If you're not watching the Star Wars Holiday Special- are you REALLY celebrating?

Even Disney won't acknowledge this freak show

seriously. Of all the things Disney will monetize, they won't publish this. As far as I know it's not on Disney streaming media. They haven't requested it be taken off YouTube. It is easily the most bizarre fever dream to come out of the house of Lucas (this is pre mouse star wars even) period. If y'all got an hour and a half, want to comb the weirder side of the star ears universe, and have no self respect, this is for you.

Features wish.com Chewbacca costumes, r2d2 as himself (seriously, they list all the actors EXCEPT the guy inside r2, and the body double for Vader) JEFFERSON STARSHIP, and so much other bizarre E36 M3 I haven't been drinking but I'm not sure I'd pass a field sobriety test - it is worth a look. Young Jedi and sith alike should see it at least once, lest they think it was always CGI and quality. 

Bea Arthur

Art Carny

Harvey Korman

Somehow I missed this?

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

My understanding is it was so poorly received that it was basically buried in the desert like e.t. for the Atari 2600. Now it exists as a fever dream amongst only the hardest core star wars fans and cult film nerds. 

My GF and I watched it last year. She claims to be permanently scarred by Grandpa Chewie's weird Diahann Carroll holoporn session.

This year it's going to be the Paul Lynde Christmas Special featuring Andy Williams and Donny and Marie.

Didn't Lucas try to bury it after it was shown?

Celebrating never having seen this, and hopefully I never will. Episode 9 was bad enough

j_tso said:

Didn't Lucas try to bury it after it was shown?

 

Exactly. But we can't let it die. 

15 minutes of Wookie, "WarrWawOOwegh."

No subtitles.

In reply to 02Pilot :

One Christmas season I turned in my man card and bought tickets to take my wife to see Donny Osmond live at The Chicago Theater.  It was a lot of fun.  He did a great job including a bunch of older songs. 

A year or two later Donny and Marie roll into Chicago again for Christmas and she was awful - lip synching a few songs and putting in a minimal effort. 

Currently Marie Osmond kinda creeps me out and I'm not sure why.

Datsun240ZGuy said:

In reply to 02Pilot :

One Christmas season I turned in my man card and bought tickets to take my wife to see Donny Osmond live at The Chicago Theater.  It was a lot of fun.  He did a great job including a bunch of older songs. 

A year or two later Donny and Marie roll into Chicago again for Christmas and she was awful - lip synching a few songs and putting in a minimal effort. 

Currently Marie Osmond kinda creeps me out and I'm not sure why.

Having seen the smoldering wrecking of the crash of Starship a few years ago-  I can confirm Mickey Thomas was actually better NOW than he was in this special. No word on if Bea Arthur was actually a decent lounge performer. 

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

Donnie Osmond hit my Father in law with a stroller at Disney World. FIL said it was obviously an accident and Osmond was gracious and apologetic, a very nice dude.

Carrie Fisher used to turn the Holiday Special on when she wanted people to leave her house. 

Incidentally, there is a new documentary devoted to this abomination:

Or you go all in and buy a copy on Facebook Marketplace just for the artwork alone.

Appleseed said:

15 minutes of Wookie, "WarrWawOOwegh."

No subtitles.

I finally decided to try watching it last night after seeing this discussion.  I didn't make it through the first 15 minutes before I fell asleep.  

In reply to stuart in mn :

You missed the grandpa wookie cyber space sex scene. 

I'm not even being hyperbolic. That's a thing that occured. 

In reply to Jerry :

I think my favorite part of "James Earle Jones as the voice of Darth Vader" is it's clearly some cutting room floor footage from ep IV and he couldn't be brought to debase himself for this freak show. 

I wonder if anyone still has the grandpa chewie costume....

ETA- I always forget you're super hardcore SW fan# 1. The background stuff threw me for a second. I was like "Why does he have a holocron? "

Wow, i just had that on in the background while working this morning...

The cartoon with Boba Fett makes up for most of this effluvium. Most of it.

Mndsm said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

You missed the grandpa wookie cyber space sex scene. 

 

I'm not even being hyperbolic. That's a thing that occured. 

It was the 70's man....

....lots of coke and poor decision making....

In reply to Appleseed :

The part that I couldn't quite parse was that somehow Mini chewie was watching a star wars cartoon (that was clearly drawn by the knockoff version of the guys that drew Heavy Metal, while wearing the headphones they used to use to test if we were deaf in grade school) while simultaneously existing within the SW universe. Luke exists as canon in both sets- cartoon Luke and real Luke. Does real Luke know about cartoon Luke? Is this some alternate timeline where the rebels become mild celebrities and are aware of the fame created by the "documentary" that is Star Wars? WHAT IS THIS? 

I wonder if those exact thoughts inspired this scene?

Mndsm said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

You missed the grandpa wookie cyber space sex scene. 

 

I'm not even being hyperbolic. That's a thing that occured. 

Yeah, I uh...watched that. I figured that was as pornographic as you could get on tv in 1978. Just what a holiday special needed.

mtn said:

In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :

Donnie Osmond hit my Father in law with a stroller at Disney World. FIL said it was obviously an accident and Osmond was gracious and apologetic, a very nice dude.

It's ironic. In their public personas, Donnie is the obnoxious one, and Marie the sweatheart. From all I've heard, Donnie is actually a very nice guy, and Marie quite a witch. 

I saw the first in theaters, when it came out. Mid teens. As a avid sci-fi reader, I LOVED IT! I completely forgot about this, although I'm sure I saw it

Watched a bit last night; did vaguely remember a couple scenes. No wonder I blocked out all memory. I'm sure, even then, I didn't make it far into that... uh... mess?

I think my goal in life is to catapult it back into the mainstream consciousness with the other holiday movies. It DESERVES to be there.