The Star Wars Holiday Special

The Star Wars Holiday Special
Original Air Date: November 17, 1978
First Aired On: CBS

Like any good holidays special, this one starts out with ads for toys. Nothing says "peace on Earth and goodwill toward man" quite like plastic action figures. Bonus points for including Hoth Leia, though.

Then we find out that episodes of Wonder Woman and Incredible Hulk won't be shown in favor of this crapola. If I were a fan of either of those shows, I'd be super pissed.

We finally get to the actual story, and they're using stock footage from the film for the spaceship parts. That's pretty good budgeting.

Also, I'm fairly certain that the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon is cardboard.

Harrison Ford and Peter Mayhew reprise their roles from the film, and through exposition, we learn that Han has agreed to take Chewy back to his home planet for some holiday called Life Day. But they're being chased by Imperial Guards, and Han makes some kind of sarcastic remark about how he now regrets agreeing to this run.

Dramatic music! Scrolling text!

Never mind. It doesn't scroll. What the hell kind of Star Wars text doesn't scroll? The sad kind, that's what. Also, there is no other text. They don't set it up. It's just this.

They go through who is appearing in the show, with most of the original cast in their roles. (Exception: Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2, did not do the special. This Artoo was run by remote control off-camera, and is introduced as "R2-D2 as... R2-D2.") Then we're introduced to "Chewbacca's family"...

"his wife, Malla..."

Not gonna lie. I feel like Malla looks like a furry Kirstie Alley

"his father, Itchy..."

"his son, Lumpy..."

Hold the fuck up. Itchy begat Chewy, who begat Lumpy? Does he have a sister named Chubby? An Aunt Creepy? Do they live next to seven small human miners?

Who picked these names?

They start listing guests stars.

Bea Arthur. Whut?

Art Carney. The Honeymooners guy?

Diahann Carroll. Seriously?

Jefferson Starship. I can't even.

Harvey Korman. ...why?

So far, we've learned that this space opera has planned to populate it's holiday special with comedians and unrelated musical acts. Also, a random cartoon.What the fuck is this show?

Worst slogan ever.

Okay, here's our establishing shot. It's either Chewy's house on Kashyyyk, or the treehouse from Swiss Family Robinson.

And when we go inside, we get some "happy family" muzak. Things are lovely, minus the green indoor-outdoor carpeting. Itchy is... whittling. Is that... is he making an X-Wing Fighter?

Lumpy comes in, playing with some toy.

Oh. It is also an X-Wing Fighter.

Malla, through hand-gestures and grunting, communicates with Lumpy.

"Hey, kid, Get the hell over here and take out the trash."

"Fuck off, Mom."

We waste several minutes of airtime on this argument. Malla tells him to take it out, he tells her to go to hell. Lumpy tries to steal a cookie. She yells at him to get his furry ass moving. He finally does it, but then he ditches the trash can just outside the door and instead decides to walk along the railing that surrounds the treehouse, and keeps him from falling fifty-plus feet to his death.

Malla is clearly upset about something. She touches Itchy's shoulder, and he pats her hand reassuringly. Then she goes to a shelf and takes down a photo of Chewbacca. Because this is 1978, there's holographic silver foil decals on it. They sigh and are sad.

Itchy goes to another shelf and takes out a cassette tape. Because Wookies speak Wookie, and this show is not subtitled, we have to guess what they're saying to one another. And my guess for this next part is as follows:

"I'll cheer you up by putting on whatever the Wookie version of Barney is, because your kid really loves that busted VHS tape, and you enjoy watching it over and over on repeat," says Itchy.

"God, please fucking don't," replies Malla. "I have a headache that is becoming a migraine, and I seriously cannot take that shit."

"Lumpy, you wanna watch this tired tape again?" calls Itchy.

Lumpy, who has not plunged to the ground, runs inside. "Fuck yeah!"

Itchy tuns to a table that looks like the Millennium Falcon with tape players set at intervals around the edge. He puts the tape in and presses play.

It contains holograms of tiny acrobats.

Sooo, these acrobats are talented, and it's interesting and all, but the story was halted for almost three minutes for a circus break. Lumpy hits a button to make the circus master larger, and he's projected to the side of the table, but for no real reason at all. He'll be made small again before the end of the set, and then Lumpy will turn off the table. They won't come up again, and they make no difference in the plot.

"Now that that's over, dry the dishes," says Malla, handing him a dishrag.

"Hell no," bitches Lumpy.

He does it anyway.

Lumpy is kind of an asshole.

Malla goes to a screen on the wall and hits some buttons. It does some weird stuff, but finally tells her in Galactic Basic (which looks just exactly like human English) and Arabic numerals that there are no starships in the area.

Dramatic music!

Itchy leads her away from the screen to the shelf, where he moves some secret panels to reveal another, smaller screen. When he turns it on, they get shots of Luke and R2D2 working on a thing in a workshop.

"Hey, it's Chewy's family!" Luke tells Artoo.

Lumpy runs up behind them and waves to Luke, but Malla shoos him away to finish the dishes. He complains, and I swear to God whoever is playing Malla growls "fuck you!" at him.

Luke seems to understand Wookie, and Malla and Itchy seem to understand Basic, so they communicate after some time that they're worried about Chewy not being there yet. Luke frowns and says that Han and Chewy left a little while ago and should have arrived already, but they're probably just stuck in space traffic or something.

"No more long faces," says Luke cheerfully. "Come on, give us a smile, Malla."

STOP TELLING WOOKIES TO SMILE.

"Try and enjoy your Life Day," he says, and holy crap, who coached Mark Hamill on that line? He sounds like a life insurance salesman.

Anyway, Malla and Itchy sign off because the thing Luke is working on starts to smoke. Itchy closes the secret panel to cover the screen.

So here we are fifteen minutes in, and we finally got to the point: Chewy and Han are late to the party, and Chewy's family is worried. It got kind of buried between Lumpy bitching about doing chores and watching holographic acrobats.

Malla goes back to that first screen, and this time, it connects her to some shop somewhere. For some reason, the people making this show forgot that screens are static, and the camera swoops down from an upper corner of the shop, and into the aisles.

Some douchey Imperial Guard is there, shopping. The shop owner greets him. And I know that Star Wars was around first, but that Imperial Guard helmet only serves to remind me of Dark Helmet from Space Balls.

The shop keeper, played by Art Carney, suggests a pocket aquarium.

Whose shitty idea was that? That's like those platform shoes with the goldfish inside.

The phone rings, and it's Malla calling on the screen, which is now static again, even though we already saw her screen go into the shop. This show has no logic.

The shopkeep excuses himself from the asshole guard, saying he has a "screen customer."

"Oh, I know you!" says the shopkeep when he sees Malla. "You want to know when that furry rug you ordered is coming in. It's on its way. It's expensive because some little old lady makes it by hand... solo. Got it?"

She smiles and nods. Then she hangs up, and the shopkeep sells the guard a grooming tool that cleans eyes, pierces ears and makes Julienne fries.

"I'll take it," says the guard. 

When the shopkeep asks how he wants to pay, the guard repeats that he'll take it, then leaves, and we get pretty much the most funny moment thus far, which is less funny than threatening:

"Well, that's a load off my mind. I thought I might embarrass you, when I told you to accept it as a gift!"

He mutters to himself.

This is then followed by stock footage from the Star Wars movie, where Darth Vader says he wants to find the rebels.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When we come back, Lumpy has finished the dishes. He tells Malla, then dickishly slams the dishrag into her hand and stalks off.

"Asshole," she mutters.

She flips through some tapes, inserts one into her flat-screen tv, and it turns out to be a cooking show.

NO.

This is misuse of Harvey Korman.

Fuck this.

Harvey Korman is supposed to be playing Gormaanda, a cooking show host with four arms that is making "Bantha Surprise." Gormaanda is a riff off of Julia Childs, but not a good one. She snacks out of the mis en place bowls. Gross. At one point, her hair comes loose. This is all supposed to be funny, but it's mostly annoying. She sneezes into the pot.

Malla gets frustrated because this is crap and no one should abuse Harvey Korman like this, and she sets aside her pot and turns off the show.

Han and Chewy dodge TIE fighters. Lots of dramatic music and the pair of them arguing about getting to Kashyyyk on time.

Malla is embracing Chewy's photo when a siren goes off, and she and Itchy look at the big screen (not the one in the kitchen, or the hidden one on the shelf). Some Imperial Asshole appears on the screen, saying that they have detected some bad stuff around Kashyyk, so they're putting up a blockade around the planet and not letting any starships in.

There's some dramatic music, and I know I'm supposed to care, but I really don't. I'm seeing Malla, Itchy and Lumpy being sad, and I'm hearing the sad music, but I really couldn't care less about this plight.

There's a knock at the door, and it's that shopkeeper, Saun Dann. He has Life Day gifts. Lumpy gets a gift and runs upstairs like a magpie. Dann gives Malla... something, then talks her into kissing him on the cheek.

Upstairs, Lumpy opens the gift, which appears to be an electric typewriter and a shit-ton of loose parts. But who gives a shit about that? Look at that cute-ass bantha plush!

Downstairs, Dan tells Itchy that he brought him something special and can't really describe it. Itchy sits in a chair that was clearly a hair salon perm chair, and Dann puts a tape in the armrest. Itchy lowers the visor over his head.

It's porn.

Not like actual porn, but like what an 8-year-old would write if you told them, "write something sexy."

It's Diahann Carroll, in a sequined headdress, singing a song against a kaleidoscope background.

"Oh, yeeessss," she moans."I am for you." And he rewinds the part multiple times where she purrs, "I find you adorable." He slaps the button pretty hard. "Oh, my. We are excited. I am your fantasy. Experience me."

She sings a song. And it drags on for seven freaking minutes.

Malla hears a signal go off, and opens the secret panel. This time, it's Leia and C-3PO. She asks to talk to Chewy or Han, and Threepio translates Malla's response that neither is there. Malla then tells them that a friend is there from the Alliance, and Dann comes to the phone and promises to take care of Chewy's family while Han and Chewy are away. They sign off.

Dann asks Malla for Wookie-ookies.

Han and Chewy share a touching moment in the Millennium Falcon, and Han suggests parking on the wrong side of the planet.

Chewy bitches.

"So it's a long walk," shrugs Han.

They fly in low in the atmosphere, and Chewy's family gets excited, because yay, he's home! They run to the door.

Happy music!

Oops.

Some SS-looking d-bag walks in and does that thing where he demonstrates how evil he is by taking off one leather glove and tapping it in the palm of his other hand, and why is that the quintessential mark of an evil dude? 

One of the other assholes tells him that there should be another male Wookie in this house, and he asks Malla where Chewy is. Dann pulls him aside and tells him that Malla and Chewy had a big fight, and Chewy stormed out.

Imperial SS Creeper demands Danns ID. Dann tries to do a comedy bit looking for his ID. It doesn't land. Then he tries to sell the creeper on a leather ID holder, like he has, while the Stormtroopers search the house.

A guard almost discovers the hidden screen behind the secret panel. Lumpy tries to bite the other guard. SS Creeper tells Dann that his ID checks out.

Dann nervously offers to make the guards a snack, and yells at Malla through clenched teeth that she needs to get her furry ass into the kitchen to help him.

One of the guards picks up Malla's Life Day gift, and she gets pissed. Dann tells him that if he wants to look at it, then Dann will set it up for him so he doesn't break it. Turns out it's some kind of entertainment center, but different than that table that Lumpy was using earlier?

It plays a holographic recording of a band.

In this case, it's Jefferson Starship, sans Grace Slick.

The guard sits down to watch, but not until after Dann does another comedy bit that isn't funny.

It's a pretty good song, and you can find it on Jefferson Starship greatest hits albums. It appears that its biggest drawback is being included in this crap. Once again, we took a five-minute break from the plot to watch something that won't be revisited and doesn't matter to the plot.

Once the song is over, Dann is told to go home. He tries to stall, but eventually leaves, and the SS Creeper orders the others to search the house, including the area upstairs. Chewy's family flips shit at the mention of this, possibly because they think Chewy and Han landed on the roof or something? Otherwise they seem to think that Lumpy's toys are contraband?

SS Creeper yells at Malla to control her kid and keep him quiet during the search.

Malla ushers Lumpy over to yet another screen, and he begrudgingly puts some headphones on.

Much like other parents, Malla is going to allow her child to be babysat by the television. Lumpy turns on a cartoon that breaks the fourth wall in the weirdest fucking way. It's about Luke, Leia, Artoo, Threepio, Han and Chewy.

Did someone in the Star War universe write some weird fanfic about the Rebels, then animate and distribute it?

Luke isn't quite buying it, either.

Normally, I would just say, "the kid watched some tv that has nothing to do with anything... again," but this cartoon is actually kind of important, so I'll describe it.

We start out with some exposition. The title of the show is in some alien language, so the announcer has to do the legwork of telling us what this is about.

Han and Chewy are supposed to meet with the crew of some other ship to hand over a talisman which has been highly sought-after by both the Empire and Rebels. C-3PO then tells Luke and Artoo that the talisman is supposed to make things invisible. I guess they're at a rebel base, because Leia is also there, and they have a bunch of equipment. One dude tells them that he has made visual contact with the Millennium Falcon, and he gets Chewy onscreen, but there's no sound. Han is hanging upside down in the next room behind Chewy. The Falcon is on a collision course with... something, and Luke decides to ride in to save the day. He plans to take Artoo, who then points out that if something has gone wrong with Han, then Luke will need Threepio to interpret, because Luke doesn't speak Wookie (despite the fact that we saw him talking to Malla earlier).

Once in the (air? sky? space?), Luke's ship begins taking fire from Chewy's ship. Luke is unconcerned because Chewy is a better shot than that, and he feels that it is being done for show. The Falcon heads for a nearby moon, and crashes into what is kind of a liquid goo. (It's like red water, but sticky? The Falcon floats back to the top.) 

Luke's ship also crashes into this goo, but they don't see the Falcon anywhere.
Oops.

The creature immediately starts taking bites of Luke's ship, and he is forced to separate it in two pieces, leaving the back end behind.
A mysterious dude shows up on another creature and shocks the first creature with a cattle prod, causing it to freak out and dive back into the goo.
"Hey, thanks!" Luke calls to the mysterious guy.
"I am Boba Fett," replies the mysterious dude.

WHAAAAA???????
"Cool," says Luke. "We're looking for a ship that crash-landed here...?"
"I can probs help you with that," says Fett. "I take it you guys aren't fans of the Empire?"
"Not especially."
"Yeah, me neither. And there's more traffic from them around here lately."
Luke follows Boba Fett, and the droids make it known that they don't entirely trust Fett at this time. But Fett and his dinosaur-thing lead them to the Falcon.
Luke goes aboard and finds Chewy, who is in the process of chucking the talisman out an airlock and into the goo. Luke calls out for Chewy to stop, but a weird yellow glow surrounds him and he faints. Boba Fett, over-reacting, shoots some kind of rope out of his wrist (Peter Parker, is that you?), which ties up Chewy.
C-3PO runs in. "No, Fett! Chewbacca is a friend. I think Luke passed out from the talisman."
Chewy carries Luke back to the cockpit, and C-3PO translates that the talisman affects humans and puts them into some kind of sleep. The only way to keep them alive is to hang them upside-down, to let the blood rush to their heads. Chewy hangs Luke next to Han.

Chewy insists on going with Boba Fett to procure some kind of serum to cure Han and Luke. Boba doesn't really want Chewy tagging along, but agrees. They ride the dinosaur-thing to a city which looks like a giant soccer ball. While hosting a wide-range of alien species, the city is also crawling with Stormtroopers. Fett tells Chewy to stay out of sight while he goes to get the serum. Chewy complains, but Fett warms him that it is too dangerous for them to both go.
Fett approaches a shop that advertises what is clearly the serum for the "sleeping sickness," but instead of buying it, he inserts a key card of some kind, and a screen pulls up Darth Vader.
"I've made contact with the rebels," says Fett.

Lumpy reacts loudly to this new development in his cartoon. The SS Creeper turns to look at him.
"What?" he demands.
Lumpy switches the cartoon over to a different screen, so when the Creeper comes over, he thinks Lumpy is playing some video game. I guess the cartoon would be considered contraband, so it's pretty bold of Lumpy to watching it with Stormtroopers searching his house.
Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Back on the cartoon Falcon, Artoo and Threepio have intercepted the messages being sent back and forth between Fett and Vader. I'm not even sure how that's possible. Are Fett and Vader using unsecured internet? How did Artoo know to tune it right at that time and channel? That's a really far-fetched coincidence.
"Bring me the rebels alive," says Vader to Fett. "You really are the best bounty hunter in the galaxy."

Back in the city, Fett has returned to Chewy with the serum. They leave quickly, but are soon chased by Stormtroopers, who have goo-skimming vehicles. Chewy grabs Fett's gun and blows up the skimmer. Fett seems concerned.

Luke and Han wake up on the Falcon after being given the serum.
Chewy tells Han that Fett got them the serum. Luke calls Fett a loyal friend. Artoo interrupts to say that he caught Fett sending messages to Vader, and that he's Vader's loyal friend.
Fett backs out into a corridor and opens an air lock. "Later!" He jet-packs out.
In the cockpit, the others discuss Boba Fett while readying for take-off. (Guess they're leaving Luke's ship behind.)
"Chewbacca never fully trusted Fett," says C-3PO.
"Why not?" asks Luke.
Chewy holds his nose and waves his hand in front of it.
"He just didn't smell right," translates Threepio.
They all laugh as the Millennium Falcon flies away.

The cartoon ends and Lumpy claps.
The Stormtroopers upstairs have completely destroyed his room looking for ties to the Rebel Alliance, including ripping the head off his cool-ass bantha plushy. When they finish, they report to the SS Creeper that they found nothing, and he dickishly tells Lumpy to go clean his room.
Lumpy is horrified when he gets upstairs. His stuff is all broken and his bantha is headless. He tucks the beheaded bantha to sleep in his bed, but instead of going through the toys to see what he can salvage, he takes out the electric typewriter that Dann gave him, and puts in the little tape that turns out to be an owner's manual.
Sigh, why the fuck does this show hate Harvey Korman so much?

Turns out the typewriter is a transmitter. And Korman is some kind of malfunctioning android, who is supposed to walk the transmitter's new owner through the set-up of the transmitter. It is not well done. Somehow, Lumpy is able to get his transmitter together.

Happy music! Commercial break!

When we come back, Lumpy is still putting his gift together, and those stupid guards are still downstairs. The screen comes on (no, not the secret one), and the announcer says that everyone must watch. Propaganda, I'm shocked. It's like a documentary or reality show or something. The female announcer says they're going to show some stuff about life on Tatooine, in the hopes that the comparison will "lift you up." You know the phrase "baffle them with bullshit"? I can't tell if the propaganda is baffling the characters on this show with bullshit, or if this show is baffling its viewers with BS. It's all kind of incomprehensible bullshit.
We go into the cantina. The band is there, as are a lot of aliens, and it looks like some of this is stock footage, and some of it is new for television.
The cantina's bartender is a woman named Ackmena, and if you want to watch Bea Arthur for a few minutes, you should shut this shit off and go watch an episode of Golden Girls.
Ackmena is immediately set upon by a guy named Krelman, who apparently drinks through the hole in the top of his head. He was in a few days earlier, Ackmena served him some drinks, and he walked away with an obsession with her.
"You said something to me," he purrs.
She isn't interested in anything but serving drinks and collecting on tabs. "Oh, yeah? What did I say?"
"I decided that you said exactly what I needed to hear."
O... kay. A bit psychotic, but please, do go on, yet another unfunny Harvey Korman alien.
"You said Come back soon, I'll be waiting."

He's up and around the bar and grabbing her from behind.
NOOP.

Immediately, she goes into a self-defense mode that guys don't always recognize: she backs away and tells him he's nice, but that he really shouldn't be back there, and she has other customers to serve. Basically: shoot him down, but do so gently, otherwise he may become violent and assault you. Put the blame on something else ("sorry, I have to serve customers") so that he doesn't place that blame on you. He'll never figure out that being back here and invading your personal space is alarming, so tell him that it's not allowed by management.
She encourages him to have another drink on the house, and to stay right there on the other side of the bar. Then she pours his drinks directly into the head hole and tells him firmly that she's really busy and has other customers to tend to, and she really has no time for "anything else."
"You'll change your mind!" he calls cheerfully as she moves back down the bar to put some distance between them.
He continues to talk to her, even though she's trying her damnedest to ignore him. Then a customer leaves and she calls after, "Come back soon, I'll be waiting."
He realizes that she says that to everyone. He gets all sad and pulls his hood up over his head hole and lays his head on the bar.

I know I'm supposed to feel bad for this guy, but I don't. He could have walked into the bar and said, "Hey, I like you, do you like me?' And she might have responded with "I'm sorry, I wasn't flirting, I was being nice to the customers, and I don't feel that way at all."
Instead, he got all up in her face in an area that should be safe for her to work in, and sent her into a subtle panic mode, forcing her to react in the hopes that he wouldn't assault or stalk her.

In Chewy's house on Kashyyyk, the broadcast is interrupted by an alarm, and that Imperial dude from earlier says that there's now a curfew on Tatooine and any off-worlders need to go back to their home planets, and also, this curfew-banishment thing starting now might be indefinite.

The announcement comes up in the cantina as well, so I guess the feed with her and Krelman was a live reality show?
Ackmena tells her band that they need to pack up to go, and they ask her for one last drink, because maybe this is goodbye forever? She bustles around the cantina, asking her regulars to leave so she doesn't get in trouble, but their answers are all pretty much, "Screw you, bring me another drink." More guys enter the cantina, and she tries to tell them that by order of the Empire they all need to leave, but they pull a gun on her, and she feels obliged to let them in. The regulars start a rhythmic banging on the tables with their glasses, and she finally relents.
"Fine, one more round on me, and then you're leaving."
An actual funny line, muttered sarcastically by Bea Arthur: "One more tab for the Empire."

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When we come back, Ackmena sings a song called "Goodnight, But Not Goodbye" to get her regulars out of the bar. She says her goodbyes to the band, the busser, and the bouncer, and when she turns back to the bar, thinking she's by herself, Krelman the creeper pops up behind the bar and offers her a flower.

We fade out of the screen and back into Chewy's family's house, where the guards are still watching the screen. The SS Creeper gets an alarm on his walkie-talkie, telling him to return to the base. He takes all of his guys but one.
"There's a male Wookie missing from this house, and I want you to be here when he gets back. He might be a Rebel."
After they leave, we can still hear the warning about returning to base, and the guard goes upstairs. The alarm was fake, made by Lumpy and his transmitter.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

The Stormtrooper smashes the transmitter and chases Lumpy down the stairs with his gun. Lumpy runs out the front door but comes up short at the railing. Will he jump?
No, because here's Chewbacca, who's about a thousand feet taller than the guard!
Chewy pulls Lumpy to his side, and he and the Stormtrooper square up. But then Han sneaks up behind the guard and knocks the gun from his hand. They both dive for it, and there's a scramble, but the guard crashes through the railing and falls to his death.

Han and Chewy carry Lumpy inside, and there's a reunion. Han shares a tender moment with the others, but says he has to get back to his ship before someone discovers it. He and Chewy embrace, then he kicks the gun over the railing to land near the guard, and leaves.
It seems to take an insanely long time for Chewy to greet his family.
But everybody gets a hug in, and then there's a knock at the door.
Chewy picks up his crossbow.
Eh, it's just Saun Dann again.
He chides Chewy for greeting him with a weapon.

And because we have to keep the tension up until the credits roll, the screen lights up again, and Imperial Asshole reappears. He's looking for that guard that fell to his death outside, because they can't seem to raise him on his comm link. Apparently, you can switch the screen back and forth between two-way communication, and television. Saun Dann puts his ID into some kind of slot, and the screen changes.
"Trader Saun Dann," says Imperial Asshole. "We are on two-way communication. Do you know about the missing guard?"
"Fuck yeah, I do!" says Dann. "He was here with three other guys. They left him behind, then he robbed me and stole a bunch of food from this nice Wookie family, and took off on foot."
"Okay, we'll send out a search party," says the Asshole.
The screen shuts off.
Okay, but... the guard is right outside the door, at the base of the tree where Chewy lives. And the railing is broken. Unless you fix the railing and move the body pretty far away, they're gonna figure out what happened, and you'll be in the same boat as you are now.
Also, won't you be just as fucked when those other three guys realize that no one called them back to base?

Dann says some nice stuff to Chewy and his family about Life Day, then he takes off.
Each of the family members gets a candle in a snowglobe off the shelf and they all stand around and hold them up.

The scene changes, and now they're wearing red robes.

Okay, and now they're walking in those robes with other Wookies... across the universe... and into a bright light.
Are they dead?
Do you die on Life Day?

Uplifting music! Commercial break!

Now they're all at the base of a big tree, with many Wookies and Artoo and Threepio. Luke and Leia and Han show up, and Han is all, "You guys are my family," and everybody D'awwws.

Leia gives a speech about using the holiday to find peace for everyone at the Tree of Life.
Then she sings, which is unexpected.

Chewy has a stock footage daydream/flashback about the movie, because the whole point of this show is make the viewers go, "Oh, yeah. I liked that movie."
Later, Chewy and family sit down to dinner in their house, presumably to eat that nasty Bantha Surprise, and when we pull out on the treehouse at night to see it all cozy and lit from within, we see that the railing is in one piece. So either someone repaired it and moved the body of the dead guard, or the showrunners conveniently forgot that a dude crashed to the ground, taking out a chunk of railing.

Happy Life Day, everyone!

*******

I don't even know what to say about this shit. Maybe it's better on drugs? Maybe it was written on drugs? Certainly while watching it sober you question if you're actually on drugs.

Let's take a look at how we got this piece of crap in the first place.

The first Star Wars movie came out in 1977 and spent a full freaking 18 months in the theater. (I can't even imagine that now. Sometimes I feel lucky when a film I want to see spends more than 18 days in the theater before being released on DVD.) The Empire Strikes Back was in pre-production by summer of '78, and George Lucas is all, "We need something to help our viewers ride the Star Wars tidal wave until the next move comes out in 1980." Variety shows had been doing goofy little Star Wars spoofs and skits successfully, sometimes with SW actors, and when it was suggested that the franchise could do a holiday special, Lucas shrugged and went "okay." Other than seeing some dailies from the special, that was most of Lucas' involvement.

The original script included Lumpy going missing before Life Day and a ship full of Wookie ambassadors being sabotaged, and it went through a bunch of rewrites before landing on "Chewy is late to Life Day celebrations." At one point, the script was entirely about Wookies, but due to them not speaking Basic, a liaison was needed. This is how Saun Dann arrived on the scene. 

Unfortunately for Star Wars, it doesn't lend itself well to a variety show mash-up. Sure, others who were not part of the Lucas Empire could do it, because they didn't take it seriously. But Star Wars the franchise does, and if you take yourself seriously, slapstick comedy will not work. A variety show is goofy and light and makes fun of itself and is often touted as being family friendly. But here, none of the jokes landed. The handful of funny lines walked the precipice between funny and dark, so that you weren't quite sure how you felt about them. Dark, tense moments filled the special, but so did long, boring ones that mostly featured Malla, Itchy and Lumpy growling incomprehensibly at one another. The lighter moments were more annoying than funny. And a lot of good talent was wasted.

None of the principal actors from Star Wars wanted to do the special, especially after seeing the final script. But they were contractually obligated to do it, and sloshed knee-deep through that awful material as best they could. You can tell they're trying, but when your source material sucks...

I'm not sure why the others signed on to do it. Bea Arthur seemed to enjoy herself a bit, and was later unsure how her little scene fit into the rest of Star Wars, but her song was named as a highlight of this weird little special, so it didn't seem to faze her. I couldn't really find information about how Art Carney or Harvey Korman felt about it, but I know that the celebrities were all invited to appear and accepted. Diahann Carroll's invitation was extended because CBS felt that the first Star Wars movie had been too white, and they wanted a black character for the holiday special. ...so they made her a porn star. *cringes* Though not considered canon, quite a few of the side characters from the holiday special have appeared again in comics and video games, so they don't appear to be universally hated. 

You kind of don't need to know that George Lucas disowned the holiday special to know how terrible it is. It's a side story about Star Wars that keeps getting interrupted by slits and musical numbers that have nothing to do with the plot. But it does help to know that further developments were halted after it was shown on CBS, and viewers hated it. There were supposed to be spin-off shows and toys (no fooling, Kenner had made action figures of Chewy's family members). CBS had planned to show the Holiday Special every year, a la Charlie Brown or Rankin and Bass specials. Instead, it never made it to video. The only copies that exist are ones taped off of television in 1978, and copied and uploaded to social media sites like YouTube. In fact, George Lucas said that if he could, he'd smash every copy.

There were a few less-than-terrible moments in this special. Ackmena's song "Goodnight, But Not Goodbye" was generally considered to be okay. The Jefferson Starship song "Light the Sky on Fire" was thought of as being a good one. But the big draw here was that little cartoon that introduced Boba Fett. Though he appeared in a parade earlier in the year as Darth Vader's right-hand man, it wasn't until the Star Wars Holiday Special that people began to demand more of the mysterious bounty hunter, and Boba Fett action figure hit stores in 1979. In fact, the only part of the Holiday Special ever released beyond the original television airing was that short cartoon.

As with anything that's kind of awful, the Star Wars Holiday Special has a cult following, people who love it because it's so very, very bad. And I suppose I can see where they're coming from, as watching terrible media can be fun at times. But the fact that this special causes most fans to cringe and claim its nonexistence pretty much hangs a sign on the whole thing: watch at your own risk.

-Fun Facts:

- Art Carney's physical comedy bits were often referred to in the script as "Saun Dann's Ed Norton Moments."

- Diahann Carroll's character's name is Mermeia, though she is sometimes referred to as "a Holographic Wow." She was most definitely written to be the kind of softcore porn that the CBS censors would let them get away with.

- Initially, when the original script called for Lumpy to be missing, Chewbacca is supposed to sit in that chair, and it is supposed to tell him what is important to him, lighting a fire under his ass to find his son. So glad it was used for old man porn instead.

- Malla, Itchy and Lumpy were later declared to be nicknames. Itchy's full name is Attichitcuk, Malla is actually Mallatobuck, and Lumpy is Lumpawarrup.

- The song at the end sung by Carrie Fisher was Fisher's idea.

- Carrie Fisher told interviewers that in exchange for doing voice-over work, she wanted Lucas to give her the Holiday Special. She claims to have put it on at the end of parties to get people to go home.

- George Lucas' name does not appear anywhere in the credits.

- The Wookie costumes were unbearably hot. They were made of a different, cheaper fake fur that the original Chewbacca costume, and were so awful to be inside, that the actors could only film for a few minutes at a time, or risk becoming dehydrated under the hot stage lights.

- This special had the largest price tag of any previous holiday special made for television. At a million dollars, you'd think they'd have come up with something better. Alas, this blogger predicts that most of the budget was spent on Wookie fur extensions.

- Bea Arthur described her time on set as kind of fun, mostly singing to "a lot of alien heads." Unfortunately, the filming for that 13-minute scene took 24 hours, because the actors inside the heads kept getting overheated, dehydrated, and running out of oxygen.

- Bea Arthur reported that, despite the special's lambasted reception, she got requests for years for autographs from Star Wars fans who liked her performance.

- This was Jefferson Starship's first appearance without Grace Slick. She was having quite a few personal problems at the time, and it was decided that they should move forward without her.

- The Wookie costumes were so expensive to make that red robes were added to the Life Day rituals at the end of the special. The robes had very long arms that covered the hands, so only face and head costumes were needed.

- Boba Fett's original costume was going to be the traditional Stormtrooper black and white before being changed to muted blues and white.

- Both "Goodnight, But Not Goodbye" and Leia's Life Day song were sung to Star Wars music.

- The weird Life Day rituals were explained in the original script, but did not make the cut for the final product.

- The scene that shows Darth Vader was actually a cut scene from the first film. The special was able to then claim that it featured James Earl Jones as the voice of Vader, even though he had nothing to do with the SWHS.

- A co-producer suggested that Robin Williams star in the Special, but the idea was rejected.

- The original director left the project early on, and was replaced.

- SWHS writer Bruce Villanche admitted to being high on cocaine frequently while writing the script. I'm shocked. ...pocket aquarium.

Happy 19th Birthday, Bratty!
Take a nap, you've earned it.