When going over forgotten Thanksgiving specials, I mentioned that the Star Wars Holiday Special kept coming up, though I associated it more with Christmas.
In fact, it did air before Thanksgiving. Life Day celebrations are held on November 17th, for those who celebrate.
Perhaps it was time to revisit the special; I was looking up some barely remembered things for Christmas as well.
As it is, I do remember the original airing on November 17th, 1978, though mainly only two things:
- I do remember the musical number, though I was thinking it was Dionne Warwick when it was actually Diahann Carroll.
- I remember being impatient with how long it was taking to see Han Solo. Probably Luke and Leia too, but mainly Han.
I remembered it more like they only showed up at the end, which wasn't the case. Maybe I picked up on the impatience of Chewbacca's family for him to actually be there.
I did not have a conscious memory of cartoon, but I remember that after seeing the commercial for his action figure I had bad dream about Boba Fett, where he had seemed like he was an ally, but he was really bad. That mirrored the cartoon. Had I kind of dozed off during the special and only taken part of it in?
(And really, Luke, how do you see the way he treats the pink plesiosaurus he's riding and not know right off that he's bad?)
Also, I did not remember how lewd Itchy was with the musical number. I remembered he was watching a personal video, but missed the overtones. It became kind of a running joke on how disturbing it was.
(My favorite was a brief cameo by Itchy -- still watching his videos -- in Mike Russell's Jaxxon's Eleven.)
I was assuming that it had been one of those things that was supposed to go over kids' heads and be amusing for the adults; a time-honored tradition in family viewing.
This may have been more disturbing than amusing for the adults. I think Itchy's underbite made it worse somehow, but with Art Carney's set-up and the part about his fantasy forming, yeah, that's pushing the boundaries of good taste. Still went right over my head.
Some years back I had a chance to peruse the script for the special. I kind of got stuck on Harvey Korman hitting on Bea Arthur at the Mos Eisley cantina. Maybe it was better to forget.
There were a couple of things that helped this viewing.
I watched the 2023 documentary A Disturbance in the Force first. I really enjoyed it.
Also -- before that -- I was thinking about the cantina scene and remembered the tradition of '70s variety shows. Seemingly random actors popping in and doing musical numbers was custom of my childhood.
That was actually something that the documentary talked about, but as I had already been thinking about it then it was all very familiar. I remember watching Donny and Marie and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Of course I watched Shields and Yarnell; they were the Captain and Tenille of mime!
I don't remember Wayne Newton at Sea World, and I had forgotten about Mark Hamill and Bob Hope trapped in a toy store until watching the documentary. I don't think we watched Paul Lynde's Halloween special, but there's something else I can't forget.
I don't even know if it was one show or two different specials, but I remember two vignettes of something of which IMdB shows no trace.
For one, the song was "Deja Vu", which is probably why I always thought it was Dionne Warwick. Dionne knocked on the door of a castle. A vampire (Al Lewis? Judd Hirsch?) let her in, then left her there, and she sang about how she couldn't remember the place, but she remembered the face. He came back and she asked if they had met before. Yes, a moment ago when he answered the door.
In the other segment, this weird Latin lover guy with an enormous pompadour (Eugene Levy but skinnier?) approaches a woman on the dance floor and wants to know what's inside her. She (Victoria Jackson?) recites that "the small intestine is rolled up in a ball. Otherwise we'd be twenty feet tall"
Memories like this prepared me to be less judgmental.
I suspect part of the problem for the people who really think it's awful is that they don't have these memories. There has been worse, and the special itself could have been worse. Faint praise is still praise.
There are probably two main issues.
I think the biggest issue was the popularity of Star Wars making the network want to go with a two-hour instead of a one-hour special. It does drag out. Harvey Korman is really talented in his portrayal of a malfunctioning android, but it still slows things down. I found his four-armed Julia Child kind of charming, but it happened earlier.
The other issue goes back to a George Lucas idea -- no matter how much he disavows it -- to do something with Chewy's family on his home planet, which sets up a language barrier.
I don't hate that. While the exterior setup reminds one of Endor, the interiors are much more modern with a nice open layout.
The documentary counted down that you had over nine minutes with only Wookiee being spoken. That was probably not great, but as you got into it it was pretty easy to understand what Malla and Lumpy were conveying.
That is a compliment for Mickey Morton and Patty Maloney, respectively. I think Paul Gale as Itchy probably did the best he could. Sorry, Paul.
The scene that really touched me was when Imperial troops, in searching Lumpy's room, tear the head off of his stuffed Bantha. When Lumpy finds it, he makes a sad sound, then gently picks up his broken toy, tucks it under a blanket on the bed, and gives it a kiss.
I made my sisters watch this, because I knew it would make them sad. It did. They said "That's terrible," and that's what they said later when our other sister asked what they thought about the special.
"It was terrible!"
I pointed out that most people are going to interpret that differently.
I did think it was weird that even though only Han and Chewy were traveling to Kashyyyk and Luke and Leia and the droids were just checking in on their progress, and Han leaves before the family starts the celebrations, that everyone was there for the final musical number. It looks like there was some kind of portal thing going on. Maybe wookiees have to physical travel to the portal but then they can summon humans?
I guess there are some mysteries we can never know.
Anyway, to the tune of the theme from Star Wars,
Life Day! Have a good Life Day!
See Chewy's wife, Day!
Wear your red robes.
Related posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/04/comics-review-michael-e-russell.html
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