Not so long ago, in a place not very far away, a fun little sci-fi spaghetti western by the name of Star Wars ignited the population’s wallets. The market reacted quickly by upping merchandise–all of which is well-remembered, mostly to the tune of foreheads being smacked to the beat of Why Oh Why Did I Let Mom Take My Collection To Goodwill–and by trying different things, which were forgotten almost immediately in a sort of psychological denial.
One of those things was the CBS Star Wars Holiday Special. It was the touching story of Chewbacca’s family–consisting of Mala, his wife; Lumpy, his dad; and Itchy, his indeterminate sprog–waiting anxiously for Chewie to get back to WookieWorld for Lifeday.
The wookies lived in houses very far up in trees (sounding familiar?). Unlike Ewoks, their dwellings were rendered in painfully bad matte paintings. They spent a lot of time talking with each other. Now, by “talking” I mean “yowling”–you know how Chewie communicated. Now picture three of him, only with more annoying “voices” and worse costumes, howling at each other. Subtitle-free, of course. Occasionally, Harvey Corman would wander through and provide something like comic relief, only completely the opposite–not funny, and not relieving. Sort of like thumbscrews that just keep tightening.
Being a late-70’s TV “special,” it was chock-full of musical numbers. One notable one involved Bea Arthur as a Tattooine bartender, singing like a tortured chain-smoking cat with the effect of clearing out the bar (realistic enough). Another involved Lumpy putting on some sort of virtual reality gig, and getting a little bit Too Excited at whatever late 70’s act that my memory’s blocking out right now.
There was a brief cartoon, drawn at maybe 5 frames a second that didn’t quite match with each other, that marks the historic introduction of Boba Fett
The cast of Star Wars actually “starred” in it, for cameos. Harrison Ford was lightly drunk and intensely bored; Mark Hamill was wearing more and worse make-up than Tammy Faye; Carrie Fisher was very clearly, very very very deeply stoned.
There are any number of tapes of it floating around on ebay at any given time. It’s worth watching, particularly in the presence of big Star Wars fans who’d never even heard of it before, to watch their brains implode.
And plus, since it bears the official Star Wars logo, that which is contained therein is canon.
I highly recommend seeking out a copy. It’s one of the main reasons why Episode 1’s flaws neither particularly surprised me or enraged me to the extent it did others.
