Speaker 1: The Incredible Hulk will not be present of this evening.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody back to the Surely You Can't Be Serious Podcast.
We are on a super special edition where we are
covering the Star Wars Holiday Special with some of our
great friends from the thirty something Movie Podcast. I'm here
with my co host Jason. Jason, are you doing man?
I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: D I'm excited to be here and excited to hang
out with our buddies from thirty something.
Speaker 2: We have a plate of wookie ookie cookies right in
front of us here, we're jumping on them. And to
introduce the thirty something guys, we have John Reid.
Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 4: We've got more than four people, and I think we
need a banth Rump to feed more than four, don't we.
We have hardy appetite. I mean we have a hardy appetites.
So I mean Pat Alan could probably take down one
banther Rump.
Speaker 3: We need Harvey Corman and Dragged to come and look.
Speaker 1: It for us.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't know what's more disturbing is is him doing
the cooking show or the fact that they were eating
Bantha Rump. I don't I just I don't know about
that any of that.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, what are bantha is supposed to be pets
or food?
Speaker 1: I know there's that.
Speaker 4: There's that deleted scene I think from the original Star
Wars where Luke has the macro binoculars. He's like, yeah,
there's there's two banthas. I can see one of them
now and that, Oh that one looks tasty and I'd
like a side of that.
Speaker 3: Hey, according to the Mandalorian, the Creedy Dragon really thinks
banthas are tasty.
Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, that show.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wish we could talk about that show all right.
Who you got with us tonight?
Speaker 4: John, We've got so I dragged a couple other people
here with me. I've got Pat Cannagallo. Pat, I think
you're your your background here on Zoom. You're on the Orca,
aren't you.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 5: I've been on the Orca put Off from Ami Island
and podcast thing ever since. So it's great to be
here this I mean, huge fan of your guys show.
I mean it's it's great and I know we were
saying before we started recording, yet it's been a while
and it sort of it's been a while, but sort
of not because I've listened to you guys, like you know,
almost every day I'm listening to one of your episodes,
so it feels like, you know, it's just like.
Speaker 2: I just saw you yesterday.
Speaker 5: Thanks so, thank you so much for having us here.
Speaker 2: We feel the same way you guys every week. It
is a joy to listen to you guys get together
and hit a movie that's thirty years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, guys, Thank you.
Speaker 4: And I've also got the Man, the myth, the legend,
Dennis Mantuca over here too.
Speaker 6: Hey, pleasure to be here. Thank you guys for having
me and looking forward to this. I just you guys
are all talking about appetites and eating. I have no
idea how after watching that, you guys have an appetite
for at least forty eight hours.
Speaker 4: I did bring Dennis because I wanted to make sure
we had somebody who was a full grown adult when
this came on. So, you know, Dennis is Dennis is
really old. He's you know, what are you now, like sixty?
Speaker 2: Didn't you just have a birthday? And what was it?
Speaker 1: Yeah it was earlier than yours.
Speaker 2: Okay, so how old are you.
Speaker 3: I'm forty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're the youngest. No, No, forty five. John's
forty just turned forty. Happy birthday. Gosh, happy birthday, man.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Happy birthday, John and an old soul. Now, wait
a minute, your birthday is very close to life day.
What are we talking? Day?
Speaker 1: December sixth, Oh, dang.
Speaker 3: That was a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: So it's close. It was close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, John, you're forty Dennis, held, are you forty nine?
That's okay, I'm forty seven.
Speaker 2: I'm forty five, so I'm square in the middle of you, guys.
I just we were trying to remember what we really
remember about watching the Star Wars Holiday special.
Speaker 3: Dennis, did you see this in the original?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Actually we did. We saw it on TV the actual run.
The only thing that I can remember back then was
I remember the big like kind of like, I have
a big memory the treehouse, the Stormtroopers up there, and
I remember like Han Solo rushing in, and I do
remember Luke being on there and looking different than he
did in the movie.
Speaker 3: We were just talking. So I definitely am old enough
to remember going to see Star Wars in the theaters,
But so I was born in seventy three, so seventy
seven I would be four. But it was released several times,
so it was released in seventy seven, it was re
released in seventy eight and seventy nine, so I'm not
sure which. I remember having a C threebo figure in
my hand when I went, so it couldn't have been
the original run. I don't know. It's tough trying to
put together those memories. But Star Wars was a hugely
important thing in my life still is really, so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the original, the actual Star Wars I did see
in the theater. I mean I had because I had
four older brothers, so I was in that situation where
I was going to get dragged along to the theater
with them. So I saw a lot of movies when
I was realted. I look back now and I'm like, wow,
I saw that when I was like five or six
or seven, and you kind of remember. But I do
remember having like nightmare dreams a little bit over the
original Star Wars, just about stormtroopers chasing me through Kmart
like it.
Speaker 1: It was more for me.
Speaker 4: The original original Star Wars I saw in eighty one.
I would have been like one or two years old.
But I know this for a fact because and I
saw it at home, didn't see it in the theater,
because I was born in eighty My dad and I
remember him telling this. He must have lorded this over
us for a while. He must have spent something like
eight hundred dollars nine hundred dollars on a VCR back
in eighty one, and he only had enough money left
over to by one VHS tape because they were about
eighty or ninety bucks apiece at the time, and so
he bought the original Star Wars. I still have that
VHS tape sitting somewhere in a box I will I
won't play it because it'll get ripped to shreds if
I do.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I still have that.
Speaker 4: And that was So that was like my babysitter for
a while, because my parents realized if they stuck me
in front of the TV and put that on, I'm
not crawling away. I'm not going anywhere. I'm locked in.
So that was that was the start of my Star
Wars life affair.
Speaker 2: Okay, so on a scale of one to ten, with
ten being the most nerdy Star Wars fan that you
can be and one being you saw one of the movies,
where do you get where do you guys from this?
Speaker 4: This one goes to eleven? Okay, now that's for me. Yeah,
for me, it's I'm I'm a ten. If there's something
higher than ten, sure, like I'm the one. If bo
was on here, he would tell you don't play Star
Wars trivia pursuit with me. I had a buddy that
I went to a I wanted to go to a
Star Wars trivia at a bar that's that's up in
one of the towns up here. And I didn't want
to be the lonely dork sitting there by myself doing
Star Wars trivia. So a friend of mine went with me,
and he's like, I like Star Wars, but I'm not
gonna be able to answer any of these questions. And
so I single handedly answered every single question right and
I won. I mean I was in a room of
like eighty other people. I won just by myself versus
these teams of like eight to ten people. So and
I dressed my family up, like we go to the
comic book conventions here in Chicago, and my kids are
dressed up. My daughter was the Mandalorian, my wife was
Casta knew that the Jedi Library in the last time
we went. You know, I've done Luke Skywalker all the no.
If you yeah, I go to eleven. We'll put it
that way.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about you?
Speaker 5: Well, if John is a ten like I, I've never
like been on an Okay, John's eleven. I mean I
don't know. I would. I would definitely say like an
eight or nine the last like a ten. I mean,
how much do I love Star Wars? I would say
a ten. As far as like just having that knowledge,
I think it would kind of be an insult to
John if I kind of ranked myself in his category
of just having that knowledge. So that's that's the only
thing that I knocked myself down a little bit on.
But how much do I love Star Wars?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I mean I remember, you know, like some
of my earliest members playing with the neighbor, and like
I had a friend and she would come over and
I had I had dark hair, so I was Han Solo.
My friend was blonde, so he was Luke Skywalker. And
then I had a friend that would come over and
she'd be Princess Leah. I mean from the earliest memories,
I remember having the toys, playing with the toys, grabbing
dowel rods, or breaking the broom part off a broom
handle and then taping it up to make a lightsaber.
And I mean doing all those things and just like
like super early memories. It's Star Wars was always a.
Speaker 1: Part of it.
Speaker 5: I in fact, like one of my earliest I remember
Empire Strikes Back because I was too when Empire came out,
and I remember being taken to the theater to see it,
and my parents deny that up and down. But like
I remember getting freaked out with the Imperial Walkers scene.
I mean in that scene. Still I watch it and
it it activates something in the reptilian brain.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I'm just like you know, drawn to that. But I
remember getting like a shoebox like you'd buy shoes, and
the shoe box you could it up and it had
some little like pieces you could play with and it
was like a little your shoe box became this playset
that looked like hath like it had a little picture
of the Millennium falcon and you know, so I mean
all these like super early memories of being a kid
and playing with that and all that and I mean
it was like Star Wars was always there, you know,
you as soon as the books started coming out, before
when there were only three movies, picking up all the books,
reading all the books, talking about it with friends, you know,
the idea that there's going to be a prequel series.
What no, really?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, look at it, dude.
Speaker 5: It says episode four. That means there's one two it
like just I just remember spending hours talking about that,
and so anyways, I won't get too long winded, but
I would definitely say eight or nine. I mean, i'd
say ten, but I can't compare it to John's level
of Star Wars intelligence and dedication, So I wouldn't want
to put myself in his class of that. But love
for Star Wars, Yeah, I definitely put it up there,
all right, Dani's You're next?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I would very much echoing a lot
of what Pat says, especially when John says at ten
or eleven. Now, I would say during when I was younger,
when you know, from New Hope to Empire Strikes Back,
when those all originally came out. As a kid, I'd
be up there with eleven with John. I mean, we
had everything, we were involved. I mean it was it
was like, yeah, you were, you were just you were
all in with that and just waiting to do whatever
you had to do to get there to see that
movie on opening day we saw I remember seeing Empire
Strikes back when it first came out, like first day,
opening day, waiting in line. And then the same thing
with Jedi. It was like we had to see those.
Now that I'm you know, elderly, it's like, now you
get to the point where with all the other movies,
I would say, similar thing with Pat, where there's people
who are still so very die hard about that all
the way up to whatever comes out. While I love
it at a ten, my knowledge and probably fan qualifications,
we'd probably closer to like the eighth.
Speaker 1: So I'd put it probably like around an eight. That
would be fair.
Speaker 6: Otherwise, like you said, like Pat perfectly said, it's kind
of an insult to anybody who's at ten. If you're
gonna set ten is the benchmark and John is an eleven, I.
Speaker 2: Gotta go down to about eight, maybe eight and a half,
you know.
Speaker 3: So you got George Lucas and John as a ten,
and then we've dropping down just a little bit lower
than that, yeah.
Speaker 2: John May maybe above George. I don't know that he
cares as much about.
Speaker 3: His George Lucas John Jon Favreau, Where are you Okay?
Speaker 2: So I'm glad to be here with you guys, because
I know that Jason rinks far above me as well.
He's gonna put himself in the same area that you
guys are at. So I watched all of the movies,
and I can tell you things about all of the movies.
And when I was a kid, I had Star Wars
sheets on my bed, and I played with the figurines,
but I was not action figures, figurines, figurines whatever. I
played with those a little bit, probably as much as
I played with the Ga Joe guys, but it was
I don't have I don't have the nerd knowledge base
on this one. I obviously have it on a whole
lot of other things, plenty of nerdness over here, but
Star Wars is not my wheelhouse. So I would say
I'm probably a five, okay, all right? For me?
Speaker 3: I would say for the original trilogy, I would say
I'm a ten, But I dropped. I start dropping after that.
So the prequels was very I was opening day guy,
and you know, very interested in those. I was a
little bit let down, and you know the books and
the comics, I kind of fade. But four, five, and
six for me, I'm top of the heat. Probably so
very very meaningful movies to me change my life.
Speaker 2: So I said, we should probably break up the conversations
that we'll have from time to time by doing a
little bit of trivia. And my intention was to bring
some Star Wars trivia. And Jason actually has the Star
Wars trivial pursuit, but I forgot mine. But I happened
to have eighties and nineties trivia cards in my car
are So I said to Jason, I'm like, this is
actually good because I would just fail miserably at the
Star Wars trivia. But we will break it up from
time to time with some Star Wars trivia and see
see if you guys have accurately. Are you ready ranked yourself? Yeah,
I'll let me do one. Let me go first, since
I'm the guy that doesn't know the Star Wars stuff,
I'll be the question here. All right, Okay, what is
the first line of dialogue spoken in a New Hope? Okay,
Jason has his hand up he's wrung his buzzer. Pat,
you have your hand up, and John, do you know it?
Speaker 1: I think I do. You guys had your hands up first,
but I think I know it.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I'm gonna say it's C three PO saying
they've shut down the main reactor will be destroyed for sure.
Speaker 1: I think it's C three PO saying did you hear that?
Speaker 5: I think I might want to put my hand down. Okay,
I was going to say, I was going to say
they've shut down the main reactor, but I didn't remember
then the next part, so I don't remember the portion
of it. Portion of it is C three people saying
they've shut down the main reaction.
Speaker 6: That John is correct on that, because I I think
that other line comes either like a couple of sentences in.
Speaker 3: I think it's did you hear that they've shut down
the main reactor?
Speaker 2: Well, that is the correct answer, did you hear that
they shut down the main reactor? So I don't know
who would give credit to on that one, because you
were close, but I got to say that John got
the first at least four words spot on. So I'm gonna.
Speaker 6: Technically, did R two D two beep or anything before that?
Would that counted as dialogue? I maybe was he responding
back to him or was he actually the first line?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Dang, dang, it's good.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's life, It's life day. It's a group effort.
I mean we got, you know, we got the first
couple of lines together as a collective thing.
Speaker 3: So all right, well, are we ready to dive into
the Star Wars Holiday special?
Speaker 1: Dive into this thing like a pool we didn't know
was empty?
Speaker 3: Okay, So, like we said, this was released on November seventeenth,
nineteen seventy eight. The budget was about a million bucks.
Speaker 1: On this.
Speaker 2: Already charged that much.
Speaker 3: Million dollars, one million bucks in nineteen seventy eight. I mean,
what was Star Wars' budget? I mean it wasn't tons.
Speaker 5: You know, well, anything that resembled a special effect was
all like a like a like a.
Speaker 6: Grab from the movie.
Speaker 5: So I don't know what they spent.
Speaker 3: They stole a lot of stuff, you know, footage from
the original Star Wars on this, clearly, Yeah.
Speaker 4: The original the budget the budget for the original Star
Wars movie is eleven million.
Speaker 3: Eleven million bucks.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is at least his tenth A good ten good.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If Star Wars is a ten, then this is a
one right right.
Speaker 2: By the way, this is the worst score I've ever
seen on IMDb. It ranks two point one on IMDb
out of ten. I have never seen a score that
bad in my life. Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, have you guys? Did I take it that you
guys watched the on YouTube? There's one particular showing of
it from a Ohio TV station that's really clear. Yeah, yes,
I oh, I believe Channel seven and Dayton has this
wonderful copy on YouTube. If you haven't seen it yet
and you're listening to this and you want to throw
away at an hour in thirty seven minutes of your life,
check it out on YouTube. It is crystal cleare pretty
good quality.
Speaker 2: Grab a beer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the quality of that one is great. And having
seen this probably like six or seven years ago, this
was a second watch for me, or a second like
all the way through watch for me. And I will
say it was funny already knowing when I was getting
myself in when I started watching this, you know, just
a few days ago when that YouTube video popped up
and it actually starts before the special starts, and it's
like The Incredible Hulk will not be shown tonight, and
I'm sitting there going, oh, man, Incredible Hulk, I'd.
Speaker 1: Much rather watch that.
Speaker 2: You put me on the on the Incredible Hulk Nerd scale,
and I'm a ten. It's solid ten on the Incredible
I had when my brother would go get baseball cards,
I would only get Incredible Hulk cards. I obsessed over
Luf Rigno. I watched every movie he was in, even
the ones that were well, they were all bad.
Speaker 4: But yeah, But the question, the question is when you
walk out of a room, do you have the Lonely
Man theme queued up on your phone to play?
Speaker 2: I put my head down and then if you pull
it up and roar.
Speaker 5: Do people not want to make you angry?
Speaker 2: It would like anyone I'm angry?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: When his eyes turned tail blue, just run for the hill,
all right. So this was broadcast on a Friday, right
around Thanksgiving. Like we said, November seventeen, thirteen million people
watch this. It finished second behind The Love Boat.
Speaker 2: Let's be specific. Thirteen million people watched about the first
hour of this, and then there was a unanimous click
heard around the world as people turned their TV dial
to some other channel besides CBS.
Speaker 4: It's as if it's as if a million voices suddenly
cried out error.
Speaker 1: Was suddenly silenced.
Speaker 2: I I got it. This one started off. It was
a pitch by CBS to Lucas and they wanted to
do it, and Lucas saw this as an opportunity to
make more money with the action figures and other merchandise
and so. But their plan was to do a like
a combination of Star Wars and a variety show. Because
in the seventies, variety shows were the thing, right you
had the Carol Burnett Show, and you had like there
were a bunch of the Mandrel Sisters. Yeah, yeah, there
were a ton of those kind of variety shows. But
actually by nineteen seventy eight people had kind of gotten
tired of them. So it was a really dated idea
that they decided to go ahead with.
Speaker 4: Anyway, Well, and frankly, I mean, you guys are probably
gonna mention this, but frankly, on paper, this it looks
like this should have been fine. Like they had they
had some pretty good talent lined up for this. I
mean they had Art Carney, I mean, they had Harvey Korman,
they I mean yeah, on paper.
Speaker 6: When you said on paper you meant cast I wanted
you to make sure that not writing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh the writers. No, I think the writers, and I
think writers.
Speaker 6: If I read this like a screenplay I have, I'm lost.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, the writers. I think.
Speaker 4: In fact, some of the writers even admitted that they
were coked out of their minds when they made this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the the original script actually sounded like it might
have been pretty good. Like Lumpy disappears and they're trying
to track him down. That sounded like it might have
been a little bit more interesting story than waiting for GOODO.
I mean waiting for Chewbacca.
Speaker 3: Chewbacca dead, be dead?
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So that brings me to my point is
this is something where I'm just like, how do we
have a guy who is working as a smuggler as
his job as the family man, who has a kid
and a wife and a dad at home, and he's
got a nice house too. I thought these guys were
barely scraping by, and I mean he's living in what
I would consider a mouse.
Speaker 4: Threehouse's that's spice money.
Speaker 5: I'm Jason, I'm really glad to hear you say that.
Because I thought, for when you said dead be dad, like,
I thought, oh, man, I'm watching this with two mod
of a lens. I gotta keep a lid on this tonight.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 5: But then I watched that. That's kind of what I
kept thinking was he's is that his kid or is
that his little brother? Like I don't And then and
then yeah, I don't know that I bumped on that
as well.
Speaker 4: Pat don't answer this question, but how do you feel
about Superman and Superman returns?
Speaker 3: I'm with I'm with you, I know where I'm with you.
One of the cool things about the Star Wars Holiday
Special in nineteen seventy eight, you actually do get Mark
Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Hans Solo, you
get carry Fisher with the buns. You get Peter.
Speaker 2: Mayhew the whole buns. Let's talk. I'm sure she had
very nice buns.
Speaker 3: Carry Fisher had nice buns, for sure. By return of
the Jet, well, okay, Peter Mayhew's you have Anthony Daniels
at C three PO Kenny Baker for whatever reason, not
there not there they use the remote control Art D two.
Speaker 2: And so his introduction was R two D two as him,
so two D two right, and then you have James
Earl Jones who did not Yeah, he did not get
credit in the original Star Wars.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So this is the first time that you hear that
Darth Vader is James Earl Jones.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that to me as a kid, I mean
even as an adult, that part of me where I
want to absorb anything from a new hope, right, anything
from a new hope I loved particularly I loved The
Muppet Show with Mark hammelin stuff like that. As a kid,
I love that stuff. Anything extra I can get my
hands on was awesome. And these segments are bad. But
it is those characters, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean they are still their characters, except
that Luke. For some reason. Here's the thing, So Luke
can speak He's good buddies now for some reason with
extended family. I can't believe that part out, like how
he close with them, like knows their personality, like they've
spent months and months together. But he also speaks their language.
Until you get to the cartoon where c or C
three po says, well, you need me to go with
you so that I can translate what Chewbacca says. I'm like,
wait a minute, didn't we just see him talking in
the Chewbacca language.
Speaker 4: To no, Because it's what it is is, Luke is
playing a prank on Chewi. He absolutely knows how to
speak the Wookie language, it's just Chewy he won't talk to.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: And it's funny that you mentioned, you know, that feeling
of Okay, all the stars were in there, and I
get what you're saying. I mean that that's definitely like, wow,
they they got those I mean, I kind of get
the feel when when watching this, it's almost like watching
a like an episode of Saturday Night Live right where
they'll do a spoof on you know, they'll get the
guest in and then they'll do a spoof on whatever
movie that guest was in, where you know, the costumes are, oh,
those look like the costumes from the movie, but they're
just a little bit more silly, or they'll have the
action from the movie, but it's a little bit more silly.
And so that's kind of the lens that I kind
of fell into as I'm like, oh, dude, because i'd
never seen this before, you know, I watched it just
within the last day or so, and I'm like I
did because I'm like, I'm like, well, I don't want
to go on the podcast and be like the guy
that reads the first chapter of the book and then
tries to do the book discussion. So I like went
all the way through and the only thing that carried
me through was just think of it like you would
like sitting there watching like Saturday Night Live just not funny,
And that's kind of what it was.
Speaker 1: Was.
Speaker 5: It was the variety show, and it had that flavor
of Saturday Night Live where they're falling into their routines,
but they're looking at the que cards right. The sets
are are kind of made with a little bit of
that campy thing that can't be feel but you're excited
because it's like, oh wow, Harrison Ford is hosting Saturday
Night Live, tonight or Mark and now all three, so
that it was kind of a I kind of got
that vibe from it, And maybe that was just the
survival tactic of my brain. I'm not sure, but that
was kind of what I felt watching the watching this.
Speaker 4: And then you start watching and you realize it's mid
eighties Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, Like let's let's just let's set the Wookies
House on fire once this season is done.
Speaker 3: Okay, I made a reference a few minutes ago. I
probably should explain it if you've never seen this holiday special.
It revolves around Mala, who is Chewbacca's wife, Itchy who
is Chewbacca's dad, and Lumpy, who is Chewbacca's son. Actually
have better Wookie names, but that's what they call him
on the show.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they explained it later. The thing about this. Okay,
so one of the variety shows that was out at
the time was this thing that probably nobody remembers called
Shields and Yarnell, And so they got writers from Shields
and Yarnell because it was like a mime couple and
so you know, hey, we're going to be doing writing
for people for wookies that don't speak, so this seems
like the right writing folks. But that wasn't who they
ended up with. Ultimately, they ended up with Pat Proft,
who he wrote Hot Shots, Scary Movie, Real genius. And
then Bruce flanch who he you know who he is, Yes,
Hollywood Squares all the time. He was a part of
the Adam Sandler Johan thing, and he would write for
Comic Relief and the Oscar shows. So with those guys Intel,
you'd think, hey, this is going to be a well
written thing.
Speaker 3: With Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and George Luke is kind
of kind of doing the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you get Art Carney, who is a comedic actor.
I really wish he had done this part as Ed Norton.
That would have been the best if he had. If
he had just been just that would have been fantastic. Hey,
here's the thing. He his character was originally supposed to
be Lando.
Speaker 3: I heard this.
Speaker 2: He was like he was, and they they obviously watered
it down, but his his character was supposed to be
not involved in like trinket trade, but like human trade.
And so you can see the similarity of Lando's character,
but you can also see the similarity and how he's
backing down on Mala when he comes in like old
Billy d Williams.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was I mean that there were I did.
I'm sure we're probably gonna get more into this, but
good lord, there were some really awkward, really awkward scenes,
awkward comments, awkward looks. In fact, that the scene you're
talking about when he comes in and he's talking to
Mala either on that first one with a view screen
when he's talking to her and he has like the
worst possible secret code ever? Was that what he's trying
to explain? That the yeah that you know, that shaggy
carpet that you ordered, I know what you're calling. It's
it's on its way. It's gonna arrive at your house.
You know, just there was this little woman like four
planets away. She did it by herself. In fact, you
might say she did it by hand so low, which is.
Speaker 2: Why Williams pronounces his name wrong and all.
Speaker 4: Right, but yeah, I mean you've got those scenes where
there's just these awkward looks and kind of when he
first came in, you know, in person, to the house,
and the way he was looking at and talking to Mala.
I'm like, dude, it's Chewbaca's wife. I mean, I know
he's not around. But then the first thought that jumped
in my head, this is how twisted it was. The
first thought that jumped in my head was Rizzo, the
rat from Muppets, Take Manhattan and Go. Have you ever
considered interspecies dating?
Speaker 3: Hey, speaking of that, I mean, our party's all over, Mala,
Princess Lea's kind of got her hands all over Chewbacca
through during the Red Robe ceremony.
Speaker 2: And obviously Itchy is very human females as well, since
Diane Carroll is just a projection of his own imagination,
should we just talk about that?
Speaker 4: Well, it's I mean, it's never quite explained exactly what
Life Day celebrates, so and we don't see I don't
think we see the full ceremony. I'm starting to think
that maybe like there's a password to get into Life
Day that you know, only Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman
know about. And everybody's wearing masks and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so Pat, I want to get your take. Okay,
this is your first time to watch when you saw
the virtual reality that Art Carneie hooks up Itchy with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh man, I'm sitting there thinking, well, I'm sinner,
trying to remember, like cause the VR, the kid could
get into the VR too, right, and it Itchy was
the dad.
Speaker 6: It she's the dad.
Speaker 5: It's like, well, first of all, like I could just
think like they can't be going there, and then it
was just like, no, I think they're going there. Pat,
Like I'm talking to myself and it's just like, no,
they really don't. And then I'm like, well, dude, is
it the seventies? So, but I mean it was like, okay,
so I'm just imagining. Okay, We're at the family get
together and Dad needs to escape, so he's going to
take the VR in the back room, and all of
a sudden, this gale appears on screen, dancing out of
the mist. It was sort of like the little fairy creatures, right,
it was sort of and then it's like all your
desires and all your this and all your dreams, and
I was kind of I was kind of half listening
to this thing, and it was like, yeah, I mean,
experience me, Matt, right, It's it's it's I'm gonna I'm
gonna quote. I'm gonna quote John's favorite movie. And I'm
sorry John, because you know you're gonna want to go
off on the quotes there. But when he's like, good
morning Vietnam and they're doing the they're doing the reviews
for when the lieutenant tries to take over the show,
and it was like the review was and he looks
at it and he says, you stink eat a bag
of you know, such and such. Any guys, this review
is pretty explicit, sir, not too much gray area in
that one. As soon as they got to that scene
where all of a sudden, the gel's sitting there and
what are your deepest desires or urges? I'm just like,
that's pretty explicit. There's not too much grey area. They're
they're going for what I think. And then I was like,
was this a TV?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: What the heck is going on? So that was my freaction.
And then then I knew what was going on.
Speaker 4: And I'm wondering how many I'm wondering how many parents
in nineteen seventy eight, I wonder how many parents are
watching this with their kids?
Speaker 1: Hey, kids, Star Wars gather around the TV. Let yeah?
Speaker 4: And then this scene starts and the parents are like, no, play,
what is kids? Why don't you go go get daddy
another drink in the kitchen real quick? Let's leave the
wrong I.
Speaker 2: Have I have heard from multiple sources that it was
their intention, the writer's intention, to make this softcore, soft
core porn that they could get into a TV show
in prime time, And I've heard it from several places,
but I have not heard why why would you do that?
What possible motivation could you have?
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say cocaine.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: It was one of the writers and producers was a
Mitzi Welch, I think had said. I think she was
the one quoted as saying, yeah, we just we wanted
to try to get in some softcore porn into the
as we want to see as far as we could
push it, like, what could we get into this holiday special?
And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm reading this quote. I'm
sitting there thinking, there are at least seven things wrong
with that sentence. How much of this can we get
into that holiday special? Yeah, okay, all right, based on
a kid's movie.
Speaker 3: But the funny thing is is I would say that
that's not the worst thing about the special for me.
The nine and a half minutes of Wookies talking with
no subtitles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, right, which I can understand somebody says, no, listen,
Chewbacca doesn't have subtitles, so the Wookie talk doesn't have subtitles. Well, yeah,
that's great, But Chewbacca always had someone with him who
could respond in such a way that you knew what
he said. Nine and a half minutes of them running
around the house, and here's the thing, here's what we
found out this thing was supposed to only be an
hour long, but when the when advertisers found out it
was coming out, there were so many people begging to
be on board, they decided to stretch it to basically
a two hour special. And that's why you have so
much time that you're just at the screen going what,
what in the world? Why would anybody want to watch this?
Who thought this was a good idea?
Speaker 4: And I remember reading that they told George Lucas at
the time that because it was his idea to focus
it around Chewbacca's family, And I remember reading something somewhere
that they're like, Okay, George, this Wookie's talking for extended periods.
It's not going to work. It's like, yes, Chewbacca can
do it without without subtitles, but that's because Chewbacca is
not standing there giving like Mark Anthony's speech from Julius Caesar.
You know, he's not. It's not a soliloquy. It's it's
he talks and Han responds or somebody else or C
three po translates or And from my understanding, like that
was that was almost the extent of George Lucas's participation
was to basically say okay, fine do this thing, and hey,
I think you should do it using Chewbacca's family as
the focal point. And that's just yeah, it's and it's
it's painful. It's painful in it, and it bothered me
so much when I read. I was like, when I
watched this for the first time, I didn't really look
up to see who, like the producers were, and the
and the costume design and everything else. And then when
I did finally look that up, and I was like, good,
these Wookie costumes. They look terrible, like Itchy just looks
like Archie Bunker version of Chewbacca. And the sounds are
just terrible in this. I mean it sounds lumpy every
once in a while, sounds like you know when when
et is kind of chittering and running around and doing
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then I looked it up and it's.
Speaker 4: It's Stan Winston did the creature designs, and it was
Ben Burt did the sound, you know from the Star
Wars movies.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there going what happened to you guys?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why did you let it?
Speaker 3: Was?
Speaker 1: It? Was it the well?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is the how doing their nose
during every commercial break.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: So so George Lucas had a little bit of involvement
with it. Before he had he had come, he'd watched
dailies and the original director was actually a guy that
went to USC with him. It was a guy named
David A. Comba, And after like two days of shooting
he was like, I can't forget this crap. Yeah, this
is terrible. I can't get along with the producers, and
so they brought in this guy named Steve Binder. Now
Steve Binder had done a couple of really big like
he did the Petula Clark TV special which was in
nineteen sixty eight, which was a huge deal because it
was like she was singing a duet with Harry Belafonte
and touches his arm. It's part of the singing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty eight, apparently that was a huge deal
and people were like executives were like, we can't show
this in the South. People will lose their minds. A
white woman touched in the arm of a black man,
and basically they did it anyway, and so it was
a bit. He was a big part of that, and
then he was also part of the Elvis Presley sixty
eight comeback special, which was huge because nobody knew who
the crap I mean, I said, didn't recognize Elvis anymore.
Sixty eight he had lost all his fame and that
really was a big comeback special for him. But the
only information that he got from George Lucas was the
Wookie Bible.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's all he had. That's just just the details of
how they should look and behave, and that's all he's
got going for.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean there's a lot of talent involved in
this show.
Speaker 2: It just didn't come together.
Speaker 3: There was no real oversight.
Speaker 6: Yeah, George Lucas, I I think you guys missed the
quality acting with the eyes, like you knew what she
was feeling by the long, slow close up that they
held on her face for so long, like she really
missed and loved Chewbacca and she was she did you.
Speaker 1: Look at that picture.
Speaker 2: I don't know why you need subtitles for that.
Speaker 6: I mean, anybody who's out there you know they love,
can identify, and I think that's what they're making at
As far as as far as John saying with the costumes, immediately,
I did watch this with my seventeen year old son,
which was hilarious because it was kind of like fun.
He was excited about it first because I started watching
it and then I said I brought it up and
he's like, oh really, there was a special sum we
started watching. I said, yeah, you're gonna sit down, you're
gonna watch this. We start watching it literally on the
TV because.
Speaker 2: We had pulled up through Apple TV or whatever.
Speaker 6: The quality looked really good, so we might have had
the version that you had, but looked like Doctor SaaS
from the Planet of the Apes that was like lumpy,
like a young Doctor SaaS. And then if anybody's ever
seen the Nairobi Trio from uh, what's his name?
Speaker 3: The TV GT.
Speaker 6: Ernie Kovacs, that's what it'sy remind him of you, You said,
a cross between kind of Archie Bunker. But if you
look at the costumes, if you just type in Nairobi Trio,
black and white pictures might not look as good, but
that mask, just his face and his lip, it just
looked absolutely horrible.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was as wookies age their bottom lip grows.
I like pulled up over.
Speaker 5: It, like, yeah, yeah, you know what, I'm sorry. I
just have a quick question. You know, Dennis, you I'm curious.
You know some of the stuff we were just talking about.
You remember seeing this, and I guess I'm curious, like,
did at any point when you were watching this, did
you get like this isn't like as a kid, this
isn't good, or like that scene where the Mystic Lady
appeared out of the VR did that get awkward for you?
And then flipping forward when you watch this with Hunter,
did you bump on any of those things like, oh,
this is not going the direction that I want to like,
If you don't mind me asking, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fine.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm honestly like I started watching it prior,
like a couple days ago, like a few days ago
on my own, and then when it got to the
weird bits and pieces, I was just like, whoa this?
I like, I'm not but I still for the podcast.
I need to watch the thing. I was like, all right,
So it was.
Speaker 1: Put on hold.
Speaker 6: And then when Hunters sitting there watching it my son,
it was we're eating kind of dinner and watching this
and as it's going is just looking at his reactions.
I mean, I knew what the expect already like a
lot of it because I was like, He's like, no,
this is weird, Like it gets weird, and it was
getting weirder and weirder. I will be honest, I can't
see that I saw the whole entire version this time,
because as this went on to keep him watching, I
had to fast forward through any of the musical numbers
get the head a little bit. I was like, all right,
people are singing and dancing, skip ahead a little bit.
All right, we're back with what that number is done.
And then we go into the So anytime the kind
of kicked into a musical number, we kind of like
we skipped a little bit ahead. But I did get
enough of the weird you know that weird vibe too,
but okay, yeah, and then the b Arthur song just yeah,
I was just like, once we're out of that, that
felt like a total Muppet song skit, Like I don't know.
That was bizarre and a little creepy. With uh, Harvey
Corman coming in. I'm like, they really got Harvey Corman
to like play as many parts as they could in
this they like, I think he was the bulk of
that million dollar budget there.
Speaker 1: And that's what.
Speaker 2: He was. He was on Just for who anybody who
doesn't know Harvey Corman was on the Carrolbournett Show, which
was one of those variety shows, and he was he was.
Speaker 3: The fourth funniest person on that show.
Speaker 2: Out of a cast of five or six.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was good in blazing saddles. Yeah, but my
what I'd heard is he was kind of a prima
donna on that show, and so this was probably a Hey,
I'm in the New Star Wars special, Hahn pouring drinks
from the top of my head and be a forearmed cook.
Speaker 6: One of the funny one of the funny things that
we were saying, Like, as we're watching it, my son's like, so,
is this the first one? Is this the first one?
Like he was like thinking, was this before the And
I go, what do you mean the first one? He goes,
He goes, you know, the one was this before? Did
this come before New Hope? And I'm like, this was
the first one. If this was the first one, there
wouldn't be a second one.
Speaker 3: So yeah, right right, absolutely.
Speaker 6: There's no way anybody would have I think people I
will say that I would be interesting to see how
many people did stick with it. For the whole time,
because when you said that a lot of people would
have clicked off. I actually don't think so, because there's
enough clips of like the live action, and then when
you see Luke and you're you're just it kind of
keeps you just enough to where you're about to turn
it off. But you're hoping that this is going to
get better and it's going to make sense. They give
you enough of a little bit of Oh, Han solos
in it, so he hasn't we haven't seen him, or
you know, like you're thinking someone else is gonna come
in and make this better and it's all of a
sudden gonna take off, Like that's what you kind of
keep thinking.
Speaker 4: Well, and you say, you say, Han Solo is in it,
But every time I saw Harrison Ford on screen, I
looked at his face, I'm like, I know that look.
I know that's the look my thirteen year old has
when we have to sit on the couch and do
the family zoom once a week, people be there. That's
what that look is.
Speaker 6: I was thinking, you know how you want to be
killed off? I think this is the reason you wanted
to be character.
Speaker 1: Like this.
Speaker 6: Probably did it like at this point.
Speaker 1: Look, look, George, I'm George.
Speaker 4: I'm really excited about the Empire strikes back.
Speaker 1: But yeah, after the Holiday special, I need you to
kill my character.
Speaker 8: All right, everybody that does it for this part. We're
going to be back tomorrow with part two of the
Star Wars Holiday Special. Be sure and go subscribe to
the thirty something Movie podcast and also of course subscribe
to our podcast.
Speaker 2: We will see you, Mark,