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1970s Star Wars Christmas Special Reviewed
You have got to read this story.
Menoyoda writes "There was a Star Wars holiday special in the 70s that George Lucas would as soon have tossed down a memory hole. But someone, somewhere, taped it and this review was written about it. It involves the holiday antics of the Chewbacca family. Happy Holidays! " This is without a doubt one of the funniest things I have ever read. I am afraid of this footage. I'm gonna have to track down a copy. Nothing can be this bad.
Anyone? :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I remember seeing this when it aired. It had really cheesey video effects. It was Sid and Marty Kroft-bad. I've seen bootleg copies of it for sale at cons... but no desire to see it again!
Oh my gawd!
Repressed memories are resurfacing! I actually saw this! It had Storm Troopers bustin down the front door... and one of the STs sadistically broke the kid's favorite toy...
--synaptik
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
I would totally love to buy a copy on video, or a realaudio/mpeg file of this would be totally appreciated!
-- dieman - Scott Dier
I remember THAT one - it was so bad, it made "Ewoks: Battle of Endor" look like Macbeth.
Of course, what I'm really looking for are episodes of WHEN THINGS WERE ROTTEN. Can only find the one commercial tape they made of a couple of the episodes.
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The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
I actually saw this on TV! I've had lingering memories of it my whole life -- not sure if it was real or not. It's one of about 4 memories I have of when my parents actually lived together. (I was 4 when they divorced.) I'm not crazy after all!!! Aaaaahhhh! We need to get a bootleg of this in a big way! Or maybe Lucas should release this one on DVD! -adam
http://pages.infinit.net/bonesnet/Holiday_videos.h tm
-- dieman - Scott Dier
As I recall, Lucas was once quoted as saying he'd rather buy up every copy in existance and smash them with a hammer.
I vaguely remember this special (and one with some Ewoks?) from years and years ago. I didn't think it was that bad at the time.
Wasn't Lucas on one of "The Muppet Show" episodes?
And all this time I thought it was a bad dream after watching Star Wars too many times.
Friend of mine picked up a bootleg of it at a con, and its quite possibly the most horrible thing ever. Chewbacca's dad's name is ITCHY. He puts on a virtual reality helmet and watches a jefferson starship video.
its THAT BAD.
A Very Wookie Christmas
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
I must be one of the few people that saw it on TV and liked it. I always wondered why they release the 3 horrible Ewoks TV specials on video tape, but never this. Course then about two years ago I finally found mention of it, and found out it was hated. I WANT A COPY ON DVD! Of course I also want the rest of the Star Wars movies on DVD.
I definitely saw this one. It WAS cheesy and dumb and very un-Star Wars, and you could probably give it all the various goofy tag lines you can imagine and all of them would be dead on.
-
And I remember loving every damn minute or it. Jesus, I was young once!
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> Nothing can be this bad.
After watching all of B.A.D. (Bad American Dubbing), BAD Too, and BAD 3: Still more Bitching, I would have to say that yes, it can indeed be that bad. While these shows didn't have any SW stuff, and primarity spent their time bitching about badly dubbed anime, some of the clips showed that some people will stop at nothing to have the worst footage in the world.
That Streamline pictures comercially released a movie, dubbed into english, without removing the japanese dialogue first (you couldn't hear either; the two languages walked all over eachother), clearly shows that some people should never be allowed to get near any sort of video production. The worst part was that they later went on to release on with the video upside down... now how the hell does one do that?!
Kindof makes me want to see this SW video to see if it is even worse than all of the stuff they showed in BAD...
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
It is part of my annual Christmas ritual, along with some XMas-themed MST3K episodes. "Bad" doesn't begin to describe it. The worst part is, elements of it have become SW canon, believe it or not...
Somewhere I have an old 45 (The record, not the gun. You know, the flat round thing that you use to play on turntables? Oh, never mind...) of R2-D2 and C3P0 singing "What Do You get A Wookie For Christmas When He Already Owns A Comb?". I don't remember what was on the flip side, but I'm pretty sure it was worse than the "A" side. Now I'm gonna have to try to find it...
I saw that when I was a kid. It was a lot better than "Phantom Menace". I mean, the special effects were nto as good, but the story was better.
Come to think of it, so was that lame direct to video movie about the kid on Endor.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I've lived my whole life with a dim memory of seeing a TV show about the home life of Wookies. I always thought it was a product of watching too much Battle Star Galactica while hepped up on too much orange-flavored Triaminic cough syrup....
This guy at work has it on a share at work in Real video format. And it is horrible. It is the black sheep of star wars. If you hated Jar Jar wait till you meet Chewies family
I used to talk about this, because I remembered it from when I was a teeny little kid. All my friends think I'm nuts!!
(I don't think proving the existence of a Start Wars Holiday Special will convince them I'm not nuts, but it's a point in my favour)
Dana
Now for the good geek part. This special was the first recorded appearance of the coolest character in the series, namely Boba Fett. Sure, it was in cartoon form, but he was there.
Personally, I think that its one of the rare cultural treasures that we have, and it needs to be preserved. (ducks) No, Really! its the one time that Lucas let something SW get out of his control. Besides that, they were so embarrassed that they had to do Empire to make up for it. And as we all know, that was the best of the movies so far! (IMNSHO)
A transcript of the whole thing can be found here. You can read it while you're waiting for the clips posted by dieman to download.
BTW, this was posted on memepool back on December 13, but I guess some people must have missed it.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
This Christmas story is the first appearance of Boba Fett (in an animated segment) and introduces Chewbacca's family, several of whom appear in the Star Wars novels.
Jay (=
(Waiting for "Star Wars Holiday Special, Special Edition"... let's see how much CGI it takes to fix that turkey)
But the Internet Movie Database DOES have it listed here
Apparently the reviewer completely forgot about Sir Alec Guiness. His body of work is as impressive as Pete Cushing's and Harrison Ford's... perhaps moreso.
Also, I disagree with his opinion of Tim Conway entirely. I happen to think Tim Conway is hilarious. Perhaps he is confusing the talented Tim Conway the with most UNTALENTED Jeff Conaway from Taxi? :-)
Ignore Alien Orders
Ok, Maybe not.
I saw this several years ago . . .
I'd been waiting to see it for years at the time. . .
It was, to say the very least. . .
The worst experience of my life.
And that includes the time I was forced to watch "learn to use Microsoft Bob in 3 hours."
Honestly, it was...
(except for the wookie sex, that was cool!!!)
Click here to read too much about my personal life
I just checked the eBay link, but five of the nine give "Invalid Item" pages. Although there are other reasons this happens, the only time I ever see these is when eBay ends an auction prematurely because the item in question is illegal (a la Warez, pirated CD-R music, etc). Hope eBay allows some of these transactions to go through; I have got to see this.
Frank
Ironically enough, we got a copy of this and watched it at a Christmas party just on Sunday. It was an experience.
Not a good one, mind you.
This is bad. Not Jar-Jar Binks bad. Much, much worse. Apocalyptically bad. There was some debate as to whether it was better or worse than _Manos, the Hands of Fate_. We were mixed on that, but all considered it comparable.
The elements of it don't sound that bad - it was the remarkable execution that made us long for, well, execution. Seeing Chewbacca's family, sounds okay, right? Picture multiple 10-minute segments of unsubtitled wookie dialogue. There's some musical interludes, ala a 70s variety show. Not too bad, right? Well, the highlight was an unremarkable and long Jefferson Starship number. We were treated to Bea Arthur 'singing' in the Cantina (for an extended period of time), a ten minute long Cirque-de-Wookie using the holographic chess type technology from the Falcon, Wookie Porn (I Kid You Not) featuring disco diva Dihann Caroll, and Carrie Fisher on almost enough drugs to enjoy the thing. (She has admitted in interviews later that she was high for the special. You can tell. Easily.)
Wookies grunting. Wookies standing around in ceremonial robes, holding glowing globes. Art Carney. Lots of Art Carney. No visible jokes, of course. Some strange cross-dressed man teaching Chewbacca's wife how to cook Bantha Rump. (I don't have to make this stuff up.) Mark Hamill wearing quite a bit more makeup than Bea Arthur. This show has it all.
And a rancid little cartoon that is the first appearance of Boba Fett, where Han and Luke contract a disease that makes it so that they must be hung upside down, for no discernable reason. It was poorly drawn, confusingly plotted, and the best part of the show.
If you are in a position to see this movie, I strongly urge rethinking your options. It will suck the life force out of you. I would rather watch two hours of Jar-Jar Binks having anal sex with an Ewok than see this special again. I will have nightmares forever about Wookies in my apartment grunting and doing nothing of discernable value all night while I am forced to watch.
Then again, if there really is a Y2K apocalypse, at least it will be an improvement. After all, what's the end of civilization, in the grand scheme of things, compared to the wretchedness of the Star Wars Holiday Special?
-- Kate
I also seem to recall a special with Ewoks. That was when I was in upstate New York so it must have been mid-to-late '80's.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
While were on the subject of terrible star wars movies in repressed memories, does anyone remember the ewoks movie. It was this horrible movie going something along the lines of boy is abbandoned or something, boy goes on journey to find his father with ewoks. And so on. The only other things i can remember about it are there was a stupid magic stone, someone went in a lake and got trapped under its surface because the surface is "magical" anf they fought a giant spider. Oh yeah the kid and the ewoks got kidnapped at some point, and they were transferred in like these hollowed out beasts on a cart. Oh i really hope thats real and I'm not crazy, i actually think i have it on vide somewhere. And also let us not forget the ewoks saturday morning cartoon.(I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy....)
"You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea."
They also have the first episode of the star wars radio plays. If you haven't heard these yet, you are MISSING OUT big-time on something really cool. You'll get hooked on this first one and want to buy the rest though - consider yourself warned.
æeee!
I remember that, vaugely, as I was a wee child, I also had the Wookie homeworld story book. Those were the days.
Wow, CT was right. I laughed so hard my stomach hurts. The pictures really make the article, but the writing is hilarious too. I'm bookmarking this site.
Is it just me, or does the picture that they show of Chewbacca's son look just like Gary Coleman??
What'choo talkin' bout, 'Nonymous Coward?
I remember seeing this, and thinking it was funny. I'd love to some day see this again. Thankfully, we have the bootleg community to keep such wonderful things alive for us!
Is this another *.microsoft.com troll?
Can't find the source, but I remember reading that at least one of the members of the cast was hopped up on coke when the Xmas special was filmed. Anyone got a "line" on some evidence?
It would explain quite a bit.
I guess the only reason to see this is to be able to say that you did - and lived to tell the tale.
Eythain
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0193524
Sam Jooky
::waves goodbye to his site's server::
Someone get a mirror of this going or something. I originally just sent this to CmdrTaco, but...what the heck, happy festivus. =)
Star Wars Holiday Special in crappy Real Video format.
Wow.. I remember watching that way back when. All of my friends thought I was full of BS because they never saw it and no one seemed to have ever heard of it. I saw it a con about five years ago and I remembered why... hahaha... and to think Harrison Ford has that one on his resume....ahahahahhahahah.. er.. anyway...
Damn you, Taco! Damn you to hell! You could have just had a private chuckle and let this one slide, but NOOOO, you had to go and post it, didn't you?!? Now this horror will once again be unleashed upon this unsuspecting planet. And to think that the secret cabal run by George Lucas to find and exterminate all traces of this travesty had gotten so close! You will be held accountable for spreading this suffering across mankind!
:)
Who thought anything could actually make Phantom Menace look decent.
Deosyne
nuff said!'
Well, guess what: A friend of mine found it in one of his boxes down in the basement. Well, it's quite stupid but also very funny. It's pretty cool seeing these wookies running around with Mattel© X-Wing fighters.
May the force be with us and please, let it all just be rumours that Leonardo DiCaprio is going to play Anakin in Episode II.
Yes, a year later, here in France we had the chance to see the SWHS, fully translated in French (think about that lovely french accent in wookie), and many things are great :
The man disguised in woman (the cook) is dubbed by a woman (I don't think they realised it was a man), and I believe that for some scenes, they hadn't read the scenario, because it goes on improvisation (maybe it's the same in English, and they also translated the MMMMMMM....ERRRR...yes! ).
This thing is great, because the men who made it managed to make it without Lucas watching them (imagine Lucas' face when he first saw the thing on TV, with all his friends).
They were high on LSD when they wrote the final scene : wookies walking in space, with 70's colors everywhere.
The fight (yes, it's a fight) of Han against a stormtrooper is memorable : the trooper tries to get his gun, and fells down the tree.
Remember when Solo tries to take Chewbacca's son in his arms ? and the matt paintings so miserable that they look like cartoons ?
Great thing.
I still wonder how it managed to cross the ocean....
--I like 2 kinds of women : GIFs and JPEGs--
I saw it quite recently actually, a late night comedy show on Australian tv called "Rove" has a usual crappy Television segment, and on the last show before Xmas they showed SWHS... my only comment, It's still better than Episode One... Oooh i can feel the heat of the flames already ;D
<? include ('signature.inc'); ?>
I wont be able to sleep till I find one.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
...check out http://www.stomptokyo.com. They have
oodles of bad film reviews, tv reviews, (and they
had a piece on the Star Wars holiday special
months ago, natch).
Toby
Trust me .. having seen the thing in 1989 I can only say that Lucas must have been drunk to have even thought of doing this thing. It has true 'cringe' appeal, one of those shows where you're not embarrased at watching it, you're embarrased for the actors.
--- This meme is memory intensive
Salvage
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Andy Griffith + Sanford and Son
The Skinny: Imagine Matlock building a spaceship out of junk, flying it to the moon, salvaging space junk and using an ordinary fire extinguisher as a handy thruster for space walks. And yes, no episode was complete without some big-shot NASA official scoffing at Andy's home-spun spacecraft built with home-spun wisdom, only to get showed up at the end. One imagines a young Linus Torvalds watching this show, not conscious of how it will inspire him.
Yogi's Space Race
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Yogi Bear + Wacky Races/Laff-a-lympics + Disco fever of the same era
The Skinny: It had four segments, the two Star Wars-inspired ones being Space Race, which had the stable of Hanna-Barbera characters racing in space vehicles and Galaxy Goof-Ups, with Yogi and friends as some kind of space police who spent their off-hours goofing off at the local space disco. A cartoony attempt to swipe as much Star Wars momentum as possible -- I distinctly remember one episode where the bad guy was a Darth Vader rip-off assisted by an R2-D2 rip-off. One imagines George Lucas watching Yogi's space adventures and being inspired to create the Ewoks.
Galaxina
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten + The guy from those '70's Doritos commericals
The Skinny: The Infinity is a ship captained by the Doritos guy and maintained by the ultra-vixen android Galaxina, a robot with feelings. The Infinity crew is a randy bunch of sailors (There's a brothel scene in which the crew sing a song called "Porno Patrol" to the tune of "Bridge Over the River Kwai") and eventually Galaxina and a crewmember fall in love. I actually remember a line in which the guy says "Too bad you don't have a you-know-what," to which Galaxina responds "We can order one in the catalog." Kind of like Arthur C. Clarke's "predictions," except for cyberdildonics. One imagines Rick Berman (writer for the post-Shatner Star Trek series, whose hedonistic appetites are legendary among sci-fi fandom) watching this.
Quark
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Richard Benjamin + Mr. Spock + Mindy's Dad (from Mork and Mindy) + Buck Henry + Sanitation engineering
The Skinny: A sci-fi spoof created by Buck Henry. TV's first "Quark" is not the bar owner from Deep Space Nine, but Richard Benjamin as a garbage scow captain with a nitwit crew. In a tip of the dumpster to Star Trek, the science officer is an emotionless half-human/half-plant being (I remember him saying his species does not kiss, but rather pollenates. I am not making this up). There were a few Star Wars references too, including "The Source," which gave Quark power only if he believed in it, as well as a character named Obeemud, a wookie-like creature who was Quark's boss' side-kick, and a bumbling C3P0-ish android named Andy. If I recall, it never got past a half-dozen shows. This is probably one of Buck Henry's few bombs, but perhaps he was saving his creative energies for other things, such as Saturday Night's Live's "Lord and Lady Douchebag" skit (around the same era, if drug-and-age-addled memory serves). Commentary on science fiction and present-day stuff through a sci-fi lens with unintentionally hilarious results. One imagines a young John Katz watching every episode...twice.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Gil Gerard + Mel Blanc + Skin tight disco outfits
The Skinny: Would you leave your job to play opposite Seven of Nine? Gil Gerard left his job at a chemical engineering firm to play Buck Rogers, Earth's super special agent who often came to the aid of women in skin-tight outfits (this is the future, you know). Upped the cheese factor by getting Gary Coleman to play a child prodigy (a concept that Universal also used in Galactica 1980 with "Doctor Zee"). In later seasons, it tried to be more true to "real" SF with many Asimov references, most notably the character of (gasp) Admiral Asimov. It's the only TV show I recall in which Asimov's Laws of Robotics get metioned. The original formula was so good that Universal Studios recycled it as Knight Rider a few years later -- one imagines a young David Hasselhoff getting his jollies watching this show.
A very painful Carol Burnett show
(for the Tim Conway fan from an earlier posting)
The Formula: Star Wars space hype + Tim Conway + Mark Hammill + Christmas
The Skinny: This is the only one for which I have no proof, but only a vague memory (any help would be appreciated). Santa Claus' sled gets abducted by an evil starship and Tim Conway (playing a Luke Skywalker parody), a "Walkie" and a garbage can-shaped droid (the R2D2 parody) attempt to stop the evil. The lame Star Wars jokes continue until Mark Hammill walks on set, bringing the Force -- the Los Angeles Police Force -- who arrest the actors in the skit for copyright infringement. One imagines a young ESR and RMS watching this, shocked at how Carol Burnett's attempt to modify the Star Wars story was crushed under the bootheel of a proprietary screenplay.
Well, writing this has cured my insomnia. Thank you and good night.
I remember this... dear god, the therapy hasn't expunged it from my memory....
Well, anyhow, the only part I actually recall (or maybe this is just my memory playing tricks on me) is that when Chewie and Han show up, there some tussle with Stormtroopers (hey, is't Star Wars, how can there not be) which results in one of the stormtroopers being pitched over the balcony on the huge friggin tree fort that the family Chewbacca live in, presumably to fall hundereds of feet to a messy end.
You know, I'm hard pressed to think of another holiday special where someone is killed. Not that everyone involved in this stinkburger (and any variety show of the 70's in general) has not richly earned a painful death... It's just, somehow, most Christmas specials managed to avoid introducing fatality into the whole mix.
"Happy Life Day!" *Splat*
I watched a chunk of it (the real video format).
Wookies doing wookie things for 20 minute straight. Storm troopers not looking scarey, and trying to be funny. Princess Lay-her looking stoned, and bored. Some guy you've never heard of playing Jefferson [Airplane|Starship] music for some other guy, who seems hyponotised by it. Yes, there is wookie porn. The wooden dialog between Han Solo and Chewbacca. Etc.
This is the pain I feel when you rape me with a big, red fire extinguisher.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Many people wouldn't forgive the racist discrimination against Wookies which resulted in Chewie not getting a medal at the end of A New Hope.
Well, Chewie got his medal. At the MTV awards ceremony Leia gave him his long due medal and he gave a speech in Wookie. No doubt he was thanking his parents which we now got the chance to know...
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Above has link to Real Media format of movie. Can we get some mirrors please?
I'm not the conspiracy type, but this is weird. I was 43% done downloading the link provided above when some sort of traffic spike knocked me offline. When I got logged back on the network, the entire gamesnet.net domain is gone.
Man, Lucas' henchmen are quick!
I saw this when it was originally aired. I think it is instructive that it was only aired once, back in the 70s. Since then I have only been able to remember Wookies singing and dancing, and the rather odd question of why Wookie home life had so much in common with domestic Terran surburban bliss circa 1978, when the Wookies themselves resemble us only in that they are bipedal with the same sensory organs we have. If ever there was a demonstration of real repressed childhood memories, this would be it. This review is really all I need of that special. With two children in the house, I am very afraid that one of them would want to watch it a second time.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Just think how his FAMILY TOOK THE NEWS!!! So SAD!!!
Yep, I've seen it and own a copy. Ok, well I saw it drunk after a sci-fi con, but still I've seen it. Damn that punch was good and the screwdrivers too...oh yeah the video.....it was just bad. I love star wars but this was just bad. I'm just glad I passed out from all the alcohol....
pd
* * * --they cant all be your best, that would be confusing
I remember seeing this at that time and thought it was pretty cool. After reading all your comments I had to go and dig an old copy up and watch it again. And I still don't know what you're all bitching about?
Ok, some of the effects aren't as good as in Phantom Menace, but they didn't have that kind of budget either.
I find it rather refreshing that we'll get a rare glimpse of the Wookies every day life. 'Cause lets face it, watching Cheewie all the time isn't all that exciting.
So what if it had a lot of singing in it? Most of it was pretty good. Especially that song by Bea Arthur. And that song with Carrie was really nice too. Wonder if they ever made an album of the Holiday Special?
The only thing that wasn't all that good was that cheesy looking cartoon. They could have skipped that IMHO.
Other than that I think you all just bitch because that's the cool thing to do since everyone else is doing it.
Stephen Wook (uunet!ubcvax!berkwook)
It will completely ruin the Star Wars Universe for you... Trust me, its really not worth it.
>>let it all just be rumours that Leonardo
>>DiCaprio is going to play Anakin in Episode II.
One very good thing actually. We'd get to see Ewan McGreggor kick leo's ass and throw him into a pit of lava in Episode III !!!!
john
Imagine all the people...
Hey, can we safely say that George Lucas reads Slashdot ?? Seems entirely possible that someone in the Lucas-camp read this thread or at least was pointed to it. When they saw mention of these videos, two phone calls took care of it -- one to their lawyers and one from their lawyers to eBay.
Well, I live in a Third World country, and when it comes to Christmas we have basically the same TV Shows and Special, over and over, for years it has been the same ! And this crappy piece of marketing is one the common "highlights" .....
Chewie, Lumpy, Itchy ... where was Scratchy?
Regards, Ralph.
Oh YES! Now I remember that scene. Deeply disturbing to my 7 or 8 year old psyche. Memories flooding back...
What is far more disturbing is that my brain has room for more or less full recall of even that television special, that I haven't thought about for 20 years. If there was storage space for that special, one must not junk ANYTHING upstairs. It just takes the right trigger for the memory and bam, there you are...
Damn. I had almost forgotton the wookie porn, not to mention the stormtrooper musical number...
A friend in college acquired a copy my senior year, and we watched it. We wished we didn't. Jar-Jar is an oscar-winning idea compared to this. It is for reasons like James having us watch that video that I will never respect him again. dV
In fact, that animated special inspired my sister and her friends to celebrate Life Day every year instead of Christmas. They still do so to this day :-).
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Open mind, insert foot.
at Warner Bros. as the lot p-sychiatrist.
I saw the original when it aired, and I got the chance to see a bootleg copy a few years ago, with a bunch of people who had never seen it. The general consensus was, "How bad can it be?" At the end, I though we were going to need a grief councilor. This thing is awful. BEA ARTHUR SINGS! That should be enough to scare you. The best parts, of the bootleg, are the vintage '70's commercials that are included. Remember "TOBOR, it's robot spelled backwards" Classic stuff. What I want to see is copies of the old saturday morning cartoon, "Droids" Anybody know where to find those?
Unbelievable, but there's actually a FAQ on that thing: http://www.lucasfan.com/swtv/swholspc.txt
I never watched the special, because after seeing the picture of Bea, I was too scared to watch.
Anonymous Kev
The reviewer got that one wrong. Ford was doing carpentry work (not acting) in Francis Ford Coppola's office when George Lucas saw him. Ford had worked with Lucas in American Grafitti and Lucas asked him to read for the part in Star Wars. But then again, the part in AG alone probably surpasses anything Hamill, Fisher, etc. had done.
I seem to distantly remember Aerosmith playing "Kings and Queens" in one of those little hologram boxes.... was that one of the ewok specials then? I recall having to turn down my John Denver 8-track to hear what the commotion was on the telly.....
I do remember this. Oh man, trust me, you do NOT want to see it. It HURTS. Even in the single-digit years, I could tell it sucked. And had zero idea why in hell Art Carney and Bea Arthur were around. I have absolutely NO desire to see this one again. I remember wanting to watch it to the bitter fucking end just cause it was Star Wars, and my father reaching for the rye whiskey to help him get through it, cause my mother would NOT let him change the channel (not because she liked it, cause she knew you couldn't explain to a Star Wars obsessed 7 year old that this movie sucks) Ahhhh, being young in the 70s.
"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
Tobor, it goes forward (wiring picture of robot going forwards), it goes backward (robot goes backwards) -- it goes forward again (you get the idea now). Tobor (and this is the best bit) -- its robot spelled backwards.
HAHA
James Duncan
j@mesduncan.co.uk
I saw this thing when I was eight years old. I remember vividly being terribly disappointed by the whole thing. It was just AWFUL (even for an eight year old.) The review is absolutely right. I have repressed most of the memories from watching this horrid thing. I can't remember any of the cartoon sequences, and mostly remember Luke Skywalker performing an oil change on his X-Wing.
I had hoped, after all these years, that no one would ever bring this thing up again. It scarred my for life. Yes! Much worse than Jar Jar!
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
If I remember correctly I was about 5 or 6 when this aired on TV, and since I was a huge Star Wars fan wanted to watch it.
Well, my mother came back from shopping, and happened to meet a teacher of mine or someone who gave her a really bad report (since I was a little pain in the ass), and instead of watching the special, found myself in bed early as punishment.
After looking at what I missed, I'd like to send a big "thank you" to whatever teacher it was at the time. You guys taught me such crap as being able to stand an egg on end at the equinox, the moon's phase is a result of the Earth's shadow, and other lunacy, but I forgive you for sparing my young eyes from this horrible Christmas special.
Geez...I would've been 5 at the time.
What a hysterically funny review. That just cracked me up. I couldn't remember anything about the special except that it had wookies and it sucked.
Reading the review it all came back to me...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! THE HORROR!!! THE HORROR!!!
YOU JUST RUINED YEARS OF THERAPY!!! I HOPE YOUR PROUD OF YOURSELF BUDDY!!!!
Well, now that the damage is done, I HAVE to see it again. If I thought it sucked when I was 5, imagine how much I'll hate it now!
VENI! VIDI! VICI!
When I was in college in Washington, I took a calculus class where the instructor had actually had a part in the special. She'd been a math tutor for some child actors, and somehow got a part as an extra Wookie for this mess.
Hey, I'm only two degrees from Harrison Ford!
Reading the review reminded me of how bad 70's holiday specials were in general, and this one in particular.
If anyone has the video encoded, email me. I have space and bandwidth to put up a mirror. robert-lovelady@ouhsc.edu
i have it in real audio format...any of you interested, e-mail me. modul8r@31337.com
Hey, I remember it too... I saw it, and I actually LIKED it..
Of course, I was 8 years old, and I seem to recall my
favourite movie that year being "The Love Bug" (Hmm, wasn't Dean Jones
a better actor than that?)
I'm sure if this aired again, all of the 8-year-olds who love Jar-Jar
binks would love this too..
*sigh* I guess sometimes past memories are better off in the past..
I can't believe this got posted to slashdot. Any slashdot member that is also a Star Wars fan has probably already seen the Holiday Special once (and probably has no desire to see it again let alone read a review). I watched it for about 15 mins before I turned it off in disgust. That was about a month or two after I purchased it. I kept wanting to see it so bad and then found out that it was utter crap. This really isn't news at all since most of us already know it sucked.
I have one clear memory of a Star Wars album. possibly the whole thing was a holiday album, but I'll remember one song until my dying day: "What do you get a Wookie for Christmaas when he already owns a comb?" (The song's punch line: a brush!)
A friend pointed out questions 2 and 2a after making me watch the copy he just bought earlier this year:
- 2. Where can I see the Star Wars Holiday Special?
- a. How can I forget that I saw the Star Wars Holiday Special?
I'd say this is about the most telling statement one could make about this, er, work.If you have the misfortune of seeing it (it burns us!), pay special attention to the scene(s) with Princess Leia. Carrie Fisher is barely able to stand up - much less walk without almost falling on her ass. Of course, it has been pointed out that she was in that time for her life when she was addicted to horse tranquilizers.
Madness takes its toll. Exact change please.
But what was Harrison Ford thinking? I mean, even back then he'd already done more quality work than the entire cast combined except for Peter Cushing.
Umm... What about Alec Guiness(sp)???
If anyone out there has a good copy of this, I have the means to rip and encode it as a quicktime.
Contact me if you want it done.
The formula: Star Wars space hype + Bob Hope + Olivia Newton John (!) + LAPD + Christmas
The Skinny: Some guy plays "Fluke Sleepwalker," Olivia Newton-John plays Princess Olivia and Bob Hope plays Bart Vaiter. Yes, there's a "walkie," yes, the jokes are lame, and yes Mark Hamill charges the stage and arrests Bob Hope for "malicious mutilation of a marvelous movie". I will assume Hamill was referring to Star Wars and not Hope's film "I'll Take Sweden."
One imagines a young Rick Moranis watching this. Later, while wandering through the desert, high on cheap cooking wine and peyote, he sees this Indian, who tells him to audition for the part of "Dark Helmet". Moranis not only gets the part, but also tell Oliver Stone about the bit with the Indian, which he works into his film, The Doors.
Help me, Tim Conway...you're my only hope...
just maybe I could enjoy it if...
I got really wasted and watched it while playing Meco's Star Wars & Other Galactic Funk as the soundtrack.
- passion
Yes. I remember seeing this as a kid and thinking that it sucked. In addition to the lame performing and incomprehensible action, you also got every Wookie with a name ending in "ie". Chewbacca gets shortened to "Chewie" as a nickname -- but his mother, siblings, cousins, what-have-you, they just have "...ie" names. Period. The writing was just as inspired as the acting. Truly, a great example of how awful television could be.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
Quark ruled, Quark rules, Quark will rule again...
(Assuming of course that they preserved Richard
Benjamin's, Alan Caillou's, and Richard Kelton's DNA). Yeah yeah, Richard Benjamin isn't actually dead, but one look says he ought to be.
In 7 or so episodes, they managed to skewer Star Wars, 2001, Shore Leave, The Ultimate Computer, Mirror Mirror, Amok Time, Flash Gordon, the holiday season in general, The Enemy Within, and a bunch of other stuff I'm sure I'm missing. How dare you equate this to that _holiday_ special whose main drawing point was a little bit of extra footage of Mark Hamill on Tatooine that served to inspire bizarre racial memories of missing Biggs Darkwinder scenes.
Highlights of Quark included Tim Thomerson playing a half-male/half-female character named Gene/Jean who would beat the stuffing out of a bunch of slimy aliens and then immediately check his makeup and whine about breaking a nail, and a dead-on satire of Spock's matin rituals from
the vegetable perspective.
Besides, Buck Henry's true brilliance was best exposed in those scarily precognitive Uncle Roy sketches that must have been Patrick Naughton's teen inspiration between marathon coding stretches and dodging bullies. Ever notice how they show all sorts of sketches from the 70s on SNL reruns, but somehow the Uncle Roy stuff is mysteriously missing? Conspiracy I tell you, pure conspiracy!
The Galaxy Ad Infinitum
PS Quark's boss was Dr. Otto "Bob" Palindrome and
for bonus points, does anyone else remember the unsold pilot they aired right after they dumped Quark and the grafitti on the side of their space station?
Right before it was Jesus Christ Superstar (in my area). I loved it (heresy of heresies) at the time but I'll be darned if I can remember what I saw. I have wanted for ages to track that show down for nostalgic reasons
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
You should sell that vinyl on eBay. Some Star Wars moron would be willing to pay insane ammounts of money for it. That really is quite a SW collectors item.
I am a huge star wars fan and I recently watched this Christmas special at a friends house who got his hands on the tape. It is seriously, joking aside, the WORST tv show I have ever seen. It has no plot, Mark Hammil looks like a Barbie doll and the acting in it is so awful that it puts the entire cast to shame. Even if you are a big Star Wars fan, don't bother with it. It is like an hour and a half of the most useless footage on earth. I can see why Lucas wants it destroyed....
"Manos Hands of Fate"! Now that's a great movie. No, wait, it's a terrible movie. I mean, it's a great, terrible movie. What about the music they played when Torvold (not Linus, I mean the hunchback in the movie) shows up on screen? I would love an MP3 of that.
There are some things that are artfully bad, meaning that if most people tried to make something that bad, they wouldn't succeed. It takes a certain cursed idiot savant to make an artfully bad production, like "Manos...", the music of the Shaggs, and most everything on access television in Austin. I expect to put the Star Wars Xmas special in that category as well, if bonesnet's ftp server can actually serve the MPEGs.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
... also featured a cameo appearance by the 1960's Batmobile (!!) parked outside on a western "frontier town" set.
The cheese thickens.
-Elendale (Agrees with Lucas on this one)
Do not say mihoshi special to me.
That was gayer than a parade in san fransicso!!!!!
Amen, brother.
I would love an MP3 of that
Someone actually made a Torgo module for the AfterDark screensaver, complete with music. Fscking hilarious.
You could probably extract the resources from said file (if it's still out there) and convert it with ease.
There are some things that are artfully bad, meaning that if most people tried to make something that bad, they wouldn't succeed.
As the Psychotronic Film Catalog says, "what kind of horror movie would a Texas fertilizer salesman make?" (Yes, you can order unedited versions of Manos from these guys, if $20 is burning a hole in your pocket. Can't say I was ever that tempted though..)
-----
".sig,
I think you're referring to the short "Hardware Wars". They do all the special effects using kitchen appliances (an iron for the star cruiser, egg beaters [the old fashioned kind] as tie fighters, etc.). I thought it was pretty funny, but it's been a number of years since I've seen it. Last I saw it, it was available on a tape with "Bambi vs. Godzilla", "Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind", and "Porklips Now" (an "Apocalypse Now" spoof).
I've wrestled with reality for 35 years and I'm happy to say, I finally won out - Elwood P. Dowd
A friend of mine at ILM gave me a copy of this tape; she refused to say where it came from or how she got it.
Evidently George Lucas organized a formal dinner party for most of the original Star Wars cast, some time in the last five years (there's no date on the tape). Based on the tone of the conversation, I'm presuming it took place near some major holiday (probably Thanksgiving). The recording quality is rather poor, obviously a product of a single omnidirectional mic located somewhere in the room. Here is as accurate a transcript as I can render:
[General murmurs; a wine glass is rung to get attention.]
Lucas:
"Thank you all very much for coming. It's really wonderful to see you again all at once. Uh, some of you expressed some confusion as to why I asked for this gathering, and to be honest I'm a little apprehensive bringing it up because I'm sure it will cause most of you, if not all of you, to recall a measure of pain.
"This is as much a confession and explanation as it is an apology... So, I better just get right to it. All of you -- or actually I should just say, most of you -- were participants in... A work that we have all tried very hard to forget... Ah, I see you know what I'm talking about, Carrie. [confused murmurs] Yes, the Star Wars Holiday Special. [loud groans, "Oh, no!", etc.] {garbled}, I know, it's... I know it's better forgotten, but... Please, I need to finish this. [silence returns] Thank you; there is a reason this happened and... It's my fault.
"Basically, a few weeks before any of you were contacted about this, I got a phone call from an executive at the network, and he said he had this fabulous idea he wanted to explore. I said, 'What is it?' He said, 'A Star Wars Holiday Special.' ...As I recall, I just sat there in dumbstruck silence, and this idiot rattles on about how great it would be to see a 'slice of life' view of the Star Wars characters.
"Eventually, I found the will to speak again, and said I thought it was the absolute stupidest thing I had ever heard. It was insulting to the characters, it was insulting to the Star Wars universe, and it would be insulting to the viewers' intelligence. I mean, the idea that Thanksgiving or Christmas take place in a completely different galaxy... But this idiot says, 'Oh, no, you don't need to actually call it Thanksgiving or Christmas.' I said, 'Oh, really. So what are we supposed to call it?' He says, 'Well you could call it "Life Day," maybe. Or some holiday celebrated by Wookies.' ...And I sat on the phone with this guy for what must have been an hour, trying to convince him that this was just a dreadful idea, but he absolutely just. Would. Not. Let. Up.
"By this time, I just want to get him off the phone, so I finally said, 'I'll think about it.'
'Could you send me some story treatments?' he said.
'I'll think about it.'
'We'll give you complete creative control; you don't need to worry about that.'
'I'll think about it; I gotta go.' Click. Obviously this guy was new in town, and didn't know that, 'I'll think about it,' means..."
Harrison Ford [maybe; can't really tell]:
"Go away." [laughter]
Lucas: ...So anyway, it's a couple days later... There's a message on my machine from this guy... And this is where I made my mistake. I had just gotten home from darts at the Mayflower, and... I guess I'd had one too many, I don't know, because I found my head flooding with ideas for the absolute worst holiday special imaginable. I mean, the sorts of ideas that are just so unbelievable that they're funny. And pretty soon I was giggling to myself at all the unspeakably ridiculous things I was thinking of...
"Exactly!
"And the next thing I knew, I was at my typewriter, writing it down. I sat down and started to write the most ridiculous, the most preposterous parody of Star Wars I could possibly think of. [laughter] I gave them stupid names; I thought, 'Oh, he's named Chewie, so obviously his family's names are Crunchy and Itchy!' [laughter throughout] I threw in Art Carney, for cryin' out loud; you remember those stupid... Like, the Brady Bunch special where Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett turn up at the door for no reason, I said, 'Okay, who has absolutely no business being here? Art Carney!' I threw in porno... [titters] Hey, you know... I happened to have the TV on, and there was a re-run of 'Maude' playing, and I immediately knew I had to work Bea Arthur into this somehow. And I made her sing! Dear God, I made her sing! [loud laughter]
"Anyway, I was up until about six in the morning enjoying the hell out of myself... I mean, I thought it was absolutely hilarious... Because I knew it was a joke. So I'm still looking it over, giggling like a kid... And the phone rings. At six AM. I pick it up... And it's the idiot again, who obviously doesn't grok time zones.
He says, 'Have you had time to think about it?'
I said, 'Well...'
'Do you have any story treatments?'
"And there I was, at my desk, with the last page of the parody still in the Smith-Corona... And a vindictive thought crossed my mind which to this day I deeply, deeply regret.
I turned back to the phone and, trying not to laugh, said, 'Why, yes I do.' [loud groans, "Oh, shit," etc.]
He says... He says, 'Great! Can I see it?'
I said, 'Sure! Where do I send it?'
"And I made a copy... [more groans] And I sent it off. ["No!!", etc.] And I was certain that once this moron read this piece of dross, he would finally realize this was a deadly stupid idea and drop it. And... So, anyway, I sent it off, and that was the absolute last I heard of it. I never heard from him again, and I thought, great, he figured it out; it's over.
"One day... I've got the TV on... And I see a promo for the Star Wars Holiday Special. And I looked... I can't describe the paralyzing, mortal fear I experienced at that moment. I froze... And I looked, and there was you, and Mark, and Carrie; and from the few fragments they showed, I realized what had happened, and I said, 'Holy fucking shit!'
"And that's when you got that panicked phone call from me, Mark, you remember?"
Mark Hamill:
"Yeah, I remember. The thing was... The thing was that... I don't know if I spoke to the same idiot as you did... [laughter] But he tells me about this special, and I said, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard. But the guy said, 'George Lucas wrote the script, and you're in it.' And I thought, well, if George thinks it's okay, then I guess..."
Lucas:
"Exactly! Exactly! And that was the story you all told me: On the strength of the fact that I wrote the script, you agreed to participate in this spawn of Satan. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so adamant about control over my stories now, because I don't want anything like this to ever happen again..."
Carrie Fisher:
"Why didn't you just kill it? I mean..."
Lucas:
"I tried to. That was the first thing I did; I called up the network and said, 'This is not going to happen,' and they said that the ad space had already been sold, and viewers were already calling in looking forward to it, and cancelling it now was just not possible without a big embarrassing explanation... And I really wasn't sure what to do, I probably should have killed it anyway... But I thought, well, they're going to lose a lot of money, and at that time I didn't realize yet that I could have completely paid them back; and they did think I approved the whole thing since I wrote the 'script', so it's not like they were operating in bad faith...
"And so we reached an agreement where they would air it once, and then it would be destroyed for all eternity. And that's exactly what happened: They aired it, I got the master negatives, I burned them. {garbled} Yes, myself, personally.
And ever since then, I've felt absolutely dreadful that this happened to you... [laughter] That you were made to be part of this private joke gone horribly, horribly wrong... The reason I'm bothering to bring this up at all, apart from wanting to lighten my soul, to the extent that it's possible... This Internet thing seems to be taking off big time, and I have this dark fear that someone who had a Betamax in 1978 who was dumb enough to record this and save it for 20 years is going to dig out their copy, digitize it, and start handing copies around, and the agony will start all over again. So, before that happened, I wanted to get you all together and explain what really happened, and that I hope you can forgive me, and that I'm really, really sorry I did this to you. I just... [appreciative applause]
[END TRANSCRIPT]
Note: The preceding, in it's entirety, is completely, utterly, and in all ways totally fictional, and is nothing more than the product of my furtive imagination.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Like I said before, look under television (except I got the date wrong: it should be December 14). But you're right in that they're idiots and reposted it today. It's quite amuzing how /. and memepool play off each other like this, reposting each other's content which was originally ripped off from each other.
Tuesday Dec 14, 1999
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (the 70's), someone greenlighted one of the most
horrible creations ever to deface the boob tube: the Star Wars Holiday Special. This review
maybe makes it sound like it's so bad it's good, and in some ways, I guess it is, but in most
other ways, it's sort of like putting live hornets in your ass.
to Television by faisal
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Now, THAT was impressive. I personally choose to believe this version of events - it's got to be way better than the actual reality, right? Maybe we can get it linked to any new articles about SWHS or something. :) Perpetuate the mythos!
Leilah
~ Leilah
How about this dog? The Galactica finds Earth... and it's Earth in the year 1980!
The worst thing about it is that I swear I had read a parody of Battlestar Galactica in Cracked magazine six months earlier... and it was the same premise! I was one freaked out sixteen year old and pissed off Galactica fan after I saw that first episode!
And I loved watching Salvage I and Quark. Quark was just plain silly (the series was a sort of proto-Red Dwarf), and as for Salvage I, well, can you say "DC-X built in a junkyard"? And you can build a spaceship, from the things you find at home...
As for Buck Rogers, I loved the first season (ohh, Princess Ardala... ohh...), but the "Star Trek" exploration season sucked. I guess it just wasn't cheezy enough for me.
Star Wars was HUGE in '78. This was a movie people made small talk about. It made a generation of people aware that technology was here to stay, and that it could be cool. It marked a turning point in our culture, but I can't quite say how.
Star Wars raised the standards for special effects in a movie, and people copied that. The copiers thought they were making something as appealing as Star Wars was, but Star Wars transported the viewers to that galaxy a long time ago and very far away, and made us want to stay.
Here are some other shows that didn't quite have the same level of achievement. Perhaps you remember:
1. Battlestar Galactica. Lorne Greene in space?
2. Flash Gordon (the full-length film, with soundtrack by Queen)
3. Flash Gordon in the 25th Century ((?) the series featuring Erin Gray in spandex and a cute little robot that went "weebeedeebee-weebeedeebee")
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I actually remember seeing this as a kid. For years I have been derided for saying I saw Boba Fett before ESB. But it's clear as day - the hideous child wookie and musical numbers. I'd very much like a copy, but you don't have an email addy listed. Write to me please.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
I've been thinking for years how cool it'd be to create a global database containing pretty much everything that's ever been created, especially things like this. Like Geocities, only organized.
Hey, back in The Days (TM) as a 10 year old hungry for any new scrap of Star Wars I loved it!! Remember that there was no certainty of Empire coming out 3 longs years later. This was '77 and as the author covers variety shows were in vogue and they defined what to us then was leading-edge television. But for kids my age we couldn't get the topical humor, but because the adults were laughing we knew this had to be cool stuff. So when the holiday special appeared with the same formula but with Star Wars characters we couldn't wait, this was a show made for _us_!! Now we would get all the inside stuff more than the adults would. But man, to think now of Bea Arthur and Princess Leia singing, my god.. Actually I didn't remember any of that. My only lasting memory was that "wookies live in trees", possibly also in northern california. Of course this inspired our imagination anytime we would visit a forest later. When the forest world of the Ewoks was introduced to us ROTJ my first thought was, "hey, this is a lot like Chewie's home world, he should feel quite a natural in this place." Anyway, my compliments to the author of the review for bringing back those memories in the marvelous way he did.
...it all got started when Robot Wisdom picked up the link off my site... That's scary, the kind of media power Jorn has to put a meme into circulation.
I can remember two animation series, called "Droids" and "Ewoks", released sometime in the 80s. About three videos in each series, as I can remember.
In Droids there was a ugly yellow C3PO-"clone", who had a completely different personality. Besides that I really was dissapointed by the whole thing, because it looked more like He-Man than anything else.
I'm not sure if they have anything to do with star-wars except the settings.
any address to actually see it ?
I have it. I haven't listened to it since 1976. I actually remember seeing that performed live on TV. Yeek.
The only thing that kept me watching was that I was sure it couldn't have been put on the air with George Lucas's Star Wars imprint if it was all this ghastly, it *had* to get better.
Eventually.
This tragic miscalculation caused me to WATCH THE WHOLE THING.
The Horror! Oh, the Horror!
Imagine a frazzled Mrs. Wookie trying to keep up with a TV cooking show hosted by Harvey Corman dressed as Carmen Miranda doing a "Julia Child on PCP" impression. This only begins to hint at the unspeakable ghastlyness of this excretion.
Since VCRs were rare and expensive back in 1979, I had hoped that no copies of this abomination were still in existance to cause lasting psychological damage to new generations. Surely, anyone who had recorded it would have buried the Betamax tape at a crossroads, with a neodymium-iron-boron magnet stake driven through it. Surely no one who had ever suffered this much could have ever risked the possibility of anyone else undergoing such torture.
Lest anyone is unclear on the "Good-bad" thing here, "Plan 9 From Outer Space" was much better than the "Star Wars Christmas Special." "The Creeping Terror" (the movie with no sound track, only dubbed-in narration, about a two-ton pile of rampaging, carnivorous alien carpet remnants) was a masterpiece of cinematography by comparison.
Lucas can't disclaim responsibility for this thing; the Wookie dwellings were very similar to the Ewok village that no one but Lucas could have known about for years afterwards.
I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who took a look at our review of the Star Wars Holiday Special, and to say that I am doubly happy to see it being referred to as A VERY WOOKIE CHRISTMAS. The response has been phenomenal. We're used to getting email from irate parents, religious groups, and die-hard KISS fans who are mad that we made fun of The Elder. The response from the readers of Slashdot has been great, and has made us blush -- something that is not easy to do. Thanks again for the attention. --Keith Allison Editor, Founder Teleport City