Thoughts on the Star Wars Holiday Special, 11/17/78

Here at last are my musings on the Star Wars Holiday Special. (I know you were asking, as well as many of your loved ones. You’re welcome.)

[2023 UPDATE! For the 45th anniversary, I've put together a bunch of individual posts I had made into one post. I didn't quite understand how to use Blogger back in the day, but now I totally have a grip on it... except I couldn't center the pictures. Or fix the janky spacing of the first few pics. Eh, fuck it.]

If you haven't seen it, I recommend immediately picking it up off eBay (I'm sure it's on DVD by now). [Or just watch it on YouTube.] Get it with the original commercials if possible, they're half the fun. This bizarre spectacle, like many of the cheesy variety specials of the seventies, was co-written by Bruce Vilanch. He has a real ear for Vaudevillean shtick, but not so much for the science-fiction stuff. I used to say I disliked this show, but I can't deny having watched it twenty or so times since I got it a few years back, and I can aver without reservation that it is far more entertaining than all the Star Wars films put together. If you haven't seen it... at some point while reading this you may think I am kidding. I am not. It is that peculiar.

Mark Hamill cameos as Luke Skywalker. I'm not familiar with the entire SW canon, so I have to ask: how did Luke end up with Marlo Thomas' nose?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Carrie Fisher as a strung-out-looking Leia.

 

 

Chewbacca's dad, the absolutely repulsive Itchy. The Wookiees must venerate their elderly. I mean, how useful is a weak, toothless, mangy Wookiee?


Chewie's son Lumpy, who looks like Adam Rich before he was rescued from a Mexican carnival.

Here's the Christopher Lowell-ish ringleader from the utterly fabulous hologram circus. I love the choreography of the finale, when the music reaches a thrilling, dramatic crescendo, and the performers all take a slight step forward... and then back. And then, the same foot forward... and back. And that's it.






Diahann Carroll as the object of Itchy's affection. Art Carney gives Itchy a virtual reality porno cassette that he plugs into the "Mind Evaporator." (Clever name, Bruce!) Here, she's writhing orgasmically because, as she says, she can feel her creation. I guess Itchy's got some skeeter bites need scratchin'!


At the beginning of the Mind Evaporator segment, you see these Sea-Monkey-looking things swimming around. I swear these are seen again in "Revenge of the Sith," but I forget when. Some nerd can back me up on this, I'm sure...




Unfortunately, this was the best vidcap I could get from the Spinal Tap-esque Jefferson Starship segment. The song is just atrocious. "We'll vanish without a trace in a cigar-shaped object," Marty Balin promises, but never delivers.


From the rather cool cartoon segment, here we see Threepio camping it up as he minces to the cockpit.


If you look closely at his ATM card, you'll see that Boba Fett's real name is Carl.


Harvey Korman (as creepy, spout-headed stalker "Krelmin") sexually assaults the cantina owner played by Beatrice Arthur.


Bea drunkenly serenades a rodent of unusual size.


Han Solo embarrasses Lumpy by saying his voice has changed. Ugh, can you imagine what a pubescent Wookiee smells like?


Chewie and Mala make out, which is kind of interesting in that they are both played by men.


The Wookiees, clad in robes that must be terribly hot and stifling, do something blurry involving glowing orbs.


The sneaker-clad Wookiees then shuffle celestially into the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet, and it's over.


And now for some words from a few sponsors of the SWHS...

First up, it's the Reggie bar. "The candy they named after me," says Reggie Jackson, stating the obvious with his usual charming smugness.


Tobor, a very advanced robot who rolls forward... and backwards! At the end of the ad the VO says, as if dropping a real bombshell, "Tobor is 'robot' spelled backward." How do you spell "zzzzzzzzzzzz" backwards? Because that's what any kids who got this piece of parc for Christmas said within five minutes of opening it.


Here, Marilyn Maksela enjoys some pudding-in-the-mix goodness.

Man, this commercial has more close-ups of cakeholes getting crammed than.. well, ahem, I wouldn't know what, would I?

Happy Life Day!!!