Speaker 1: Happy belated life day everyone. It's me Josh uh, and
Speaker 1: I chose for this week's s Y s K selects
Speaker 1: the Star Wars Holiday Special episode. It's true this just
Speaker 1: came out two years back, but in my opinion, listening
Speaker 1: to this episode should probably become a worldwide annual holiday tradition.
Speaker 1: So we missed last year, we can just go ahead
Speaker 1: and consider this year one of that tradition. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it, and Merry Christmas and happy holidays however
Speaker 1: you celebrate them. Welcome to Stuff you should know from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com. 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 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 make myself go to sleep face,
Speaker 1: you go to the dark side. Been there a while now?
Speaker 1: Uh Well, Happy Star Wars Day though, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: I think this pairs nicely with Christmas Star Wars Day.
Speaker 1: It's all come together. Yes, Um, we already missed Life
Speaker 1: Day though, so happy belated Life Day. Are they celebrating
Speaker 1: it this year? Novemb Yeah, but it's every three years.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, our cane man job. Okay, so it's every
Speaker 1: three years, started in nineteen seventy eight. Let's do the math,
Speaker 1: shall we? Mm hmmm, quick math break. I believe that
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen was the last Life Day, man, we
Speaker 1: just missed, and then again in seventeen. Okay, soeen we'll
Speaker 1: celebrate Life Day. Will put on our red robes, are ultralong,
Speaker 1: straight ironed wigs, and we'll celebrate Life Day the way
Speaker 1: it was meant to. Yes, And if you have no
Speaker 1: idea what we're talking about. We are talking about Life Day,
Speaker 1: which is a celebration, uh that Wookies in the Star
Speaker 1: Wars Union first have every three years. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: their Christmas or the Kanza, their tet. Supposedly, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like Earth. They too. They celebrate the diversity of
Speaker 1: their ecosystem and also remembrance of the dead, and they
Speaker 1: also give the gifts there like the Fins. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very interesting part of the Star
Speaker 1: Wars canon. It is, and it's almost entirely made up,
Speaker 1: dashed off you could possibly say, by um, George Lucas
Speaker 1: in the seventies. Um. And it's the basis of what
Speaker 1: is become derided as like one of the worst things
Speaker 1: that ever happened to the Star Wars galaxy. Well, not
Speaker 1: only that, one of the worst things ever aired on television. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with this galaxy. Yeah, at first that sounds like hyperbole, like,
Speaker 1: come on, it's because it was Star Wars, we had
Speaker 1: high expectations, but it's really that bad. Yeah. The people
Speaker 1: who say that haven't seen even a second of it. Yeah. Yeah, However,
Speaker 1: I watched it uh, when I was a kid. Then
Speaker 1: it 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 have, 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 VHS tapes, but there's one really pretty good version
Speaker 1: of it in full UM brought to you by w
Speaker 1: h I O Dayton, Ohio, Channel seven. Because that flashes
Speaker 1: 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 money,
Speaker 1: so they were about thirty eight hundred dollars in two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen money. Luckily, there were some rich people out
Speaker 1: there recording this stuff, and the wealthy have saved us
Speaker 1: all again yet again, as they always do. Uh. We
Speaker 1: need to shout out some art goals that we used
Speaker 1: for this. There's great a great article in Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: called the Han Solo Comedy Our exclamation Point by Frank D. Jacomo.
Speaker 1: And then there's the Star Wars Holiday special was the
Speaker 1: worst thing on television ever by So when we kind
Speaker 1: of know Alex Pasternack uh from Motherboard, Yeah, which is uh,
Speaker 1: not wired. It's uh vice. We wrote a little bit
Speaker 1: for Motherboard back then and we had a call with that,
Speaker 1: like we're like old motherboard vets basically, and when they're
Speaker 1: one more, there was another one and I don't know
Speaker 1: who wrote this one chuck. Uh, yeah, it's the titles
Speaker 1: the Star Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas wants to smash
Speaker 1: every copy of with a sledgehammer, which was a famous quote,
Speaker 1: uh supposedly at a convention by Lucas, Yes, which is
Speaker 1: not correct. He didn't ever say that. No, okay, that
Speaker 1: that sounded like something that people made up. Yes, but
Speaker 1: if you go on the internet, you will quickly believe
Speaker 1: that he did. Apparently didn't, so that's I'm sure he
Speaker 1: felt that way though, clearly, because he did appear on
Speaker 1: Robot Chicken and I think two thousand five on the
Speaker 1: Therapist Couch talking about how much he hated the special. Alright,
Speaker 1: so let's set the background, shall we Shall we go
Speaker 1: back to summer getting the old way back machine. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do it. All right, here we are, there's Waterson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm 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 when this first movie it was
Speaker 1: his first huge, huge breakout hit. Oh yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: talk don't even talk about a breakout hit, Like no
Speaker 1: one had ever seen anything like it before two thousand
Speaker 1: one had come out in the late sixty but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It's still it still isn't accessible to all audiences. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of cerebral film. Yeah, it's not an adventure movie.
Speaker 1: This was This is like basically swashbuckling on the screen.
Speaker 1: But you know, in a galaxy far far away, Star
Speaker 1: Wars just changed everything and it came on just like
Speaker 1: a hammer. Um, there's a new hope by the way, yes,
Speaker 1: and then then we're gonna get stuff wrong, nerds, So yes,
Speaker 1: just go ahead and get your little fingers ready to
Speaker 1: email us. Like if it wasn't driven home that I'm
Speaker 1: not a nerd by the fact that I don't have
Speaker 1: opening night tickets or any tickets yet, give me a break,
Speaker 1: and by proxy chuck to okay, thank you. So um,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to stay how great Star Wars was
Speaker 1: in everyone's mind, right. Bill Murray came out with that
Speaker 1: lounge singer Star Wars thing. It was everywhere and if
Speaker 1: you if you just listen to the lyrics of it,
Speaker 1: it's really it's just Bill Murray singing about how much
Speaker 1: Star Wars is awesome. Right. So, by the following year, Um,
Speaker 1: George Lucas was he wanted to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to keep audiences just engaged with the whole Star Wars
Speaker 1: franchise that he was just starting to build. But he
Speaker 1: knew the Empire Strikes Back was a couple more years out, sure,
Speaker 1: so um he I think he was approached by some
Speaker 1: TV executives who said, have you considered doing some sort
Speaker 1: of TV special? They're all the rage right now. We
Speaker 1: have a we have a graphic that's really awesome that
Speaker 1: we set aside just for TV specials here at CBS.
Speaker 1: Why don't you let us let's get together and do
Speaker 1: a Star Wars special. That's right. Producers Gary Smith and
Speaker 1: Dwight him on. Uh, we're working over at CBS, and
Speaker 1: they said, this is a great way to keep the
Speaker 1: spirit alive while you're making your other movie. Maybe move
Speaker 1: some more toys. Yeah, which George Lucas got. So it
Speaker 1: was right before Thanksgiving, and he said, there'll be a
Speaker 1: lot of people watching TV um pre holiday season or
Speaker 1: I guess in the holiday season. Well, the weekend before Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: it's like everybody's shopping, sitting around family like waiting to
Speaker 1: actually do stuff. That's right, perfect time to broadcast something
Speaker 1: on TV. So Lucas says, all right, let's do this.
Speaker 1: I don't have a ton of time, but how about this.
Speaker 1: I'll get I'll get a story together and then you
Speaker 1: can go hire a whiz bang team of of veteran
Speaker 1: writers and producers and directors whatever genre you think is appropriate.
Speaker 1: And those are the words that will haunt you, George
Speaker 1: Lucas to his grave. Yeah. So Lucas said, here's my idea.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be based um on Wookiees, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to take place on their home planet of Kazook
Speaker 1: or Wookie planet. See is that how you saying Kazuk
Speaker 1: That's how it's pronounced. In the episode, the Holiday special.
Speaker 1: But it's also pronounced different ways. Other times I would
Speaker 1: have pronounced that cashy e e got spell it k
Speaker 1: a s h y y y k, which I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that sounds like Chewbuck is plan sure also
Speaker 1: called G five Wookie planet see or Eaton is a
Speaker 1: mid rim planet. Right. So the whole reason apparently that
Speaker 1: George Lucas was interested in featuring the Wookies was it
Speaker 1: is what we in show business call low hanging fruit.
Speaker 1: The reason why it was low hanging fruit was because
Speaker 1: they had just established the different scenes that would make
Speaker 1: the cut for Empire Strikes Back and uh, what how
Speaker 1: did you pronounce it again? Kazook Kazook had not made
Speaker 1: the cut. Uh. Even prior to this, apparently for a
Speaker 1: new hope, George Lucas had whipped up a forty page
Speaker 1: what's known as the Wookie Bible. It's like a forty
Speaker 1: page supplement that's all about Kazook and Wookies and Chewbacca
Speaker 1: and his family and everything about wookie um. Right, so
Speaker 1: he's like, I've got this thing already, you know established
Speaker 1: I love Wookies. Um, they didn't make the cut. I'm
Speaker 1: a little sad about that. They're not gonna kazuok is
Speaker 1: not gonna show up in an Empire strikes back. Let's
Speaker 1: let's build the entire special around wookies. It's basically the
Speaker 1: one demand me George Lucas has. Yeah, 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 he 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've probably seen him on Hollywood Squares.
Speaker 1: Wasn't he suspected of being Thomas pinch On for a while.
Speaker 1: I don't know, or was Thomas pinch On on Hollywood Squares?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I may be confabulating some stuff confounding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some kind of some sort going on. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it. So Valanche was hired as a writer. A
Speaker 1: guy named Lenny Rips was hired as a writer who
Speaker 1: has some great quotes in that Vanity Fair article. He does.
Speaker 1: His first quote was, we were really excited because this
Speaker 1: is Star Wars. How could it lose famous? Last words?
Speaker 1: Who else was hired? There was a husband and wife team,
Speaker 1: the welch Is, who are the parents of folk singer
Speaker 1: Gillian Welch. I'm a big fan of and I had
Speaker 1: no idea that her parents. They were producers slash songwriters
Speaker 1: of the day. They were big on the variety show scene,
Speaker 1: which would turn out to be a really key cog
Speaker 1: in this whole experience. So I feel like, right about here,
Speaker 1: Jerry should insert a needle coming off of a record
Speaker 1: sound effect. Okay, thanks Jerry, So Chuck, you just said
Speaker 1: singer songwriters. Yeah, what would that have to do with
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Yeah? Well, actually, in this Star Wars Holiday special,
Speaker 1: for those of you hadn't seen it, there are musical numbers.
Speaker 1: They decided from the 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 started, the Star Wars
Speaker 1: Corporation was what it was called um On the idea
Speaker 1: of doing this TV special was that everyone would love
Speaker 1: a variety show. Yeah, it was the seventies. Great idea,
Speaker 1: let's do a variety show. The problem was this, Apparently
Speaker 1: George Lucas didn't watch enough TV and he also overly
Speaker 1: trusted people who talked to him because by yes, variety
Speaker 1: shows had dominated television for over ten years, but it
Speaker 1: had come to an end. It was getting stale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking to Carol Burnett show, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: had just been canceled after eleven seasons. Sonny and Chair
Speaker 1: had just had its last season. Um, I mean what
Speaker 1: else like he Hall was he? I was still going on,
Speaker 1: probably still on solid golden yet to come on and
Speaker 1: take up the mantel that that would never write a show. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit, and there was talking in
Speaker 1: between the songs. Remember the Mandrell's Sister show. I never
Speaker 1: watched that one. Well, it's with that country chic thing
Speaker 1: that happened. Yeah, it was a big deal in the
Speaker 1: it's kind of happening again. I think, Oh, because of
Speaker 1: that dude, the guy who won all the c m
Speaker 1: A Awards. I don't know, he's like he's he came along.
Speaker 1: He's like actually country. His dad's like a coal miner
Speaker 1: for real. From Kentucky. I think, I know you mean
Speaker 1: Chris something. Yeah, he's come along and been like, what
Speaker 1: are you guys doing? Well, there's a revival in like
Speaker 1: good country music. Again, that's like in the tradition of
Speaker 1: Merle Haggard and and I guess that's probably where the
Speaker 1: country she came from because there was actually good country
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, Johnny Cash out a variety show, did
Speaker 1: he really? Yeah? I knew they did, like a Sunday
Speaker 1: singing thing like out in Virginia. Yeah, he had his
Speaker 1: own variety show. Is actually pretty good. There's some like
Speaker 1: really great performances. Do you know how many nerds are like,
Speaker 1: get back to Star Wars? I know, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: All right, So the Variety Show is is dying sort of,
Speaker 1: and so they figure, what a great time to take
Speaker 1: the biggest movie property on the planet and wedge it
Speaker 1: into the variety show milieu. I don't know if wedge
Speaker 1: is the right word. I think maybe uh, nestle it
Speaker 1: in there and then start hitting it with the blunt
Speaker 1: edge of an axe until it mashes into that crevice.
Speaker 1: You know, Because this is the time when Fantasy Island
Speaker 1: had just started. Um Mork and Mindy was about to
Speaker 1: change things. Charlie's Angels was getting huge. It basically television
Speaker 1: as we knew it from two whenever the real world
Speaker 1: came along. Just escape as television is what they called
Speaker 1: it was was starting and it was the hip new thing.
Speaker 1: So basically, if they had turned Han Solo and Princess
Speaker 1: Leiah and Luke Skywalker into maybe you know, sexy detectives,
Speaker 1: it might have gone over even better. But they went
Speaker 1: the other way. They decided to latch onto this extraordinarily
Speaker 1: stale um genre of television and they hired the best
Speaker 1: in the business, like there was there was. There was
Speaker 1: a from I think Lenny RiPPs who was saying, like
Speaker 1: we had literally a dream team, a variety show dream team,
Speaker 1: and everybody was good, but there were probably no bad
Speaker 1: welders on the Titanic eare 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 nineteen seventy one, and he actually was at usc
Speaker 1: Film School at the same time as Lucas, even though
Speaker 1: they didn't know each other, and um, he only ended
Speaker 1: up 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. We'll 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 Fischer, 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 clearly on drugs.
Speaker 1: Uh was she on drugs at this point she if
Speaker 1: you watch it, she's she's on drugs. Especially the ending scene.
Speaker 1: Mark Hambell, it looks like he's happy to be there.
Speaker 1: Actually he was fine, but apparently he said no, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not doing a musical number. And if you watch
Speaker 1: his part, wedging a musical number in there would have
Speaker 1: been even more painful. Um. But they everybody who was
Speaker 1: part of the actual Star Wars franchise that wasn't wearing
Speaker 1: like a full body costume was like, I really wish
Speaker 1: I wasn't here, And you can tell, oh yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: in the opening uh credit sequence, they're showing the picture
Speaker 1: that you know, the faces of the people, and you
Speaker 1: see Harrison Ford as if he's flying the Millennium Falcon,
Speaker 1: and you can you can just hear the guy I'll
Speaker 1: screen going now look at the camera and just give
Speaker 1: a nod. Just look at the camera and give a nod.
Speaker 1: And he finally you can tell he's piste off and
Speaker 1: he looks up at the camera and just sort of
Speaker 1: smirks yeah and points at the camera like okay, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the camera, and then goes back to what
Speaker 1: he's doing. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I felt bad for him.
Speaker 1: So early on Valanche and others did you did you
Speaker 1: feel bad for him? Though? Really? I mean, like, come on,
Speaker 1: it's Harrison Ford, it's Hans Solo. He has to go
Speaker 1: do this for like five days. Yeah, I felt terrible
Speaker 1: for him. I think it's hilarious that they had to
Speaker 1: do this, especially now. Well, early on, Valanche and others
Speaker 1: knew that they may be in trouble because they decided
Speaker 1: not to subtitle any of the Wookie dialogue, and they
Speaker 1: literally started after a brief opening scene setting it up here.
Speaker 1: Here's the basic plot is Han Solo is trying to
Speaker 1: get Chewbacca back to Kazook in time for Life Day
Speaker 1: so we can celebrate with his family. That's the basis
Speaker 1: of the entire two the basis the entire two hours.
Speaker 1: They encounter a space battle and they're delayed, and the
Speaker 1: next two hours are kind of what's going on while
Speaker 1: the delay is happening back on Kazoo, back on Kazook.
Speaker 1: Because you hear, like, okay, well, Han Solo and Chewbacca
Speaker 1: evading the Imperial Guard and all that stuff for two hours.
Speaker 1: I would watch that. I would too. That's not what
Speaker 1: they show killing time at the Wookie household. That is
Speaker 1: what they show. That's what they do. It's people hanging
Speaker 1: out waiting for Chewbacca, worrying about him, and then killing
Speaker 1: 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 wook He's talking to each other with
Speaker 1: no subtitles. Fortunately, I couldn't follow it at first, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't even know who it was. I thought it
Speaker 1: was might have been Chewbacca's mom and dad. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a little brother. And I don't find out until
Speaker 1: later when Mark Cambell shows up via skype call and says,
Speaker 1: he really explains everything that had just happened, Like, you're
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's father, Itchy, you'r Chewbacca's son, uh Lumpy Lumpy, and
Speaker 1: you are Chewbacca's wife. Oh mama, thank you. So before
Speaker 1: everybody starts like freaking out, we know that that's actually
Speaker 1: their nicknames. Their real names are. His father is a
Speaker 1: ti chick cook, a tchick cook it's really hard to pronounce.
Speaker 1: Mulatto Buck is his wife, and his son is lump
Speaker 1: O war Ump but as named by Lucas. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but Lucas also named him Lumpy Itchy and Mala so um.
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, ketchuck, zuck,
Speaker 1: kazook Um. Just say ketchup, ketchup or cats up if
Speaker 1: you're fancy. Um. But Chewbacca is having trouble getting back
Speaker 1: to Katchuk because there's kazuock, because there's a blockade by
Speaker 1: the Empire and they're looking for rebels, specifically Chewbacca. Who
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this. He's the most famous Wookie of
Speaker 1: all did you know that? Yeah, of course I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. Well, I mean, he's the only one that
Speaker 1: really appears in the movies I mean that we're seeing, like,
Speaker 1: you know, these people's view of the universe. What about
Speaker 1: back on book Ye, he might have just been a
Speaker 1: fly by night wookie, right, yeah, but not the case
Speaker 1: very famous wookie. Yeah, and he really loved it, like
Speaker 1: soak in his fame. All right, 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 stare. 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: talk and what sounds like fat people having an orgasm.
Speaker 1: He goes, if you want, you can set up a
Speaker 1: tape recorder in my bedroom and I'll do all of
Speaker 1: the follying for it. Yeah he's a large guy, he is,
Speaker 1: so uh that's what got the glacial stare. But Valanche
Speaker 1: later said that from this, there was one development meeting
Speaker 1: 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. 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 fairly well, just as a short segment on like
Speaker 1: 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 bread 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 yarn l which I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard of. 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: it'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 in yarn? Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a perfect choice. That that makes complete sense. You
Speaker 1: can see this whole this whole process of leading up
Speaker 1: to the point where it was produced and shot and everything.
Speaker 1: It's 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: sevent Friday at eight pm Eastern time. That's right, and
Speaker 1: Nielsen ratings it um attracted thirteen million viewers. Uh just
Speaker 1: the second hour, just in the US. It aired in
Speaker 1: six or seven countries total. Yeah, but no one cares
Speaker 1: about that, I guess not because none of those are
Speaker 1: on the internet. Uh. It finished second to the Love
Speaker 1: Boat in the second arm, sorry from eight to nine,
Speaker 1: and in the next hour actually finished behind part two
Speaker 1: of a mini series about Pearl Harbor starring Angie Dickinson.
Speaker 1: So it didn't even win their respective hours. No t million,
Speaker 1: that's that's not bad. The thing is, apparently if you
Speaker 1: look at the Nielsen ratings graph for the first hour, yea,
Speaker 1: 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. Um, it just drops off at the end
Speaker 1: of the first hour. And that actually probably made the
Speaker 1: executives at CBS cringe for a number of reasons. Number
Speaker 1: one is this special was originally supposed to just be
Speaker 1: an hour, but so many advertisers wanted to sign on
Speaker 1: that they extended it to two hours. And it shines
Speaker 1: through you can totally tell that this thing was never
Speaker 1: supposed to I think an hour might have been stretching it.
Speaker 1: To tell you the truth, 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. All right, well, let's take a break
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: actual um uh even I don't want to call it
Speaker 1: content it but it is content in the strictest definitions.
Speaker 1: Right after this, sorry gee, alright, 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 apparently,
Speaker 1: he too was like the only one on set that
Speaker 1: was bringing levity. He was joking around and kind of
Speaker 1: kept spirits up. Good for him, that's what I say.
Speaker 1: And he had three, three different parts. Yeah, he played
Speaker 1: uh well, I don't even know the names. Actually we
Speaker 1: could look him up, but he played a He played
Speaker 1: 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 child like uh TV chef
Speaker 1: And I think it's Gormanda. It's her name, Gormanda. That
Speaker 1: makes total sense. He also plays Um. There's this one
Speaker 1: weird bit where Chewbacca's son tries to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to trick the stormtroopers. 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 did
Speaker 1: Harvey Carvey corn Man Haye murders someone in the middle
Speaker 1: of the instruction Harvey Corman. And then the final role
Speaker 1: he had was as a a bar patron in the
Speaker 1: cantina that drinks. He has a hole in the top
Speaker 1: of his head like a volcano, where he pours his
Speaker 1: drinks in. That's how he drinks. And he he loves
Speaker 1: b Arthur. Did we mention be Arthur was in it?
Speaker 1: B Arthur is not only in it, Chuck. She sings
Speaker 1: a song. She does. She is thenotes to everyone she
Speaker 1: manages or maybe owns. The owner. Yeah, the what's the
Speaker 1: mas what moss deaf cantina? Uh? No, most of is
Speaker 1: a rapper. Oh yeah, I think you mean Moss Eisley. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that cantina. She's the owner. Be Arthur is the owner
Speaker 1: be author of the Golden Girls, but in this case
Speaker 1: the Arthur of Maude, because as one of the people
Speaker 1: who wrote one of the articles we based this on
Speaker 1: points out, she's just basically playing Maud as the owner
Speaker 1: of the cantina. Yeah, and her song comes because um,
Speaker 1: they basically say there's a lockdown, so you gotta call
Speaker 1: last call um at your bar. So she calls last
Speaker 1: call by singing a song to everyone. Right, and again
Speaker 1: we can't possibly have the script lead anywhere else but
Speaker 1: Chewbacca's house while his family waits for it. So all
Speaker 1: this takes place as part of a public service announcement
Speaker 1: basically broadcast by the Empire about how immoral life on
Speaker 1: tattooing is. So let's go see what's going on in
Speaker 1: the mos Eisley Cantina as it's being shut down for curfew. Alright,
Speaker 1: this is incomprehensible, but it goes on. Um, so they're
Speaker 1: in it. There's also Art Carney. Yes, he's the Honeymooners family,
Speaker 1: the star of the whole thing. Really, he has the
Speaker 1: most lines, I would say, the most comprehensible line. Right.
Speaker 1: So he plays a trader, a human trader um that is,
Speaker 1: uh recently been with Han Solo and Chewy and actually
Speaker 1: gets to Kazook and says they're on the way. It's
Speaker 1: all good. Yeah, a trade or not trade tour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: traders in trades humans for you know money. No, he
Speaker 1: he sells goods. Yeah, a trader. He doesn't trade humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's in the human trade. He No, he isn't. Really
Speaker 1: he trades humans like he sells humans. I looked it
Speaker 1: up in the Star Wars Encyclopedia said that he was
Speaker 1: in the human trade. So in this Christmas special, apparently
Speaker 1: they sanitized his his background because he's basically just selling
Speaker 1: like gadgets and novelty and stuff like that to the
Speaker 1: Wookies and the Empire who were occupying the area. Yes,
Speaker 1: he comes bearing gifts because he's a friend of Chewbacca's family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he comes bearing gifts. One of the gifts he
Speaker 1: gives is a UM sort of like a little digital
Speaker 1: insert to a Oh, I guess you would call it
Speaker 1: a virtual reality hair dryer hair dryer, like a beauty
Speaker 1: shop hair dryer. 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's just it's just gross. It's really gross.
Speaker 1: Um Diane Carroll, Yes she is. Um, a Vegas staple
Speaker 1: shows 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 like, now
Speaker 1: I can see you're really excited. Yeah, it's pretty rough
Speaker 1: to watch. Yeah, So then you've got another musical number
Speaker 1: because also again he shudders, it's really strange, all right,
Speaker 1: So there's also ah, I know, it seems like we're
Speaker 1: jumping around, but it's it's so blow not like this
Speaker 1: is pretty much like blow for blow. Um. Actually I
Speaker 1: forgot earlier on in in the in the special, Um,
Speaker 1: there's one of my favorite sequences is when Grandpa Itchy
Speaker 1: goes over to Lumpy and basically sets up remember the
Speaker 1: the hologram chessboard that they played in A New Hope,
Speaker 1: basically kind of sets that up and says, here, just
Speaker 1: play this. He pushes the button which is clearly a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies cassette recorder and another uh like it's like
Speaker 1: a cirque de sol ay acid trip. Um gymnast routine
Speaker 1: happens in front of the kid's eyes. And again this
Speaker 1: all just it's not like it shows a snippet. They
Speaker 1: showed the entire segments, like five, six, ten minutes long
Speaker 1: of all of these things. So you would think, Okay,
Speaker 1: they've gone to this hologram, well a couple of times,
Speaker 1: why not go to it again? Well they do. They
Speaker 1: do to kill more time. While the Imperial Guard is
Speaker 1: ransacking their house. Um, Art Carney apparently, I guess it's
Speaker 1: trying to get one of the Imperial Guard, the leader
Speaker 1: I think, or one of the leaders who looks like
Speaker 1: somebody from space Balls 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 Carney'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 like,
Speaker 1: we need to escape mentally from what's going on here
Speaker 1: in our house, let's go into the video world, it's
Speaker 1: not just and they don't cut back and forth. It's okay,
Speaker 1: here's five minutes of Jefferson Starship performing this song. And
Speaker 1: even the Jefferson Starship guys um were like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a weird trip, Like we didn't get it,
Speaker 1: but we did it right. They gave us some money
Speaker 1: and some cocaine. Well probably, so we said, yeah, chuck.
Speaker 1: I think though, um, there yet another segment like this
Speaker 1: is actually widely regarded as the high point of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. So there's a cartoon. Actually yeah that lump
Speaker 1: up watch Yeah, Lumpy's like the Imperial Guard is still
Speaker 1: ransacking my house. I think I'll entertain myself by watching
Speaker 1: 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 fat ever
Speaker 1: makes an appearance in Star Wars universe. Yeah, it's actually
Speaker 1: not a bad And you can't find it in the
Speaker 1: the one version I told you to watch. They removed
Speaker 1: it for copyright. But 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: but it's even a little more artsy than that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it does have a plot that you can follow
Speaker 1: that makes sense as a Star Wars thing, and it
Speaker 1: introduces Boba Fette, like you said, And um, it's actually
Speaker 1: not bad. It's like Luke and R two and C
Speaker 1: three p O. Yeah, and there's like they crash on
Speaker 1: a planet or something. Yeah, and Han and Jewry you're
Speaker 1: in it and it's the first time we see in
Speaker 1: Darth Vader. It's the first time we see Boba Fett
Speaker 1: and that he is uh, that he is just doing
Speaker 1: whatever he can do for money. Like Luke trusts him
Speaker 1: at first, C three pos like you sure you should
Speaker 1: trust him this quick, and he's like, oh, three p
Speaker 1: o you and your non trusting ways, And then it
Speaker 1: turns out he's selling them out to the dark side.
Speaker 1: So it's it's basically Boba Fett is an al worry
Speaker 1: for George Lucas himself. So the cartoon comes and goes,
Speaker 1: and that was the thing that came at about the
Speaker 1: end of the first hour mark, and after that everybody
Speaker 1: just turned off their television sets. Yeah, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Did you watch this when it came up? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: remember watching it, but I don't remember much about it,
Speaker 1: like if I made it through it all. I mean
Speaker 1: it was I was seven and it was on until ten,
Speaker 1: so I probably didn't make it through it all. Um,
Speaker 1: you're probably disturbed. Who knows, I just remember that. I'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. Well,
Speaker 1: he was ten at that point. Cynicism had, you know,
Speaker 1: become a thing in his life. Probably by then, didn't
Speaker 1: that when cynicism kicks into he's Scott holding out the
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen Yeah maybe so so um chuck, the whole
Speaker 1: thing finally does in. And actually there's a guy his
Speaker 1: name is Nathan Raban, he writes over at the A
Speaker 1: V Club. He had a great quote. He basically said
Speaker 1: that one of the great redeeming values of this um,
Speaker 1: this special is that it does eventually end. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what the first part of the quote is, I'm
Speaker 1: not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written and directed by
Speaker 1: a sentient bag of cocaine. And like, go read his
Speaker 1: his review of the Star Wars Holiday Special, because he
Speaker 1: 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 chew we good, so they have to
Speaker 1: hike over there. They eventually make it back home. Uh
Speaker 1: they find a storm the stormtroopers at their house. Um,
Speaker 1: their tree hut. Yeah, which by the paintings that set
Speaker 1: this up, I don't think we mentioned I don't even
Speaker 1: call him Matt paintings that it looks like someone painted
Speaker 1: something on the wall and they just like put a
Speaker 1: camera in front of it pretty much. Yeah. So they
Speaker 1: get back and um, Chewbacca, Han Solo hides around the
Speaker 1: corner of Chewbacca steps in front of his son to
Speaker 1: protect him. Han Solo jumps out, and the stormtrooper trips
Speaker 1: over a pile of logs and falls over the balcony
Speaker 1: and dies in a holiday special. So they wouldn't even
Speaker 1: not only could he not shoot for first with Grido,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't even have him like wrestle the stormtrooper
Speaker 1: and throw him off. He trips over a log and
Speaker 1: Han Solo has his hands thrown up Like wasn't me.
Speaker 1: It might also been a banana peal, you know. But again, uh,
Speaker 1: this is basically produced by vaudevillians starring vaudevillians. Why not
Speaker 1: have the one death take place from basically what it
Speaker 1: amounts to somebody slipping on a banana peel. It's a
Speaker 1: perfect way to end it. So that's uh that that
Speaker 1: guy basically represents the end of the imperial threat for
Speaker 1: the rest of Life Day. And um, we we then
Speaker 1: see Life Day being celebrated, which is celebrated by lots
Speaker 1: of wookies assembling in what looks like a giant Olan
Speaker 1: Mills portrait. Um, and all of them are wearing red robes.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm up talking, and it's because my
Speaker 1: mind is still having trouble like wrapping around this. And
Speaker 1: then um, Princess Leia comes out with C three P
Speaker 1: O is Mark Hamill there, the whole gangs there, I from, Okay,
Speaker 1: the whole gangs there. And then they all gather around
Speaker 1: to hear a great quote from Princess Leiah, which we
Speaker 1: will read um verbatim. This holiday is yours, but we
Speaker 1: all share with you the hope that this day brings
Speaker 1: us closer to freedom into harmony and to peace. No
Speaker 1: matter how different we appear, we're all the same in
Speaker 1: our struggle against the powers of evil and darkness. I
Speaker 1: hope that this day will always be a day of
Speaker 1: joy in which we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage,
Speaker 1: and more than anything else, our love for one another.
Speaker 1: This is the promise of the Tree of life que song, right,
Speaker 1: And we should also point out the tree of life
Speaker 1: has never been mentioned up to this point. A sudden
Speaker 1: appearance at the end, and when you said que song,
Speaker 1: by que song, you mean Princess Leia starts singing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And apparently that was one of the big contingencies on
Speaker 1: Harry Fischer being involved. She's going through the phase where
Speaker 1: she was like, I kind of like singing Bruce Valanche
Speaker 1: calls it, or Joni Mitchell period. Yeah, and she somehow
Speaker 1: convinced them to let her sing as Princess Leiah and
Speaker 1: she does. And again I've said that she looks like
Speaker 1: she's on drugs. This is the point where she really
Speaker 1: does look like she's on drugs. And it's not just
Speaker 1: me Um other writers who've written reviews of this. It's
Speaker 1: really obvious that she possibly smoked a decent amount of
Speaker 1: pot before she shot this shot this scene. But she sings, Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: it's fine. It's just the fact that um, Princess Leiah
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 Starr Worst theme. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So along the way, the director original director quit,
Speaker 1: a new director, Steve Binder was hired to finish the
Speaker 1: job and bring it in. Uh. And he did over
Speaker 1: the original one million dollar budget, of course always Uh.
Speaker 1: He did bring it in and um at this point
Speaker 1: George Lucas had uh. He was he was working on
Speaker 1: Empire Strikes Back. He didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: He wasn't around for the shoot. No, it wasn't until
Speaker 1: it aired. I think that he actually saw it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it was a travesty obviously, if you haven't noticed
Speaker 1: that by now, Critics hated it. Star Wars fans really
Speaker 1: hated it. Everybody hate The people who were in it
Speaker 1: hated it. Lucas hated it. Even 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 cvt uh. We kind of just
Speaker 1: let them do it. I believe that it was done
Speaker 1: by I can't even remember who the group was, but
Speaker 1: they were variety TV guys. I'm sure he remembers a
Speaker 1: few of them. We let them use the characters and stuff,
Speaker 1: and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but
Speaker 1: you learn from those experiences. I think they even used
Speaker 1: some of the footage from the movie at the end.
Speaker 1: It looks like some space like a highlight reel. Yeah,
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, Yeah,
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 move 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 just sort of inserted. They tried, They definitely tried, UM,
Speaker 1: And George Lucas is totally full of it because in
Speaker 1: seven he told star Log magazine that the Christmas Special
Speaker 1: would be out on video cassette very soon, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, two years after that quote, you just
Speaker 1: read where he's like, I don't even know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Basically, UM. He apparently considered releasing the Christmas
Speaker 1: Special as a bonus on the the DVDs of the
Speaker 1: first three right, but did not didn't And apparently Carrie
Speaker 1: Fisher told Lucas that if you want me to do
Speaker 1: UM DVD extras commentary commentary, then I want a clean,
Speaker 1: original copy of the Holiday Special, So why go ahead?
Speaker 1: So I can play at parties what I want people
Speaker 1: to leave. It's pretty great. It is so uh and
Speaker 1: there is one of those clean copies is floating around
Speaker 1: out there, so you can watch this in it in
Speaker 1: its entirety. Some of it, like the cartoon, was removed
Speaker 1: due to copy right 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. Ye. Those are always fun gm ads
Speaker 1: where one of the guys who's in quality control is
Speaker 1: he says, did you watch it? I don't think I
Speaker 1: saw that. He goes, um, we really care about these
Speaker 1: cars and that's no job man, a GM man, and
Speaker 1: he's like, it's serious. They're trying to be hip. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good stuff. Here's my final thought on it.
Speaker 1: I love it. It It does not taint my Star Wars
Speaker 1: experience or my love for the franchise, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: it is out there because it it's a it's a
Speaker 1: fun little stain that shouldn't be taken too seriously. I
Speaker 1: think it adds to it actually because it's campy and awful,
Speaker 1: and I don't know somehow that enriches the rest of it.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, you like it? Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I watched it twice. I wouldn't watched it a second.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have made it through the first time. Let
Speaker 1: me take that back. I'm a pro, so I would
Speaker 1: have made it through the first time. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: watched it the second time if I wasn't. There wasn't
Speaker 1: something about it, and I figured out. I think the
Speaker 1: 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 screamed trips over the law. Jerry would not have
Speaker 1: noticed it. Uh And then there's a part where all
Speaker 1: the Wookie dialogue you can't understand, but there's clearly one
Speaker 1: part where where Itchy and Lumpy are have any exchange
Speaker 1: where Lumpy you can make it out goes 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 just said I love you. Should we
Speaker 1: have them redo it? And then directors like no, I
Speaker 1: want to go and Chuck. There's one other thing that
Speaker 1: I figured out from watching this. It's not readily apparent.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is made all the more odd, and
Speaker 1: that there's situation after situation after situation where we as
Speaker 1: normal audiences, were trained to expect the laugh track, but
Speaker 1: there's not a laugh track. Had there been a laugh track,
Speaker 1: it what it might have been less bizarre, but the
Speaker 1: fact that it's missing just makes your agitates the mind.
Speaker 1: So it's this whole additional element that it is weird.
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. There's just weird moments of
Speaker 1: silence all throughout it, like when Art Carney's doing his
Speaker 1: thing and telling jokes. Yeah, okay, I agree with you, Chuck,
Speaker 1: don't take things too seriously. I think that's the great
Speaker 1: lesson in this and the lesson of life day it
Speaker 1: is and in two thousand seven Riff tracks Great Mystery
Speaker 1: Science Theater three thousand Guys Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and
Speaker 1: Kevin Murphy uh provided audio commentary for the full version
Speaker 1: of the special, So try and go grab that if
Speaker 1: you can as well, Oh you can't. It's on the
Speaker 1: site because it's great. I think it's like eight bucks
Speaker 1: and those guys are awesome and they are at least
Speaker 1: I think Corbett listens to us. So, hey, Corbett, you
Speaker 1: 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: h 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
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
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Speaker 1: star Wars in the search part how stuff works up
Speaker 1: commony will bring up some cool stuff for you. Since
Speaker 1: I said search bar, its time for listener mail. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: just finished listening to the Voytage Manuscript podcast. Found it's
Speaker 1: super interesting, especially the theories on its definition or origin.
Speaker 1: No Josh Menchin Chucks theory, but being drug induced a
Speaker 1: somewhat surprising or even unlikely given the language in the
Speaker 1: manuscript follows linguistic laws only founded in the past one years.
Speaker 1: But if you think about it, it's a tough. It's
Speaker 1: tough to stray away from familiar structures, especially for something
Speaker 1: like language. I think back to when I was younger
Speaker 1: and friends invented their own languages, or even in writing
Speaker 1: a song or poetry. Creativity can sometimes be limited by
Speaker 1: what we know. Uh So I just thought I contribute
Speaker 1: that to the conversation. Than big thanks for all you
Speaker 1: guys do. I found the podcast after moving to San
Speaker 1: Diego in the last few years for some noise around
Speaker 1: my apartment, so basically we were blocking out noise. We
Speaker 1: do that, which I love, uh And then it's a
Speaker 1: way to get through traffic on my commute at home
Speaker 1: from work. You guys are far more interesting and enjoyable
Speaker 1: than television and YouTube videos. Sure, I listen to hundreds
Speaker 1: and will continue to listen to hundreds more. Keep on,
Speaker 1: keeping on. That is from Amy J. Moffatt. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: Amy in San Diego doesn't mean like place of the
Speaker 1: Whales and German or something like that. Uh yeah. If
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with this, you can
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