The Star Wars Holiday Special

I don't know whose idea this thing was, but it was a bad one. The "Star Wars Holiday Special" took place in between the two movies, and is famous amongst Star Wars fans for featuring the first appearance of Boba Fett, and completely forgotten by everyone else. Why so forgotten? Because, simply, the show is absolutely terrible.

The "special" (and I use that term as loosely as possible) is about Chewbacca's family, who await his return for the celebration of the holiday "Life Day." Far as I can gather, the holiday involves Christmas ornament-like globes and wearing red robes and being Wookies. The special is basically two hours of waiting, and along the way there are cameos by all the major stars of the original film (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, etc.) It's shocking they appear at all, I have to believe the mob was involved for them to show up. They don't do much, and look thoroughly ashamed of themselves. And they should be; after all, all the action is given to Art Carney (Don't ask me), who plays a trader who's friends with the, uh, Baccas. Action hero Art Carney, ladies and gentlemen.

The show has more asides than a Shakespearian play. There is no plot, there are only little goofy tidbits. None of it is very Star Warsish. Harvey Korman plays a few roles, including an alien version of Julia Childs, and a robot explaining how to set up a communication device. Bea Arthur works in the infamous Cantina, which on a tv budget looks a lot like a diner with some guys with alien masks. She gets a very lengthy musical number and so do Jefferson Starship, and others.

Why would you make a Star Wars special that had nothing to do with Star Wars? It's mostly musical numbers, third rate celebrities (Way older than Star Wars' target audience I should mention), and Wookies who can't speak English. There's a good twenty minute period where no English is spoken since it's just the three Wookies goofing off. If this is genius stuff, then so's "Freddy Got Fingered."

The important Boba Fett apperanace is also one of the few truly entertaining moments of the show; a cartoon about Luke and co. meeting Boba for the first time. It's exciting and well voiced and animated. It's also just a little doo-dad that Lumpy (Yes, when you're named Chewie you name your son Lumpy) watches on a little video screen while waiting for his dad to come home.

It's funny to watch, and painful to watch, and annoying to watch, and mind-boggling to watch. It has to be seen to be believed, but do you really even want to?

As many other posters stated, I had been warned. And the legends are true! And like the Nazis, once you remove the cover to the Ark, you have to deal with the consequences. I paid 13 bucks for it, and it is a pile of crap. For the stouthearted who choose to soldier on, I have two recommendations:

1. Do not watch this alone! Like any other emotional trauma, the support of friends is crucial to survival. By the end, you will either want to climb a steeple with a rifle, or go into the garage and start the car.

2. Do not operate while unimpaired. An altered level of consciousness can cushion your psyche. I tried it straight, but within ten minutes I was forced to seek the companionship of my foamy 12 ounce friends.

At any rate, this helping of dog goo brings to light painful questions about Chewbacca and his people long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Questions probably better left unasked. Such as, despite the treetop setting, why does their dwelling place resemble a 70's ski lodge with an Astroturf floor?

Why does the local trader wear black plastic Earth glasses? How were the Wookies able to convert an ordinary cassette player into a Holograph projector? And, regarding said projector, why is the youth Lumpy (who is probably yelling "Franks and Beans!" in Wookie), so fascinated with the freakish flailings of a poor man's Cirque de Soleil? Finally, why in God's name does the patriarch of the clan, Itchy, get so aroused over a pseudo Irene Cara performing a sickening disco song and dance? It was highly disturbing.

Those are the questions that torment me. The other posters have done a far better job than myself covering the horrid sequences with Starship, Bea Arthur (shudder), Harvey Korman and Art Carney. But I must add this: I thought the animated sequence sucked. The story with decent artists probably would have been a cool comic book, but the animation and artwork was terrible. Too cartoony. Artoo physically jumping, his rigid metallic body curving about. And something about Han's head looking like it had been run over by a truck, all squashed...

Like Lot's wife, you have been warned...

I was stoned out of my mind when I saw this thing. It's truly stunning. Note that Hollywood Squares staple Bruce Vilanch was one of the writers. (This show bears odd similarities to his other opus, "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour".) By the time this creation, which I call "Episode 4.5" was in its zenith, so was I; the pipe was empty. I felt as though Princess Leia's voice was vibrating in my spine. At one point she looked right at me and I saw her with my entire face, not just my eyes. The best moments are with Bea Arthur. I rewound the exchange between her and "Ludlow" and "Thorpe" about twenty times. "Short memory, eh, Thorpe? SHORT MEMORY!" By the time the Wookies were walking through outer space in red robes towards what appears to be the sun I felt as though I was with them. I don't remember the cartoon, but I do recall Mark Hamill looking like he was auditioning for the Gay Ice Capades. Also, you will find out several things you may have wanted to know about "Star Wars":

How do Wookies entertain themselves? Why is Grandpa Wookie named "Itchy"? What is the warm, cuddly side of Han Solo? What would a love scene between Bea Arthur and Harvey Korman REALLY look like? What are the lyrics to the "Star Wars" theme? And what would they sound like if Princess Leia sang them? What would it be like for an aged, portly Art Carney to engage in a familiar "Honeymooners" routine with an Imperial Guard as his Ralphie-boy? But it stll leaves several questions: Why does "Lumpy" so resemble the kid from "Eight is Enough"? Why do the characters from "Star Wars" never change their clothes until "The Empire Strikes Back"? What was the story behind the "Short memory!" crack? Was there a romance between Bea Arthur and "Thorpe"? If so, what are the long-term consequences to the Cantina atmosphere? Was Bea Arthur just filling in that day for the big ugly fellow who ran the bar in "A New Hope"? Or does she own the place? Why do Imperial Guards adore "Jefferson Starship", and why do old Wookies have a fetish for African-American Humans?

I hope Lucas creates another one of these. I would love to see Jar-Jar Binks exchange puns with Kelsey Grammar or Ray Romano.

I was 14 when this thing originally aired. It galls me to this day, and here is why:

A little more than a year earlier, an awesome film with spectacular cinematic production values was released. It was called Star Wars. Not "A New Hope", not "Episode IV"...just..."Star Wars". And it blew everything else away. You can tell when certain films create a defining moment: the science-fiction film genre is neatly divided into 'before Star Wars' and 'after Star Wars'. This was something that even "2001: A Space Odyssey" couldn't do, even if it was (and still is) the pinnacle of writing and directing science-fiction for the big screen. The reason was simple: Star Wars connected profoundly with *every* kid's 'wanna be an astronaut/fireman/policeman when I grow up' youthful fancy, even if the 'kids' were thirty-somethings (or older!). Star Wars, in its pre-episodic release, was a wonderfully simple story, not the muddled-with-forward-and-backward-references, vastly more complex story the saga was to become. It is this simplicity I sometimes miss, perhaps because it reminds me of a time when my own life was less complicated.

When rumors of the 'Holiday Special' began, I recall it actually being looked upon as eagerly anticipated, at least among the people I knew at the time. This was mid-1978, probably when the actual holiday special footage was being recorded. Already the first indications of a new Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, were public knowledge, so this holiday special just *had* to be built along the same production values as the films. Or so I (and a lot of others) thought. I should have known better, the special being for television and not cinema. When the Holiday Special aired, I was ready to be transported to that galaxy far, far away and be dazzled all over again...

The opening was promising, what with Han and Chewie being chased down by Imperial Star Destroyers and so on, yet even this opening teaser had an omen of doom attached, that being when Han said something like "That's the spirit, you'll be celebrating Life Day before you know it!" Han wasn't the only one beginning to get a bad feeling about this. The opening credits are when I actually started to fear the worst. These were NOT film-optical titles! They were video-overlays. The problem is, I just saw a scene obviously shot on film. And why are all these sitcom/variety show actors in the billing? Then it began to hit me: stock footage was going to represent actual Star Wars content, and the rest is going to be a nightmare version of the Carol Burnett Show. This wasn't going to be on the same planet of production values as Star Wars, let alone the same room. And I was exactly right! For the next 2 hours I watched, hoping in vain for some sort of payoff that justified the unfolding tragedy. Today, I remember only two distinct moments in the Holiday Special that got a reaction out of me: 1) I was p***ed off when the Imperial Stormtrooper broke the kid's crystal radio 2) I reasonably liked the animated bit.

After it was all over, I remember being angry. Not because I'd just been subjected to a crappy variety show with the Star Wars nameplate attached, but that this was broadcast nationwide and that a LOT of people (kids my age in particular) weren't going to be able to deal with that ineffable 'spark of magic' that made Star Wars such a delight being doused in a bucket of water. The almost-naive innocence that Luke Skywalker brought forth in all of us was gone forever, because we had just seen the magic turned into crap.

It would be another two years before Empire's release. Only then did most of the harm get undone. But not entirely. ESB is by far the best written of the five theatrical films that exist as of this writing, but with ESB began the complex story telling. And while the story in ESB was well-told, it comes with a price: Luke's actual loss-of-innocence visibly marks the point when Star Wars ceased to be a childhood delight and transcended into epic storytelling. If the Holiday Special had aired after ESB, I wouldn't have been so angry. At least our innocence would have been plausibly lost as we settled into watching a mature story, instead of rudely torn from our souls by a bunch of hack TV writers.

It is safe to say that Star Wars was THE big culture craze of the 1970s. The Sixities had Beatlemania, the Seventies had Star Wars-mania. And just to underscore the parallel, the Fab Four released a film 'The Magical Mystery Tour' which was shown on Christmas 1968 by the BBC in black and white. The movie was a critical and commercial disaster, regarded as painfully bad. Exactly a decade later, the Midas-touch of Star Wars also gave out when Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie ventured onto the small screen for this seasonal special. But while the 1968 TV fiasco at least gave us hits like 'I am the Walrus' and 'Fool on the Hill', the 1978 special has Carrie Fisher singing 'The Life Day Song' to the tune of the John Williams theme music! Yep..you read that right. Carrie Fisher, resplendent in her bedlinen-and 'donught' hairdo warbles a song... "A day that takes us through the darkness/A day that leads us to life/A day that leads us to celebrate/A lifeee/To live/To laugh/To dream/To grow/To know....!!!!" Anyone who thought 'Attack of the Clones' was a disappointment needs to check out this CBS 'family special' in which Han and Chewbacca are racing across the galaxy to get to Chewie's home planet in time for the Wookie's equivalent of Thanksgiving, Life Day. This being 'A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away' there can't be a Christmas, you see. The equivalent seems to involve lots of robed and hooded Wookies marching across the stars into the sun! Parts of 'Episode Four a New Hope' that ended up on the cutting room floor are slotted in for the space sequences. The Millennium Falcon is being pursued by some highly camp Imperials. Meanwhile, back on Chewbacca's planet we are introduced to his 'wife' (Malla) his cutsey proto-Ewok son (Lumpy) and his rather perverted father-in-law Itchy. Thus for about 10-15 minutes we have Malla in an apron making 'HHHAARPPPPHH!' and 'WHHHUUUUURRRRRRRKKK' noises at her son for not tidying up his room (it has stuffed Banthas). Without subtitles too... At intervals, Lumpy contacts some of the Star Wars Cast by videophone. Remember, this is the winter of 1978 when Carrie Fisher was having boyfriend trouble with Paul Simon and drug problems while Mark Hamill had recently been in a near-death car accident. In both cases, it really shows... Hamill, in particular, having recently undergone extensive facial reconstruction anticipates 'New Romantic' fashions by three years, appearing caked in make-up. Elsewhere, Art Carney and Bea Arthur appear in the Mos Eisley cantina where, having chatted to a giant hamster, launch into a musical number. Of course, being a Seventies Holiday Special, musical numbers abound. The viewer half expects Marie and Donny Osmond to start a musical debut on the Yavin rebel base but sadly, this never happens. Instead, Jefferson Starship turn up on some kind of hologrammic chessboard. But best of all, Itchy settles into an interactive video-machine and watches Diahann Carroll sing a 'lurve' song that causes him to become 'excited' in a way that must have at least some parents shielding their kids' eyes. What is fascinating about this 1978 TV Special is the way in which all involved have conspired to airbrush it from history. Carrie Fisher pretended not to know what the journalist was talking about in an interview some years later. The director Steve Binder is known for directing the 1968 Elvis 'Comeback' while writer Pat Profit later went on to script the 'Naked Gun' movies. The lesson would seem to be that while music and comedy have their place, they need to be kept to a minimum in a galactic epic. The 'musical' number in Jabba's palace was the least watchable part of the 'Special Edition' Return of the Jedi. Comic relief can be painful if not thought out properly (We're looking at you, Jar Jar Binks...)

Lucas, who gave the go ahead to the Thanksgiving Special is reported to have said he'd like to smash every every bootlegged VHS tape of this excruciating show...serves you right George for such a cynical attempt to grab the pre-Christmas toy market.