it for copyright, but you didn't watch a separate.
Speaker 1: Version, right, you can find it on its own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's it's very much reminiscent of like the
Speaker 2: cartoon style of the day, like a he Man or
Speaker 2: something for.
Speaker 1: Sure, even even it's even a little more artsy than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But it does have a plot that you can
Speaker 2: follow that makes sense as a Star Wars thing, and
Speaker 2: it introduces Boba fet like you said, and it's actually
Speaker 2: not bad. It's like Luke and R two.
Speaker 1: And C three po Yeah, and they're like they crash
Speaker 1: on a planet or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Han and where you're in it. And it's
Speaker 2: the first time we see in Darth Vader. It's the
Speaker 2: first time we see Boba Fett and that he is
Speaker 2: that he is just doing whatever he can do for money,
Speaker 2: Like Luke trusts him at first, ce three bos like,
Speaker 2: you're sure you should trust him this quick? Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, three po you in your non trusting ways.
Speaker 2: And then it turns out he's selling them out to
Speaker 2: the dark side.
Speaker 1: So it's it's basically Boba fet as an allegory for
Speaker 1: George Lucas himself. So the cartoon comes and goes, and
Speaker 1: that was the thing that came at about the end
Speaker 1: of the first hour mark and after that everybody just
Speaker 1: turned off their television sets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember. Did you watch this when it
Speaker 2: came up?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I remember watching it, but I don't remember much about it,
Speaker 2: Like if I made it through it all. I mean
Speaker 2: it was I was seven and it was on till ten,
Speaker 2: so I probably didn't make it through it all. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Plus you're probably disturbed. Who knows, I just remember that.
Speaker 2: I'll have to ask my brother. He might have a
Speaker 2: memory of this.
Speaker 1: Oh Betty does. I'm sure he met everybody afterward or
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, it has a picture.
Speaker 2: Well, he was ten at that point, so cynicism had,
Speaker 2: you know, become a thing in his life. Probably all
Speaker 2: right by then, Sure didn't that when centicism kicks into
Speaker 2: Jenkinsie Scott holding out to fourteen fifteen, Yeah, maybe so
Speaker 2: so Chuck, the whole.
Speaker 1: Thing finally does in. And actually there's a guy. His
Speaker 1: name is Nathan Raven, he writes over at the av Club.
Speaker 1: He had a great quote. He basically said that one
Speaker 1: of the great redeeming values of this this special is
Speaker 1: that it does eventually end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what the first part of the quote is,
Speaker 2: I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written and directed
Speaker 2: by a sentient bag of cocaine.
Speaker 1: And like, go read his review of the Star Wars
Speaker 1: Holiday Special, because he goes on to describe exactly what
Speaker 1: that must.
Speaker 2: Have been like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, development meeting where the bag of cocaine is pacing
Speaker 1: back and forth talking about what should happen.
Speaker 2: That's what it feels like.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't, and it ends.
Speaker 2: Even more.
Speaker 1: It takes this bizarre two hours and wraps it up
Speaker 1: in just a nice bizarre bow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what happens is eventually Han Solo should we
Speaker 2: say spoiler alert, Eventually Han Solo and Chewy make it
Speaker 2: to the planet. They park on the far side of
Speaker 2: the planet because they know the Imperial forces are there.
Speaker 1: And the exercise will do Chewy good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they have to hike over there. They eventually
Speaker 2: make it back home. They find a storm the Stormtroopers
Speaker 2: at their house, their tree hut. Yeah, which way the
Speaker 2: paintings that set this up, I don't think we mentioned
Speaker 2: I don't even call him Matte paintings. It looks like
Speaker 2: someone painted something on the wall and they just like
Speaker 2: put a camera in front of it. Pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they get back and Chewbacca Han Solo hides around
Speaker 2: the corner. Chewbacca steps in front of his son to
Speaker 2: protect them. Sure, Han Solo jumps out, and the stormtrooper
Speaker 2: trips over a pile of logs and falls over the
Speaker 2: balcony and dies. In a holiday special. So they wouldn't
Speaker 2: even not only could he not shoot first with Gredo,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't even have him like wrestle the stormtrooper
Speaker 2: and throw him off. He trips over a log.
Speaker 1: And Han Solo has his hands thrown up like wasn't me?
Speaker 2: It might have been a banana peel, you know.
Speaker 1: But again, this is basically produced by Vodvillians starring vaudevillians.
Speaker 1: Why not have the one death take place from base?
Speaker 1: What amounts to somebody slipping on a banana peel exactly,
Speaker 1: It's a perfect way to end it. So that's that
Speaker 1: guy basically represents the end of the imperial threat for
Speaker 1: the rest of Life Day. And 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 Olin Mills portrait,
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 us. And then Princess
Speaker 1: Leah comes out with C three po is Mark Hamill.
Speaker 2: There, the whole gang Zerophone, Okay, the.
Speaker 1: Whole gangs there, And then they all gather around to
Speaker 1: hear a great quote from Princess Leah which we will
Speaker 1: read verbatim.
Speaker 2: This holiday is yours, but we all share with you
Speaker 2: the hope that this day brings us closer to freedom
Speaker 2: into harmony and to peace. No matter how different we appear,
Speaker 2: we're all the same in our struggle against the powers
Speaker 2: of evil and darkness. I hope that this day will
Speaker 2: always be a day of joy in which we can
Speaker 2: reconfirm our dedication and our courage, and more than anything else,
Speaker 2: our love for one another. This is the promise of
Speaker 2: the Tree of Life Q song.
Speaker 1: Right, And we should also point out the Tree of
Speaker 1: Life has never been mentioned.
Speaker 2: Up to this point. I had no idea whether it.
Speaker 1: Takes a sudden appearance at the end. And when you
Speaker 1: said Q song, by Q song, you mean Princess Leah
Speaker 1: starts singing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And apparently that was one of the big contingencies
Speaker 2: on Carrie Fisher being involved. Yeah, she's going through a
Speaker 2: phase where she was like, I kind of like singing.
Speaker 1: Bruce Valanche calls it her Joni Mitchell period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she somehow convinced them to let her sing
Speaker 2: as Princess Leah. 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 other writers
Speaker 1: who've written reviews of this, it's really obvious that she
Speaker 1: possibly smoked a decent amount of pot before she shot
Speaker 1: this shot this scene, but she sings, Okay, it's fine,
Speaker 1: it's just the fact that Princess Leia is singing. And actually,
Speaker 1: Bruce Falanche had a really great quote too. He says
Speaker 1: that she very much wanted to show this side of
Speaker 1: her talent, and there was general dismay because this was
Speaker 1: not what we wanted Princess Lea to be doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she did it anyway. So the whole thing ends with
Speaker 1: her singing this song about life day oh yeah, which
Speaker 1: is set loosely to the John Williams Star Wars theme.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So along the way, the director original director quit,
Speaker 2: A new director, Steve Binder, was hired to finish the
Speaker 2: job and bring it in, and he did over the
Speaker 2: original one million dollar budget. Of course, always he did
Speaker 2: bring it in and at this point George Lucas said
Speaker 2: he was working on Empire Strikes Back. He didn't know
Speaker 2: what was going on. He wasn't around for the shoot. No,
Speaker 2: it wasn't until it aired. I think that he actually
Speaker 2: saw it. Yes, and it was a travesty obviously, if
Speaker 2: you haven't noticed that by now. Critics hated it Star
Speaker 2: Wars fans really hated it.
Speaker 1: Everybody, the people who were in it hated it.
Speaker 2: Lucas hated it.
Speaker 1: Even Harvey Korman secretly hated it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even Harvey Keitel hated it. Actually he loved it.
Speaker 2: But Lucas has been asked over the years about it
Speaker 2: a lot, and he doesn't talk about it much. But
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, and I don't buy this
Speaker 2: for a second, he says it was an interview He
Speaker 2: said especial from nineteen seventy eight. I really didn't have
Speaker 2: much to do with us. You know that part is true.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what network it was even on, but
Speaker 2: it was a thing that they did. That's a lie.
Speaker 2: There's no way he doesn't know. That was CBS. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we kind of just let them do it. I believe
Speaker 2: that it was done by I can't even remember who
Speaker 2: the group was, but there were variety TV guys. I'm
Speaker 2: sure he remembers a few of them. We let them
Speaker 2: use the characters and stuff, and that probably wasn't the
Speaker 2: smartest thing to do, but you learn from those experiences.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think they even use some of the footage from
Speaker 2: the movie at the end. It looks like some of
Speaker 2: the space like a highlight reel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Gang.
Speaker 2: Well, and during the it looked like some of the
Speaker 2: they had some insert shots of like Imperial cruisers and
Speaker 2: tie fighters and stuff.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, likes from remember when when Chewbacca like leans
Speaker 1: back and puts his hands behind it. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: in there. It's it's like a just a highlight reel
Speaker 1: from the movie. Saying like I feel like this, go
Speaker 1: see the movie.
Speaker 2: Well, and also that means it doesn't match the look
Speaker 2: of the rest of it at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: It's just sort of inserted.
Speaker 1: They tried, They definitely tried. And George Lucas is totally
Speaker 1: full of it, because in nineteen eighty seven he told
Speaker 1: star Log magazine that the Christmas Special would be out
Speaker 1: on video cassette very soon.
Speaker 2: Yes, And in two thousand and seven, two.
Speaker 1: Years after that quote, you just read where he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what you're talking about. Basically, he
Speaker 1: apparently considered releasing The Christmas Special as a bone us
Speaker 1: on the DVDs of the first three.
Speaker 2: Right, but did not didn't And apparently Carrie Fisher told
Speaker 2: Lucas that, if you want me to do DVD extras commentary, Yeah, commentary.
Speaker 2: Then I want a clean original copy of the Holiday Special? Yes,
Speaker 2: so why go ahead so I can play at parties
Speaker 2: what I want people to leave. It's pretty great.
Speaker 1: It is so and there is one of those clean
Speaker 1: copies is floating around out there, so you can watch
Speaker 1: this 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 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that are just fascinating. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those are always fun GM ads where one of the
Speaker 1: guys who's in quality control is he says, did you
Speaker 1: watch it?
Speaker 2: I don't think I saw that one.
Speaker 1: He goes, we really care about these cars. That's no
Speaker 1: jibe man on a GM and he's like, it's serious.
Speaker 2: Oh they're trying to be hip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty good stuff.
Speaker 2: Here's my final thought on it. I love it. It
Speaker 2: does not taint my Star Wars experience or my love
Speaker 2: for the franchise. Okay, and I'm glad it is out
Speaker 2: there because it's a it's a fun little stain that
Speaker 2: shouldn't be taken too seriously. I think it adds to
Speaker 2: it actually, because it's campy and awful. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it. I'm
Speaker 2: with you, you like it? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I watched it twice. I wouldn't watched
Speaker 1: it a second. I wouldn't have made it through the
Speaker 1: first time. Let me take that back, as I'm a pro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I would have made it through the first time.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have watched it the second time if I wasn't.
Speaker 1: There wasn't something about it, and I figured out. I
Speaker 1: think the thing that I like the most about it
Speaker 1: is Lumpy, Chewbacca's son, Yeah, played by an actress named
Speaker 1: Patty Maloney, who frankly is hands down the best act
Speaker 1: in the entire thing. She like her responses and everything
Speaker 1: is just awesome.
Speaker 2: I think my favorite parts are, well, there's a great
Speaker 2: Wilhelm scream. Yes that's troop for trips over the law.
Speaker 1: Jerry would not have noticed it.
Speaker 2: And then there's a part where all the wikie dialogue
Speaker 2: you can't understand, but there's clearly one part where where
Speaker 2: Itchy and Lumpy are having exchange where Lumpy you can
Speaker 2: make it out goes I love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's covered up. But someone was like, we have
Speaker 2: to have at least one exchange where you sort of
Speaker 2: know what they're saying.
Speaker 1: Sure, or they were like, I think she has said
Speaker 1: I love you. Should we have them redo it? And
Speaker 1: the director's like, no, I want to go and Chuck.
Speaker 1: There's one other thing that I figured out from watching this.
Speaker 1: What's that it's not readily apparent the whole thing is
Speaker 1: made all the more odd, and that there's situation after
Speaker 1: situation after situation where we, as normal audiences, were trained
Speaker 1: to expect the laugh track, but there's not a laugh track. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's been a laugh track. Yeah, it might have
Speaker 1: been less bizarre. Yeah, but the fact that it's missing
Speaker 1: just makes your agitates the mind. So it's this whole
Speaker 1: additional element that it is weird.
Speaker 2: I never thought about that. There's just weird moments of
Speaker 2: silence all throughout it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like when Art Carney's doing his thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm telling jokes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I agree with you, Chuck.
Speaker 2: Don't take things too seriously. I think that's the great
Speaker 2: lesson in this. Yeah, and then the Lesson of Life
Speaker 2: day it is and in two thousand and seven, Riff
Speaker 2: tracks a great Mystery science Theater. Three thousand guys Mike Nelson, BILLL. Corbett,
Speaker 2: and Kevin Murphy provided audio commentary for the full version
Speaker 2: of the special. So try and go grab that if
Speaker 2: you can as well. Oh you can, it's on their
Speaker 2: site because it's great. I think it's like eight bucks
Speaker 2: and those guys are awesome.
Speaker 1: And yeah, at 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: 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 sledgehammer, right, And there's also an entire website dedicated
Speaker 1: to it, Star Wars Holidayspecial dot com. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about the Star Wars Holiday Special,
Speaker 1: we have a ton of hart Star Wars stuff on
Speaker 1: how stuff works.
Speaker 2: By the way, Yeah, we have cool, sort of fun
Speaker 2: articles about the Death Star and Lightsabers.
Speaker 1: Videos with the Holly Fry from Stuff You missed a
Speaker 1: history class?
Speaker 2: Yeah, who, she knows her stuff. She does.
Speaker 1: So you can just type Star Wars in the search
Speaker 1: bar at how stuff works dot com and it will
Speaker 1: bring up some cool stuff for you. Since I said
Speaker 1: search bar, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, just finished listening to the Voyage Manuscript podcast.
Speaker 2: Found it's super interesting, especially the theories on its definition
Speaker 2: or origin. I no Josh mentioned Chuck Siery, but being
Speaker 2: drug induced is somewhat surprising or even unlikely, given the
Speaker 2: language and the manuscript follows linguistic laws only founded in
Speaker 2: the past one hundred years. But if you think about it,
Speaker 2: it's a tough. It's tough to stray away from familiar structures,
Speaker 2: especially for something like language. I think back to when
Speaker 2: I was younger and friends invented their own languages, or
Speaker 2: even in writing a song or poetry. Creativity can sometimes
Speaker 2: be limited by what we know, So just thought I
Speaker 2: contribute that to the conversation. Nice. Thanks big, thanks for
Speaker 2: all you guys do. I found the podcast after moving
Speaker 2: to San Diego in the last few years for some
Speaker 2: noise around my apartment, so basically we were blocking out noise.
Speaker 2: We do that w JE love and then as a
Speaker 2: way to get through traffic on my commute home from work.
Speaker 2: You guys are far more interesting and enjoyable than television
Speaker 2: and YouTube videos. I'm sure I've listened to hundreds and
Speaker 2: we'll continue to listen to hundreds more. Keep on Keeping on.
Speaker 2: That is from Amy Jay Muffett.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Amy in San Diego. Does that mean
Speaker 1: like place of the whales in German or something like that? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get in touch of this. You can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email the Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how Stuffworks dot com. As always joined us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: dot Com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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