Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for The Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one,

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[00:01:06] and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Welcome to the Star Wars Film Festival. We're the Lorehounds, your guides to a galaxy far, far away.

[00:01:37] I'm David, and this is our coverage of the Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978. In this podcast, we're joined by Anthony and Steve from Properly Howard Movie Review to marvel at this one-of-a-kind television offering. If you haven't seen the Holiday Special before, I highly recommend you check it out.

[00:01:59] You should be able to find it on YouTube. Quick search. It's probably going to be 90 minutes of your life that you wish you could get back if you do watch it. But we've got a lot of fun on this podcast,

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[00:02:59] We've got channels set up for all the shows and projects that we're covering. We've got a fun and welcoming community. Links in the show notes below. Without further ado, let's join our hosts, Steve and Anthony. So we're covering the holiday special Star Wars style,

[00:03:19] and there's a lot to say about this, but I'd like to introduce the folks in the room first. John, say hello. Hello. Hello. And you know. Very good. Very good. And Steve, hello. Hello. I would make a Wookie noise, but I've heard way too many.

[00:03:39] Happy Life Day all. Happy Life Day to all of you. I'd like to start with a question for each of you. The life gift choice of your dreams, but it has to come from this special. So what would you want?

[00:03:58] You can have the life day choice gift of your choice. However, it has to have been featured in the Star Wars holiday special. David, we'll start with you. I'm thinking that Radio Shack style special gift that Lumpy had that he used to make the communicator with.

[00:04:21] Now I watched a 20 minute instructional video on that. I still don't know what it does. What is this thing? It was a transmitter of some kind.

[00:04:33] And but if to me, what it looked like was a pure piece of nostalgia ripped right from the pages of the Radio Shack Christmas catalog of those kits that had the little springs on the board and the little wires and you know,

[00:04:48] and everything was sort of built in. And then you could, depending on how you rewired it, it could make a light turn on or it could make some weird synthesize.

[00:04:55] Or it could fool the galactic empire or it could fool the need be right and get to get the goons out of your house, you know. So Steve, your choice of a life day gift. One last drink and dance with Bea Arthur.

[00:05:17] I'm glad that you mentioned Bea Arthur because my friend, we have a little bit of Bea Arthur. Just one more rhyme friend. Yes, it's a crime friend. But you know, time friend, time can fly. So it's midnight friend. Good night, but not goodbye.

[00:06:12] So what every Star Wars sequel needs is a little bit of Bea Arthur. I think that that's maybe a great place to begin this. Well, I think it's really important to note that this special had performances by Jefferson Starship and Diane Carroll and later Carrie Fisher.

[00:06:34] But without question, Bea Arthur had the only certified banger of a song. I was going to say like what I just played, those were the best 30 seconds of this special. Yeah. And outside of watching Harry Corman drink through the top of his skull, which was a nice touch.

[00:06:52] The whole thing is, why are we leaving this? This is this fantastic. I want to see what happens. They're about to get shut down, but no one wants to leave. This is amazing. That was that was the example of how much better you have it under imperial rule.

[00:07:08] Right. And you're kind of missing it here. So, John, you're a little bit younger. Do you know who Bea Arthur is?

[00:07:16] I had no idea at all. All I could think about through this whole movie was we just went through a couple of strikes in the industry and we talk a lot about, you know, A.I.

[00:07:27] and the importance of human writers. If Disney wanted to devalue the writers arguments, they could have just put this movie out because I've never seen a better case for maybe we should pay the writers less.

[00:07:44] I was thinking at the end of this, I was like, I love every Marvel movie better now. I basically said the subtitle for this is just called it's the Star Wars Holiday Special, otherwise known as Human Error.

[00:08:01] Now, there's a lot to say. It's not like this is not like the perfect hour and a half of television. But I will say when I watched it for the very first time this morning, I never laughed. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

[00:08:20] I was just at the comedy cellar a couple of weeks ago. Nothing I saw there was as funny as this. This was fantastic. I'm curious. Has anybody seen this prior? Have any of the three of you seen this before? I've not. I've seen eight minutes of the beginning.

[00:08:39] Okay. I'm like, I imagine it gets better, but I'm not willing to gamble that. So I just, I mean, it is just a trudge in the beginning of just squealing and hopping.

[00:08:53] I mean, had you told me that eventually, you know, itchy was going to get into a VR sex booth, I'd be like, Oh, okay, now I'm in, you know, good. Yeah, for sure. I'm so glad that you mentioned the VR sex booth.

[00:09:07] There's no way we're not talking about that for the rest of this book. Oh, I didn't like that. Just imagine an aging Wookiee about to masturbate. Oh, no. I'm pretty sure actively, right? Because we only see his face at one point.

[00:09:36] We had in 1978, we were so excited for this and we had no idea what to make of it after we watched this. She says, I find you adorable. And then he rewinds it like three times.

[00:09:47] We all have a certain spot in a certain movie that we just want to keep watching over and over again until we just can't anymore. Right? So I think that I should maybe give a brief synopsis of the plot. Is there one?

[00:10:06] You tell me how I do here. So Chewbacca. Our carny from the honeymooners helps an old Wookiee get off. That is part of the movie. That is pretty much. Chewbacca is delayed on his way to life day. There's a lot of delay in this.

[00:10:24] And Chewie's family is harassed by Imperial troops. But the Empire is fooled by a traveling salesman who helps them eventually celebrate life day. That's basically the plot, right? But they thought, well, we need to spice that up with several instructional videos and a cooking show.

[00:10:54] And don't forget the holographic chessboard circus. I was really, really happy to see you. Brenner get some work as the green elf. I sent a screenshot to David with the caption. What of that scene? That's where I wasn't hooked before then. That's what hooked me.

[00:11:17] That's what I was like. Now I'm in because I got to know what this is. Marilyn even saw the screenshot and said, can someone explain to me what's happening in the scene? And honestly, I kind of can't look. There's a little something for everyone in this movie.

[00:11:30] I just want to call that out mostly for no one. The biggest thing I took away from this movie was that the drugs in 1978 were fucking amazing. Because they somebody walked into that writer's room and said, which drugs would you like? And they said, yes.

[00:11:51] One of the reviews that I read about it was that it looks like it was written, produced and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine. Oh my gosh. So I do want to think cocaine has a better editor.

[00:12:10] I do want to give Steve a little bit of room to cook here. Steve, do you know the history behind this? Maybe you can fill us in on how this gets made. Well, I think the words cash and grab are part of it.

[00:12:22] My understanding is that Lucas had already planned to do a sequel that was all Wookiees. He wanted it all to be on Kashyyyk and he wanted it all to be Wookiees.

[00:12:35] And so this is sort of what they were able to kind of extract from him was this idea. And Bruce Valanche was one of the writers. And he was really not keen on doing an extended extended scenes with Wookiees with no subtitles.

[00:12:54] But Lucas was pretty adamant about it. Like, if you're going to do this, you're going to have to do it this way. And what a visionary. Right. I mean, I tell you that that beginning sequence where they're just sort of living and screaming at each other.

[00:13:08] All right. So that's a good time. I'd like to take a moment and just analyze this for a bit. Here we go. This is my favorite part coming up here. I think subtitles would have ruined this. He doesn't want to take out the garbage.

[00:13:51] Right. Who wants to do it? He wants a cookie. A Wookiee cookie? Edibles. And it goes on like that for 20 minutes. No subtitles. It's a very interesting world that they live in or that they've created.

[00:14:19] It's a very like, seems like a typical 1978, like home with all the amenities for humans except clothing. And well, they have aprons apparently. That's a thing. And it's just, it's remarkable. Getting batter out of your fur is a real thing.

[00:14:36] All that peanut butter to get the gum out. I know. It's a nightmare. Or if you're frying, if you're doing a deep fry oil frying thing, it's bad. Yeah, boy. I just, who would have, I mean, I'm watching this thing.

[00:14:47] And again, I turned this thing off when I first saw it like a year ago because I was like, what's going to happen? But then you're like, oh, you're going to watch Jefferson Starship perform the worst Jefferson Starship song. And that's saying a lot.

[00:14:59] And then when Art Carney just comes in and goes, hey, you know, itchy plug in and, you know, have at yourself. It's an amazing choice. Like there's just so many amazing choices.

[00:15:12] It's just, it's, it's wild to me that this was all laid out on a storyboard and they're like, yeah, that's for sure what we want to do for kids.

[00:15:20] I wonder how much it was storyboarded and not just made up sort of on the spot or, you know, a few days before. Because it sounded like they changed directors as well. The first guy didn't know what he was doing with television.

[00:15:34] And so the second guy who is a specialist in variety shows. Was that the problem? This was when they had the specialist, by the way. Yeah. But this is classic variety show formatting, right? This is, you know, a hallmark of the genre and of the timeframe.

[00:15:54] The trouble though. Now canon. It's Star Wars canon. Yeah. There's no host though. And without anyone kind of telling you what's how this is all pieced together. It. It's a problem. It's a, it's problematic. It really is disturbing.

[00:16:17] It's you know, I gotta tell everybody, first of all, we were early in the podcast. Still, if you haven't seen this, you can get the whole thing on YouTube. Yeah. It is just out full out on there.

[00:16:28] And the top comment, I think really describes public sentiment about this. It has 16,000 likes and it says Disney and Lucasfilm won't strike this down because it would meet admitting that they own it. I'm glad that you mentioned the house. Steve. I, I would live in that tree house.

[00:16:49] That tree house is fantastic. Everything. If you had to live with itchy and lumpy. I'll tell you what I live. I'd live with Mala for sure. Mala can get it. I love Mala.

[00:17:05] Why, why does the kid Kazik, the kid Wookiee have a full set of human teeth instead of the fangs of the Wookiees? Wow. That was disturbing to me. It looked like he had the fake teeth. The same reason that half of the duck has fingernails.

[00:17:20] So we're talking about lumpy. I, I just love everything about lumpy. I think he's, I think he could be repurposed for many, many horror movies. I don't know why there isn't a lumpy horror franchise. This, this guy is just horrific to look at. Phantom lumpy.

[00:17:48] I guess his full name is lump waru, lump waru, L U M P A W A R O O. Put some respect on that name guys. So, uh, I, when I say that there are several instructional videos in this film, I'm not joking.

[00:18:12] We had an instructional video for how to assemble a transistor, right? Transmitter. Transmitter. Right. And, uh, we had an instructional cooking show, uh, for instance. Today I'm going to be using the tenderest cut of the bantha, the loin. The loin is very tasty and serves four nicely.

[00:18:36] Of course, if your family has a hearty appetite, I would suggest then that old popular holiday favorite, the bantha rump. Harvey, Harvey Corman was not mailing it in on this episode. I'll tell you that right now. They gave him a bag of cocaine.

[00:18:52] So the plot of this is that, that chewy is delayed to life day. They can't celebrate life day without them. And the Imperial troops need to be tricked in order to make that happen. That story can be told in literally 40 seconds.

[00:19:11] They decided what we need to do to spice this up is insert a cooking show, uh, several different, uh, instructional videos, uh, a song videos, Jefferson's starship. Um, B Arthur's. This is on the level of the Sergeant Pepper's movie.

[00:19:34] Don't forget the Boba Fett cartoon, which is Boba Fett's first appearance on what a debut voiced by Canada's own iron Buffalo. Is that right? Yeah. I had no idea.

[00:19:49] So the other thing that I want to talk about with this is that this is a very paternalistic approach to Wookiee culture. I feel like finally we're getting to it. I feel like the humans in this show, these Wookiees are doing fine by the way.

[00:20:12] Like they've got cooking shows. They've got, they've got like advanced technology. They're living in trees. And yet we have scenes like this. Mala, are you alone? If you would permit me. No, she says she is not alone. She's with a friend. Could he come to the screen please?

[00:20:38] I'm Sean Dan. Good. Look, I know I can count on you to take care of my friends until their leader returns. You'll do that for me, won't you? Yes, indeed, ma'am. That's what I'm here for. She's expressing her warmth towards the traitor. So let's break this down.

[00:21:09] A local salesman is in the house. He says he's a friend of the Alliance. And she's a friend of the Alliance. He says he's a friend of the Alliance. And she's just happy that there's a human there to look after her friends?

[00:21:24] It sounds like the plot of Wicked. Why? Why does she trust him implicitly? I know that Art Carney has a likable face. Why does she trust him immediately and implicitly? Well, I think that they must shop there at his shop quite frequently or something.

[00:21:44] She's never met this guy before. Princess Leia. Your headcanon. Princess Leia has never met this guy before. She thinks in order for this Wookiee family to survive, they need some supervision. Oh, look, a traveling salesman is hanging out in their living room. That's what we need.

[00:22:08] I trust you. You're going to take care of my friends. Doesn't he say something about being a sympathizer or part of the rebellion or something like that? He does. That's the key that unlocks it for Leia. Because once you say that, it must be true.

[00:22:24] There's no question that Mala and Art Carney are having an illicit affair, though, right? We know this. That's why she doesn't need the VR headset. Exactly. I'm sorry, Steve. You just sit there, Itchy. Put Lumpy in front of his little chessboard.

[00:22:42] We're going to throw Itchy into the old hair dryer of pornography. And then when she gets interrupted, he's like, I'm with a friend. He's a rebel sympathizer, if you know what I mean. First, it was the intrusive call by Leia. Then it was the Imperials showing up.

[00:23:02] Poor Mala couldn't get her life day on before her husband got home. See, I was going to say, and I was going to argue for this pretty vociferously. I'm certain that Lumpy is the love child of Han Solo. Oh, Han Solo! Just hear me out here.

[00:23:24] When Han comes in, who does Lumpy go to initially? He goes and hugs Han Solo. Han Solo picks him up. Very familiar with this child. And then, it would explain the teeth for sure. And then hands up and says, here's your father.

[00:23:46] And then a little bit later, Mala and Han have a knowing glance. And the camera hangs on her face just a little bit too long. And it's almost like, yeah, we know. We get it. I cannot follow your logic here. I'm in. I'm in on the theory.

[00:24:03] Can we talk more about the Wookiee family? Chewbacca, you know, I get that he's fighting the Rebellion right now and he's important. He spends another 30 years with Han Solo away from his family after the Rebellion is over.

[00:24:19] And then continues to travel the galaxy with Rey, someone who wasn't even born at this time. His family's just like, where's Chewbacca? I guess it doesn't matter. Well, I was going to ask you guys, how many families does Chewbacca have throughout the galaxy?

[00:24:35] Like this can't be his only family, right? This is number seven. I love the idea that there's going to be a whole Disney short series about just Lumpy on the streets. You know, just fighting through drug addiction, getting in one bad group after another.

[00:24:52] When are we going to see Lumpy in all of the movies? On the Disney Plus platform. I'd love to see him making cogs in some station somewhere. I mean, when your absentee father, broken family, all of that stuff, you know, terrorized by the Imperials.

[00:25:13] It's a short slide into malfeasance and delinquency. So back to the... I will say that the Imperial forces are a little less terrifying in this particular case. I mean, they do constantly want to put a gun in a Wookiee face.

[00:25:28] But if you've got a nice little, like, you know, if you can get them to watch MTV for a little bit, they'll just sort of chill. Occasionally, they'll mess up a room and then tell them, why don't you go clean up your room?

[00:25:41] And then he says, that'll buy some time. Like, for what, bro? Yeah, they're just basically bullies in this show. Hello, little guy. Where's your daddy? He's a state of no respect for authority! Excuse me, I beg your pardon.

[00:25:55] You know my brother's boy, he's a member of the Imperial militia. He must be 24 or 25 years old by now. He loves to serve us, right little guy? Your identification is in order. You can go now. Thank you, thank you very much.

[00:26:08] I just have a little more work to finish up here. Oh, by the way, while I'm finishing up here, why don't you boys take it easy, relax, put your feet up and make yourself at home.

[00:26:15] Now, Wookiee food isn't the greatest, but I'm sure that I can whip something up in the kitchen there that we can all eat. You don't mind, do you, Mala? Mala, will you come in the kitchen and help me? Poor Mala!

[00:26:27] At this point, I'm afraid we're going to get another cooking video. Can we go back to the cooking video for a minute? Because it was inspiring, honestly. I mean, when we were making the video, I'm going to be using the tenderness cut of the—

[00:26:45] When I was the age of Lumpy, I had Sicilian grandparents and a Sicilian great aunt and a great uncle. I would go over to visit them on Christmas Day.

[00:27:00] You would go over to this house and my great uncle, who was 90 years old since I was seven and he lived another 30 years, not really, but he had three teeth. He had a heavy Sicilian accent and he couldn't hear anything. And he had Julia Childs on, full volume.

[00:27:18] So I have this man shouting things at me in a broken English, no teeth accent. So you were related to Itchy, it sounds like. This was my experience. So I felt very at home in Chewbacca's home.

[00:27:37] Speaking as a fellow Italian, there is something about the Wookiee culture that really does appeal to me. It feels like home. Yeah, I mean, I can make a bunch of Italian jokes, but I think you get the idea.

[00:27:52] Well, speaking again of the paternalism, I do want to talk about this one here. It's me, Saunders! I brought you that proton pack, you know, for the— What's this? What do you call it? The thingamabob. The mind evaporator, that's it. The mind evaporator.

[00:28:15] Boy, am I glad to see you folks. How are my favorite Wookiees today? Hey, man! Why all the long, hairy faces? I do like that they decided, we're going to do a Star Wars special. We're going to make Art Carney the hero of the story.

[00:28:35] And if he doesn't remember his lines, that's fine. It's totally fine. He can flub his way through it. The lead credit is Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Totally does not need to be in this movie. No. What was with the hair and the makeup for him?

[00:28:58] Well, that was the most scary part of this. His eyes were dead. There was something wrong with them. When was his car accident, I'm wondering? I think it was a little after this, though. Okay. Because it had to be right before filming for Empire.

[00:29:15] And that was probably a year after this, I'm thinking. He's deeply depressed. He takes a few uppers. He records this. He leaves the studio and immediately crashes his car. Yeah, this would have been considered a Corvette winter for him. This was the incident of the year. Yeah.

[00:29:33] Filming this. So Art Carney seems to be the most important character in this whole show. You've got Carrie Fisher, yes. You've got all of the key components to this. You've got Harrison Ford. Oh my gosh, you've got Harrison Ford.

[00:29:52] Are we going to make any of them the lead that's integral to make this thing work? No. Who are we going to make it? Let's bring in Art Carney to do it. He's going to be a traveling trader who works at a glorified radio shack.

[00:30:07] He's going to use his gadgets to fool the Empire. And by the way, we've got Bea Arthur. What can we have her do? Well, she can be the waitress at Tatooine. I don't understand the rationale that went behind this special.

[00:30:23] It was who, what budget did they have and who could they get? I mean, what was Art Carney doing at this stage in his career? Harvey Korman was certainly at an apex though. This was during the solid years of his work. That's why he gets three roles.

[00:30:41] That's why he got three. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you could have easily had Korman in the Carney role, right? Yeah. So that's the thing that's interesting is that they know the power of Korman, but they use him very selectively.

[00:30:57] And remotely. I don't think he was live on the set at all. This was all pre-recorded. Well, other thing I think is kind of fascinating by this to Anthony's point. Like, okay, you've got these, you have the stars of this movie, right?

[00:31:11] And so I could see on one hand, you go, okay, well they're real busy or the budget is such that they're only, that they're going to do a couple of pre-recorded things and that's going to be it. Right. And we'll just shoehorn it in.

[00:31:23] But they're in like a bit, right? I mean, they're, they're, you know, Harrison Ford shows up on set for, you know, and then they have their little sequence at the end. I mean, so they're not not available for the movie. They're not available for the movie.

[00:31:38] And it is an interesting thing to say, Hey, you know, what seems to be really popular right now is the star Wars film with all these young characters and these young actors. Is there any way we could appeal to an audience that doesn't like star Wars?

[00:31:50] Let's get Art Carney, be Arthur and Harvey Korman. It's a, it's a, it's a bold move. It's a bold move, especially when they're like, but, but before we start it, we're going to, we're going to have the first 20 minutes appeal to actors who are not

[00:32:03] going to be able to see it. And they're like, but, but before we start it, we're going to, we're going to have the first 20 minutes appeal to absolutely nobody. Cause it's just going to be a bunch of guns and groans.

[00:32:12] And it's, it's, it's so colossally Miss guy that it almost feels like, like one of the earliest trolls, like, you know, just something where they just like, there's no way testing the power of the fan base. Let's see what you got.

[00:32:28] Yeah. What I love most that I read on the Wikipedia article was just that they aired this thing once in its entirety and never again did it air on TV. Yep. Never. And I was there for it. We were there at eight o'clock.

[00:32:41] Oh, you, so you saw this live? I watched this live. Did you see all of the commercials that, uh, that were was in the recording that we saw? In the copy that we got? No, because I believe this copy that we found was from a Baltimore station.

[00:32:56] I caught one of the title cards, one of the cards of one of the news breaks. And I was out on the West coast when, because I could just rewatch those commercials over and over. Those were fabulous. There were some really good commercials.

[00:33:09] I watched it on YouTube. So see, now that's what I'm missing out. Yep. Yeah. The labor union stuff was great. I mean, we could do a whole analysis. We could do a whole hour and hour and a half on just the commercials.

[00:33:21] All the, what was it? Was it Chevrolet building? Oh, the GM commercials. Yeah. Yeah. Building transportation. Right. They, uh, were they the initial, the initial title screen it says GM produced or whatever. Something like that. It was, uh,

[00:33:39] so as soon as I saw that on the title screen, I went, okay, I have set my expectations for this. This is going to be a money grab and it absolutely was. Wow. Building transportation to serve people, to serve people, people building transportation to serve people.

[00:33:54] That was GM's motto during the commercial breaks. So this was 78, correct? Yeah. 78. Yep. So this comes out almost just right after maybe, maybe star Wars is still in the theater for the second run. So completely unbeknownst to,

[00:34:14] I think all of us when we were trying to figure out a day to record our podcast this was released on November 17th, 1978. And today is the day of our recording, November 17th. You know what? 45 years ago. It is life day right now. It is life day.

[00:34:35] David, I have something for you here. That was Diane Carroll saying, I find you adorable. I'll just keep rewinding that over and over again. I love the commercials. Every now and again you'll see like the news pop in for like a,

[00:34:56] like a 22nd spot. They used to do this. Yeah. But it wasn't like, like breaking news. It was news like nine months ago, nurses at the local hospital thought there would be a boom of child, children being born.

[00:35:12] Because of the snow storm turns out there wasn't more of this on this at 10, you know, it's sort of like that passes for news. I miss, I miss the days when that was news. When nurses thought something they were wrong. Let's go to somebody on the street.

[00:35:29] And then there's like this little joke. It's like the nurses now say that the men must have all been outside shoveling. That was it. That's what they decided to break. This was like prime time, right? And Timmy in the writer's room is like, that'll get them. That'll,

[00:35:43] that'll get them. Chucklin. So you had an opportunity, like the men must have been inside watching Diane Carroll on their sex machine. I have another YouTube comment here. Okay. Imagine trying, imagine setting your VCR to record the Hulk and you get this. Yeah.

[00:36:02] I mean, I think it's a good idea. I mean, imagine setting your VCR to record the Hulk and you get this. The Hulk and Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman. That's right. Oh goodness. So one of the things you missed though, John too, but I would,

[00:36:19] I would ask you to go back and watch this again. The copy that we got. So I've never watched this again in my entire life. I'm going to be honest with you. You gotta at least watch the commercials.

[00:36:29] You missed all the Kenner toy ads. I don't know. Maybe we'll slice it up for you. All right. So one of the things that I was super excited about with this was to kind of see how much technology had made its way to the tree culture of the,

[00:36:46] of the, the Wookiees. Yeah. Shag carpeting too. I man, fantastic. Just, just a wonderful amalgamation of, of a lot of different forms of technology. Lumbee can push a button and up on a yellow screen that says no spaceships nearby. Right? He's got that.

[00:37:08] And yet they've got no idea who's on the other side of the door. No way. There's no way that it's just like, there's a knock at the door and you've got to go up to the door and listen at

[00:37:20] the door to see if something about what's happening over there will clue you in to whether they're villainous or a friend. And guess what? The music betrays you. The music will tell you it's a friend when really it's an Imperial trooper,

[00:37:34] but when the music is ominous, it's going to be art. I loved, I loved all the technology in this. It made me. But they didn't have any, uh, you're living that far up. And I did love this part with lumpy preferencing how high up they were by

[00:37:55] walking on the railing for no particular purpose whatsoever, except. That's what happens when dad's gone. That's right. Except as a, uh, uh, Chekhov's banister railing for the trooper who takes a fall in the third act. And I love how Han Solo does this. It's like,

[00:38:13] he kind of like gestures toward the gun. Like I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. Are you going to get it? Then the guy just goes right through the railing. Oh, well happy life day. Lumpy doesn't have to worry about blasters.

[00:38:28] His veneers could reflect any bolt back at them. It is funny how like there's this all the, you know, who shot first controversy because of all the edits, but like, even on the holiday Han's just killing fools

[00:38:43] in front of, in front of children. I mean, it's just a, Oh goodness. Uncle Han's at it again. So, um, I don't, David, did we ever get your preferred life day gift? Did you, did you chime in on that at all?

[00:39:04] Me? Yeah. Yeah. I had the radio shack. I think I was the one who didn't and I'll take the millennium Falcon. That'll be fine. All right. Come on. I would say, um, I w I would take whatever the contents were of, uh, the Julia Child's cooking show pot,

[00:39:21] because I just need to know what's in there. I just think that the right choice here is the groomer. The groomer does tons of things. The groomer brushes your teeth and it clips your toenails and that's right. It's basically like a tricorder for the Wookiees.

[00:39:43] And this thing does almost everything. Oh, it serves a lot of functions. Just ask Mala. She keeps breaking them. That's why she's that, uh, that Imperial trooper in his shop though, did have a nice mustache. So I think he could have definitely,

[00:40:02] Oh, we need to talk about that guy. So that guy's, you never see his mouth move. Right? So clearly they, they didn't like his voice. They decided they were going to dub his voice, some other voice in my, my wife and I watched it together.

[00:40:16] She fell asleep about two thirds of the way through the last half hour. That's a, that's really surprising. Um, and, uh, she said, why isn't that guy speaking? And I said, well, they probably would have had to pay him scale of some kind, you know,

[00:40:29] for being a onscreen speaking part. I was just going to say like, that's, that's what they decided to change in post like that. $6 and 75 cents less than they really wanted his face. They thought his mustache, that's a mustache made for television. So that is an Imperial.

[00:40:46] For some reason, his voice was just so off putting that they had to dump And they hired James Earl Jones for this, this legendary voice actor. He ends up still in this house. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a,

[00:41:03] he's a voice actor. He ends up still in this holiday special. I have a question about that. Do you get the sense that this is all original? Cause I felt like there was a bunch of deleted scenes from the original.

[00:41:16] No, they, they spliced in a whole lot from 77. So Lucasfilm basically, as far as I understand it said to them, everything you want costumes, uh, uh, weapons, anything and the full library of the movie. And so I think that at the end,

[00:41:34] it's just like a whole bunch of sliced up stuff of, of 77, just, you know, edited into it without any rhyme or reason. That's your memory, right? Cause you're not, cause if you're at home, you're not, you're not seeing it on TV. There's no, uh, VHS rentals.

[00:41:51] You'd have to go back to the theater. So that's actually kind of a big deal when you would get like a taste of, of a film like that, um, back in those days because you didn't really have access to it other than your memories. And so,

[00:42:01] so that was actually probably like a huge treat at the end and it would have to be after the hot garbage that you just had to sit through. And we were starving at this point, right? We were, we'd seen it.

[00:42:13] It had been our life. We had all the actions figures and to have it on screen, to have anything Star Wars on screen is a big deal. And so to see, this is definitely anything Star Wars. Yes. I mean, honestly,

[00:42:27] I would not have been shocked if you told me that this was the last film they ever made because nobody came to Empire Strikes Back. It was like that bad. That's why they never showed it again. Forget that. Well, uh, gents,

[00:42:43] is there anything else that you feel like you would like to say about this little cultural moment within the Star Wars Unifor? Itchy's face is nightmare fuel for me. Is that, is that the one that's like always mugging? He's, that's the grandpa. Okay.

[00:43:00] Yeah. Yeah. It is nightmare fuel. Yeah. Why does he look like that? Just why does he look like that? Why do you need to do that between that and the fucking veneers? I'm just like, who thought of this?

[00:43:13] Well, I do want to say that it is that face that Diane Carroll says this that's the face that Diane Carroll finds adorable, man. That, that sequence, like, okay, so this is, so I'm, I'm watching this, right? I've got, I'm,

[00:43:32] I'm working from home. I got computers on all over the place. I got this plane and, and I'm right at the, the Diane Carroll scene when my daughter walks in and I'm trying to explain it in a way that,

[00:43:47] that doesn't make me look like, Oh, my dad's a creep. And, and as I'm telling her what's actually happening, I'm like, God, this, this is, I should have lied. I should've said I was watching pornography. This is way worse. She would have understood.

[00:44:06] Yeah. She's like, no, I get it. And I'm like, no, no, that's not what I meant. She would have understood. Yeah. She's like, no, I get it. And I'm like, no, no, there's an old Wookiee. And, and, and, and a guy from the honeymooners well past his prime,

[00:44:19] and he's helping him create Diane Carroll in his mind. She's appreciative, real appreciative. John, do you have any last parting comments about this particular bit of art? I, I'm breathless. I'm speechless because I will never watch this again in my entire life,

[00:44:43] but I'm so glad that I watched it once because it is an incredible, it is so bad that it's good. You know, it's just so bad that it's fun to watch and just make fun of it. Speaking of imagery that you mentioned David about the, the chess game,

[00:45:01] rewatch the very beginning of the Jefferson Starship video where it's just a silhouette of the lead singer with a just absolutely phallic microphone. Right. It is like, I'm like, come on, who is like now my, okay, that's Bruce Valencia's a bit of writing. I promise.

[00:45:22] It's totally, totally phallic. Okay. I completely saw that. So crazy. It's so bad. I'm curious though, John, with the Boba Fett cartoon, the, what is it? The loyal Wookiee or, um, the story of the faithful Wookiee, the animation style, uh,

[00:45:40] as somebody who watches a lot of animation, did you, what did you make of that style? It was very much of the time. You know, like if you, if you go back, I used to watch some of the old Hulk cartoon and things like that.

[00:45:52] It's the same thing. Um, it was, it was fine. I, I prefer the I think it kind of laid the groundwork for the original Clone War series. Not the one that's 3d animated, but the one that is more like Samurai Jack. Um, but yeah,

[00:46:09] I think, I think it's, it's fine, but I would not go back to that. I think they've done better since. Has anybody seen the original, uh, heavy metal animated rock music? Yeah. This to me was right out of, this could have been one of the vignettes in there.

[00:46:25] The Locke and R could have been the talisman as far as I was concerned. It would have fit perfectly. Yeah, that definitely, yeah, definitely of an era. Right. I mean that, um, and, and I mean the whole time I'm just like, man, these droids are really, really flexible.

[00:46:42] And speaking of droids, I love how the beginning sequence it's like, you know, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Gary Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels and R2D2. Yes. Well they say R2D2 as R2D2.

[00:46:58] All right. I have one more thing that I want to talk about before we go. And that is the reason why B Arthur is in this at all is that the empire has broken in. They've interrupted all of the programming on every household because they want

[00:47:20] to boost empire morale by showing a bit of reality television. So this is, this is what, this is what they say here. The following live broadcast is recommended by the Imperial council in the belief that your commitment to remain upstanding citizens will be reinforced.

[00:47:42] It is required viewing for all members of the Imperial forces. Time now for life on Tatooine brought to viewers everywhere in the hope that our own lives may be uplifted by the comparison and enriched with the gratitude of

[00:47:57] relief. This transmission is unrehearsed and unedited and is hereby begun without further comment as to its lack of moral value. So what's the, what's the idea here? It's like we're going to put this into every living room hoping that there is an

[00:48:14] Imperial troop who might benefit from this because it is required for every bit of every, all of them. Imperial guard has to watch this. And the hope is that they will view the life on Tatooine and see how horrible it

[00:48:30] is and have a more positive view of the empire. Is that the idea here? Yeah. So can I ask if there's a reality show on Tatooine, they couldn't figure out that the guys named Skywalker were, you know,

[00:48:46] you can't, Darth Vader is not like tuning into this mandatory broadcast being like, and then, Oh, in the Skywalker's of the ranch over here, he's like, wait, what? That sounds familiar. They've got no idea what's going to happen because this is all happening in real

[00:49:04] time. So they don't know what, how B Arthur is going to react to this, but they decided that we're going to put this on television with the hope that whatever might happen in real time will end up increasing Imperial morale across the galaxy.

[00:49:21] The only way that I could see this increasing morale is that all the troopers are seeing all these people who've been ordered to go home or not going home. So we get to stomp some more skulls. I mean, all you're doing is radicalizing the population of Tatooine,

[00:49:37] all these people who just want to hang out and drink. And then the stupid empire is making us go home. I'm not sure how this is helping. Maybe we are just out of context. You know, we don't have the surrounding broadcast 90 day outer rim fiance.

[00:49:51] You've got the real housewives of Naboo. We're, we're missing all the context troops. Because if this is meant to make me feel better about my life, I feel like this is not necessarily working. I feel a lot of empathy for B Arthur's position. I feel like she's,

[00:50:11] she's, she's working hard at a night job and hard for her money. Unruly clientele. You got a guy with a hole in his head. Who's making advances. She does not want the advances. She she's had, she has a hard life and I feel, I feel sorry for her.

[00:50:31] I don't feel like I want to go into her business establishment and stomp skulls. I imagine that there are some storm troopers out there who see this and think maybe this isn't the right career choice. Maybe I should,

[00:50:47] maybe I should be on the side of someone like B Arthur. Right? I don't know. I know what would make my life better though, would be to have a hole in my head for imbibing beverages. You don't have to open your mouth for, for the ticket drink.

[00:51:02] No. On the top though. Yeah. I can put a plant in there when I'm, that way you can keep on chatting up B Arthur while you're having a drink. It's I mean that, that whole sequence where, you know, it's all like a gag. One gag is, is,

[00:51:18] is it takes forever to get to a point where, Oh, he just misunderstood the nice thing she says to everybody as they leave and that he took as an advance. But there is no way people are just like locked in to find out how that's going

[00:51:31] to end. It is insane how there was like no editing whatsoever to sharpen this thing up. It is, it's a, it's as if it's like, if you get a guy who does variety shows and he's probably used to doing live variety shows, there's a lot of applause breaks,

[00:51:45] whether they're real or manufactured and he feels like he's doing that throughout the whole thing. Well, I mean, we'll just let this Diane Carroll thing just sort of hang out there for a second because I'm sure the crowd at this point is going to be like, Ooh,

[00:51:56] Ooh, GM was like, listen, we've booked it for two hours with commercials and it better be that long. That's right. It's basically what it was. I wouldn't be surprised if you were to tell me like three, three, four of this, they did one take.

[00:52:14] That was it. They did one take. They had, they had a budget for one take. Oh, for sure. Carney uses the phrase thingamabob or whatever when describing something. I honestly, I would watch a show. If you just took the little segments of this,

[00:52:34] the little vignettes and explode them into like a 10 episode series. I want to see be Arthur's, you know, business and tattooing. And I, I would love to hang out with art Carney in his radio shack.

[00:52:48] I just want to see what kind of antics ensue around the Wookiee family, the Wookiee family. I'm not all that interested. I'm saying go ahead, Steve. No, I was just gonna say, after seeing what,

[00:53:01] what grandpa does in his spare time, I now know why he goes by itchy. I think I would also watch a movie in the style of the Joker movie of Lumpy with a, he's gotta have the heavy face makeup on too. And he ends up,

[00:53:23] they have a talk show and he ends up blasting the host because he just has had enough of people making fun of his veneers. Just taking out Harvey Korman. A lot of those 70s era childhood actors didn't make it out unscathed.

[00:53:39] There was a lot of drug and alcohol problems that arose. Lumpy among them. I heard Lumpy was in the trunk of Hamill's car. Oh no. Do we know who plays Lumpy? I think the Wikipedia has it. I think the Wikipedia has it. I think it was Fred Savage.

[00:54:04] Patty Maloney. I was a woman. We've been misgendering Lumpy the entire time. Oh great. Yep. American acts. Just like the Star Wars holiday special, we will be canceled. She was on a lot. Donnie and Marie, Buck Rogers in the 25th century. Was she Twiki? Rhoda.

[00:54:27] She was in Ernest Saves Christmas. There you go. That is a career highlight. No, this is the career highlight. Lot of stuff. This was her start. This was her starting. She was in Swing Shift, directed by Ron Howard. She was in the Lord of the Rings animated movie.

[00:54:44] Voice. Yeah. Wow. Look at that. As voice. Yeah. Great. A distinguished career. Alright guys, I think we've squeezed quite a bit out of this. Can we do it again next year? We'll do it every year. Every year on Life Day. Every Life Day. Yeah, every Life Day.

[00:55:04] November 17th. Alright folks, we're going to leave you with this. And I just want to say happy Life Day to all of you. I wouldn't have celebrated it any differently. Happy Life Day to those who celebrate. Did you have a little crush on Bea Arthur? Um, no. No.

[00:55:33] Oh, if you didn't before this, now you do. Yeah, I mean... I mean she does have a way. A voice like an SOS guy. I thought you were a big fan of Golden Girls. I was a fan, but not... I was a fan of Golden Girls.

[00:55:51] I thought you were a big fan of Golden Girls. I was a fan, but not... Not like sexually. No. You could just have her pour beer into your headphones. Well now that you say that. Alright, goodnight fellas. Happy Life Day.

[00:56:12] Okay, well I hope that was as fun to listen to as it was fun to record. And I do apologize if you did watch the holiday special and those 90 minutes.

[00:56:23] I just can't give them back to you, but hopefully this podcast makes up for a little bit of your suffering. Anyway, I hope you had fun. As always, we like to give a shout out to our Patreon Loremasters for their subscriptions.

[00:56:39] Before I do that shout out, just a reminder to check out Woolshift Dust and Properly Howard Movie Review. Two of our affiliate podcasts. Make sure to go check them out and give a subscription and a rating and review if you like what they're doing.

[00:56:54] Other than that, to our Patreon Loremasters. To our Patreon Loremasters. To our Patreon Loremasters. And last but never least, Adrian. Thank you all for your ongoing support to help keep the podcast rolling. To help us take care of all of our co-hosts.

[00:57:41] Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers and thanks to everyone who listens. We appreciate you. Even if you're not able to subscribe to Patreon, we just appreciate that you're participating and listening in. Alright, until next time. We'll be seeing you.

[00:57:57] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com contact. Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the lorehounds. And connect with us on Twitter at the Lorehounds.

[00:58:15] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Okay, David. This is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn.

[00:58:44] I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod.

[00:58:55] But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics. The drama. The lore. It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[00:59:10] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes.

[00:59:27] The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.