1 00:00:16,285 --> 00:00:18,056 Because of the following special program, 2 00:00:18,056 --> 00:00:19,860 Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hulk 3 00:00:19,860 --> 00:00:22,027 will not be presented this evening. 4 00:00:28,495 --> 00:00:29,463 Let me ask you something. 5 00:00:29,463 --> 00:00:31,531 And this is a question I’ve wanted to ask you for a while, 6 00:00:31,531 --> 00:00:33,335 and I’ve always restrained myself. 7 00:00:33,335 --> 00:00:35,370 A Christmas special came out that was produced 8 00:00:35,370 --> 00:00:41,882 by George Lucas in which all of the participants in Star Wars 9 00:00:41,882 --> 00:00:42,410 were-- 10 00:00:43,950 --> 00:00:44,544 came together. 11 00:00:44,544 --> 00:00:46,282 And they made this Star Wars Christmas Special, 12 00:00:46,282 --> 00:00:48,020 and the tape’s been passed around for years. 13 00:00:48,020 --> 00:00:50,484 And the rumor is that Lucas is trying to suppress it. 14 00:00:50,484 --> 00:00:55,192 It all started in 1978 when I let people make a Star Wars TV 15 00:00:55,192 --> 00:00:56,160 special without me. 16 00:00:56,160 --> 00:00:57,491 The Holiday Special. 17 00:00:57,491 --> 00:00:58,294 I remember. 18 00:00:58,294 --> 00:01:00,461 It came out so bad. 19 00:01:00,461 --> 00:01:02,001 I hate it. 20 00:01:02,001 --> 00:01:02,969 I hate it! I hate it! 21 00:01:02,969 --> 00:01:04,135 George, George. 22 00:01:08,436 --> 00:01:11,912 Do you remember making this Christmas special? 23 00:01:11,912 --> 00:01:13,441 No, you don’t remember it? 24 00:01:15,982 --> 00:01:18,644 I-- nobody is allowed to mention this. 25 00:01:18,644 --> 00:01:20,118 It is so bad. 26 00:01:20,118 --> 00:01:21,284 It’s not good. 27 00:01:22,054 --> 00:01:26,388 You are about to see the worst half hour of television ever. 28 00:01:29,688 --> 00:01:30,458 Star Wars. 29 00:01:30,458 --> 00:01:32,460 Star Wars is going to be on TV? 30 00:01:32,460 --> 00:01:34,132 And it’s a new thing? 31 00:01:34,132 --> 00:01:35,001 Oh, I see. 32 00:01:35,001 --> 00:01:36,695 It’s the Star Wars holiday special. 33 00:01:36,695 --> 00:01:40,974 We popped it in, and my life was never the same. 34 00:01:40,974 --> 00:01:41,634 Come on, Malla. 35 00:01:41,634 --> 00:01:42,602 Let’s see a little smile. 36 00:01:42,602 --> 00:01:44,505 It will provide many years of fun. 37 00:01:44,505 --> 00:01:46,342 I felt a great disturbance in the force. 38 00:01:46,342 --> 00:01:48,674 We rolled a doob and sat back and watched it. 39 00:01:48,674 --> 00:01:50,610 And we thought it was fabulous. 40 00:01:50,610 --> 00:01:52,150 I feel something terrible has happened. 41 00:01:52,150 --> 00:01:53,954 To explain the Star wars Holiday Special is 42 00:01:53,954 --> 00:01:56,682 like trying to explain to someone how the pyramids were 43 00:01:56,682 --> 00:01:58,057 built. It’s kind of impossible. 44 00:01:58,057 --> 00:02:00,455 All you have to know is it was the ’70s. 45 00:02:00,455 --> 00:02:03,095 There might have been some cocaine. 46 00:02:03,095 --> 00:02:03,997 Happy Life Day. 47 00:02:03,997 --> 00:02:04,998 I saw it as a kid. 48 00:02:04,998 --> 00:02:05,999 I thought it was great. 49 00:02:05,999 --> 00:02:08,694 They didn’t tell the people this was not Star Wars 50 00:02:08,694 --> 00:02:09,530 the movie two. 51 00:02:09,530 --> 00:02:10,531 You can say that again. 52 00:02:10,531 --> 00:02:15,041 It seems we’ve landed on some sort of comedy variety show 53 00:02:15,041 --> 00:02:15,569 planet. 54 00:02:15,569 --> 00:02:18,440 The Star Wars holiday special is sort of like the holy grail. 55 00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:19,540 It’s completely mental. 56 00:02:19,540 --> 00:02:22,444 It’s so funny, and it’s so stupid. 57 00:02:22,444 --> 00:02:23,511 I love the holiday special. 58 00:02:23,511 --> 00:02:25,249 The holiday special is definitely canon. 59 00:02:25,249 --> 00:02:27,548 You probably wouldn’t think that Maude would 60 00:02:27,548 --> 00:02:28,582 be one of the guest stars. 61 00:02:28,582 --> 00:02:31,123 And I was never into the whole Star Wars thing. 62 00:02:31,123 --> 00:02:33,323 I love all of the awkwardness. 63 00:02:33,323 --> 00:02:35,292 I am your fantasy. 64 00:02:35,292 --> 00:02:36,128 So experience me. 65 00:02:36,128 --> 00:02:39,659 The whole production was fraught with problems. 66 00:02:39,659 --> 00:02:40,396 Oh, no. 67 00:02:40,396 --> 00:02:41,331 the ship you seek. 68 00:02:41,331 --> 00:02:42,233 Follow me, friend. 69 00:02:42,233 --> 00:02:44,070 That Boba Fett cartoon rules. 70 00:02:44,070 --> 00:02:44,664 Settle down! 71 00:02:44,664 --> 00:02:49,570 The Star Wars special sucked so bad, 72 00:02:49,570 --> 00:02:51,704 I was amazed that I wasn’t in it. 73 00:02:51,704 --> 00:02:55,180 I would really like to know what CBS was thinking 74 00:02:55,180 --> 00:02:56,280 when they greenlit this thing. 75 00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:58,777 But now, let’s get started, shall we. 76 00:03:05,124 --> 00:03:09,524 There are always better stories about failure than success. 77 00:03:09,524 --> 00:03:10,789 It’s much more interesting. 78 00:03:10,789 --> 00:03:14,760 It’s much more compelling, and it’s much more human. 79 00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:20,238 Supposedly a TV movie existed, and no one 80 00:03:20,238 --> 00:03:22,075 knew where they could get it. 81 00:03:22,075 --> 00:03:22,801 I had never seen it. 82 00:03:22,801 --> 00:03:25,177 You couldn’t convince me it was true. 83 00:03:25,177 --> 00:03:26,772 To me, it was all urban legend. 84 00:03:26,772 --> 00:03:28,114 Now that I was a ninth grade man, 85 00:03:28,114 --> 00:03:31,282 I wanted something you couldn’t find in any store. 86 00:03:31,282 --> 00:03:31,777 Psst. 87 00:03:31,777 --> 00:03:33,515 Yo, Goldnerd, come here. 88 00:03:33,515 --> 00:03:36,584 It was like finding this artifact of something 89 00:03:36,584 --> 00:03:42,491 that I was such a fan of but I had no conception ever existed. 90 00:03:42,491 --> 00:03:43,195 Yeah. 91 00:03:43,195 --> 00:03:45,824 And for a while I believed that it was impossible to get. 92 00:03:45,824 --> 00:03:50,136 It became a currency of sorts in geek culture. 93 00:03:50,136 --> 00:03:56,373 You know, talking about it, dropping references to it, 94 00:03:56,373 --> 00:03:58,243 producing a copy to watch. 95 00:03:58,243 --> 00:03:59,211 Christmas came early. 96 00:03:59,211 --> 00:04:02,478 He had a bootleg copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special. 97 00:04:02,478 --> 00:04:03,545 Holy Kenobi! 98 00:04:03,545 --> 00:04:04,480 The legend is true! 99 00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:07,648 I had to get like a tape of a tape of a tape. 100 00:04:07,648 --> 00:04:08,352 You know. 101 00:04:08,352 --> 00:04:10,552 The Zapruder film was easier to watch 102 00:04:10,552 --> 00:04:13,654 than the copy of the holiday special that I got. 103 00:04:13,654 --> 00:04:16,624 On the back cover, it said, if I had a hammer in time, 104 00:04:16,624 --> 00:04:21,596 "I would destroy every copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special," 105 00:04:21,596 --> 00:04:22,531 George Lucas. 106 00:04:22,531 --> 00:04:25,336 And I was like, sold. 107 00:04:25,336 --> 00:04:27,206 That was so cool. 108 00:04:27,206 --> 00:04:29,208 Were we watching two different things? 109 00:04:29,208 --> 00:04:30,176 You don’t know Star Wars. 110 00:04:30,176 --> 00:04:31,606 This special is really for the true fans. 111 00:04:31,606 --> 00:04:36,578 So the true fan wants to watch Dorothy from The Golden Girls 112 00:04:36,578 --> 00:04:37,513 flirt with an alien? 113 00:04:37,513 --> 00:04:39,581 We have seen something that we weren’t supposed to see. 114 00:04:39,581 --> 00:04:42,287 Clearly, something had gone wrong. 115 00:04:42,287 --> 00:04:43,552 You were in the area because you were 116 00:04:43,552 --> 00:04:46,621 in Hollywood making a Star Wars special that’ll 117 00:04:46,621 --> 00:04:47,688 played around Thanksgiving. 118 00:04:47,688 --> 00:04:49,228 Got all the characters from Star Wars 119 00:04:49,228 --> 00:04:51,329 and it’s got quite a few extra people as well. 120 00:04:51,329 --> 00:04:53,430 For one thing, you meet the whole Wookiee family. 121 00:04:53,430 --> 00:04:55,465 And the Wookiees lived up in the tree house. 122 00:04:55,465 --> 00:04:57,863 And that’s where we met Chewbacca’s family-- 123 00:04:57,863 --> 00:05:01,273 Itchy, the little kid, and-- 124 00:05:01,273 --> 00:05:02,340 what was her name-- 125 00:05:02,340 --> 00:05:03,242 Jawa? 126 00:05:03,242 --> 00:05:05,343 Itchy is the grandfather. 127 00:05:05,343 --> 00:05:07,345 Who’s the-- oh, Lumpy is the kid. 128 00:05:07,345 --> 00:05:08,181 I’m so sorry. 129 00:05:08,181 --> 00:05:08,907 It’s only been 40 years. 130 00:05:08,907 --> 00:05:11,382 Chewie’s family had to be name something. 131 00:05:11,382 --> 00:05:12,185 Lumpy and Itchy? 132 00:05:12,185 --> 00:05:14,484 Couldn’t they have spent 15 more seconds on the names? 133 00:05:14,484 --> 00:05:16,288 And we meet Chewie’s family, and we 134 00:05:16,288 --> 00:05:21,458 realize that, oh, they’re just going to all chew it and not 135 00:05:21,458 --> 00:05:22,162 talk. 136 00:05:23,163 --> 00:05:26,628 And so, you’re literally watching a bunch of mimes. 137 00:05:26,628 --> 00:05:30,302 But you just have zero dialogue. 138 00:05:30,302 --> 00:05:33,833 Zero dialogue up until this point for 15 minutes. 139 00:05:33,833 --> 00:05:34,768 Like, have you timed it? 140 00:05:34,768 --> 00:05:35,901 I would love to know that stat. 141 00:05:35,901 --> 00:05:38,574 How much of the Star Wars Holiday Special 142 00:05:38,574 --> 00:05:41,940 has absolutely no discernible dialogue? 143 00:05:49,222 --> 00:05:50,487 R2, look. 144 00:05:50,487 --> 00:05:52,456 It’s Chewbacca’s family. 145 00:05:52,456 --> 00:05:53,886 Let’s never speak of this again. 146 00:05:53,886 --> 00:05:55,228 So you didn’t love it. 147 00:05:55,228 --> 00:05:55,822 Who cares? 148 00:05:55,822 --> 00:05:56,757 I care! 149 00:05:56,757 --> 00:05:58,396 I love Star Wars! 150 00:05:58,396 --> 00:05:59,232 It’s my life. 151 00:05:59,232 --> 00:06:01,597 It makes no sense why I didn’t love this too. 152 00:06:01,597 --> 00:06:03,830 You know, we spent years of two weeks 153 00:06:03,830 --> 00:06:07,801 at a time working directly with George developing what 154 00:06:07,801 --> 00:06:09,374 would become this animated series, 155 00:06:09,374 --> 00:06:13,741 and we had access to the theater downstairs. 156 00:06:13,741 --> 00:06:16,843 And we made a date-- 157 00:06:16,843 --> 00:06:17,646 all the writers. 158 00:06:17,646 --> 00:06:19,813 Hey, we’re going to watch the holiday special. 159 00:06:19,813 --> 00:06:21,320 And you tap out any time you want. 160 00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:26,688 Like, we’re going to see who can make it all the way through. 161 00:06:26,688 --> 00:06:27,689 And that’s what we did. 162 00:06:27,689 --> 00:06:31,330 And like, one by one, like flies, people were like, 163 00:06:31,330 --> 00:06:31,891 "I’m out." 164 00:06:31,891 --> 00:06:35,598 I like to watch bad stuff, but that’s a hard watch making it 165 00:06:35,598 --> 00:06:37,501 through the holiday special. 166 00:06:37,963 --> 00:06:40,240 The cockpit of the Millennium Falcon 167 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:42,407 is clearly just a cardboard cutout. 168 00:06:42,407 --> 00:06:44,409 Everything just-- it takes you a while 169 00:06:44,409 --> 00:06:45,839 to realize that everything’s wrong. 170 00:06:45,839 --> 00:06:47,973 When you first see the Star Wars Holiday Special 171 00:06:47,973 --> 00:06:50,580 in its entirety, you’re like, how did this happen? 172 00:06:50,580 --> 00:06:55,915 Who decided to create one of the most confounding pieces of Star 173 00:06:55,915 --> 00:06:58,621 Wars entertainment in the history of its existence? 174 00:06:58,621 --> 00:07:01,657 In order to understand how the holiday special happened, 175 00:07:01,657 --> 00:07:03,021 you have to put it in context. 176 00:07:03,021 --> 00:07:06,332 Star Wars pioneered a whole different kind 177 00:07:06,332 --> 00:07:08,961 of almost grassroots attention. 178 00:07:08,961 --> 00:07:11,029 The real secret to the success of Star Wars 179 00:07:11,029 --> 00:07:12,569 was a guy named Charlie Lippincott, 180 00:07:12,569 --> 00:07:16,639 who pioneered an entirely new way of marketing movies. 181 00:07:16,639 --> 00:07:17,739 Oh, Charlie was a good guy. 182 00:07:17,739 --> 00:07:21,006 He had kind of an oddball sense of humor. 183 00:07:21,006 --> 00:07:24,383 He went to Film School at USC. 184 00:07:24,383 --> 00:07:26,847 I don’t remember Charlie ever making any movies, 185 00:07:26,847 --> 00:07:30,389 but Charlie was involved with all of the filmmakers 186 00:07:30,389 --> 00:07:32,886 and keeping track of everyone. 187 00:07:32,886 --> 00:07:33,854 He was like a den mother. 188 00:07:33,854 --> 00:07:35,955 But when I learned, shortly thereafter, 189 00:07:35,955 --> 00:07:38,628 that Charlie was becoming a publicist, 190 00:07:38,628 --> 00:07:40,025 it made perfect sense to me. 191 00:07:40,025 --> 00:07:42,401 I’m talking with Charlie Lippincott, who is 192 00:07:42,401 --> 00:07:43,534 associated with the production. 193 00:07:43,534 --> 00:07:46,834 Charlie, could you tell us exactly how are you associated? 194 00:07:46,834 --> 00:07:49,573 I’m the executive in charge of advertising, publicity, 195 00:07:49,573 --> 00:07:52,774 promotion, and merchandising for Star Wars corporation. 196 00:07:52,774 --> 00:07:53,973 Charlie had come up with the idea 197 00:07:53,973 --> 00:07:57,548 of marketing Star Wars directly to fans 198 00:07:57,548 --> 00:08:02,883 because there really wasn’t a good hook for marketing Star 199 00:08:02,883 --> 00:08:03,587 Wars. 200 00:08:03,587 --> 00:08:04,852 Science fiction wasn’t popular. 201 00:08:04,852 --> 00:08:07,085 None of the actors were big names 202 00:08:07,085 --> 00:08:10,055 that you could get booked on The Tonight Show. 203 00:08:10,055 --> 00:08:11,991 A year before Star Wars came out, 204 00:08:11,991 --> 00:08:15,731 Charlie went and showed slides about this movie 205 00:08:15,731 --> 00:08:18,635 and got this amazing groundswell. 206 00:08:18,635 --> 00:08:21,902 Fandom was never really a part of the marketing plan 207 00:08:21,902 --> 00:08:24,740 until Charlie Lippincott made it so. 208 00:08:24,740 --> 00:08:28,040 Even though he didn’t have footage to show them, 209 00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:31,483 he would show them like Ralph McQuarrie’s artwork. 210 00:08:31,483 --> 00:08:36,917 He would tell them the story of what the film was about. 211 00:08:36,917 --> 00:08:39,458 He went to the Star Trek conventions 212 00:08:39,458 --> 00:08:41,020 and got the Trekkies interested in it. 213 00:08:41,020 --> 00:08:43,990 And this is something right up their alley. 214 00:08:43,990 --> 00:08:46,498 The idea is if you can get the enthusiasm 215 00:08:46,498 --> 00:08:47,664 with them, that will spread. 216 00:08:47,664 --> 00:08:48,929 These are the kind of people that 217 00:08:48,929 --> 00:08:51,129 will see a movie 10 times if they like it. 218 00:08:51,129 --> 00:08:55,573 I’d like to introduce you now to producer Gary Kurtz. 219 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:01,381 And the star of the film, Mark Hamill, 220 00:09:01,381 --> 00:09:03,845 who plays Luke Skywalker. 221 00:09:03,845 --> 00:09:05,913 He knew how to get people excited 222 00:09:05,913 --> 00:09:09,752 and how to stir up interest and word of mouth. 223 00:09:09,752 --> 00:09:13,459 And from these science fiction conventions, 224 00:09:13,459 --> 00:09:16,858 people left being interested to see what 225 00:09:16,858 --> 00:09:17,991 this film was going to be like. 226 00:09:17,991 --> 00:09:20,499 And then they would tell their friends about it. 227 00:09:20,499 --> 00:09:24,030 Ballantine Books was one of the major houses 228 00:09:24,030 --> 00:09:28,166 in paperbacks-- major publisher in science fiction. 229 00:09:28,166 --> 00:09:31,477 Charlie went to them and made a deal 230 00:09:31,477 --> 00:09:34,414 to do a novelization of Star Wars 231 00:09:34,414 --> 00:09:36,812 and have it come out like nine months 232 00:09:36,812 --> 00:09:40,079 before the movie came out to get it out there. 233 00:09:40,079 --> 00:09:43,654 And then Charlie made a deal with Marvel Comics 234 00:09:43,654 --> 00:09:48,153 to do the comic bookization of Star Wars. 235 00:09:48,153 --> 00:09:52,531 And the real problem, I think, in some ways, 236 00:09:52,531 --> 00:09:56,733 was I didn’t want one comic book, 237 00:09:56,733 --> 00:09:57,899 and I didn’t want two comic books. 238 00:09:57,899 --> 00:10:02,772 I wanted five to six comic books telling the story of the film. 239 00:10:02,772 --> 00:10:06,974 So that was a bit of a hard sell at first. 240 00:10:06,974 --> 00:10:09,878 And I wanted at least three issues out 241 00:10:09,878 --> 00:10:10,846 before the film came out. 242 00:10:10,846 --> 00:10:14,014 And nobody had done that up to that time. 243 00:10:14,014 --> 00:10:16,852 Basically, everything with Star Wars 244 00:10:16,852 --> 00:10:20,790 that wasn’t making the movie was Charlie. 245 00:10:20,790 --> 00:10:24,530 He taught Hollywood a very important lesson 246 00:10:24,530 --> 00:10:26,961 that they are still learning from today. 247 00:10:26,961 --> 00:10:32,967 Nine months after Charlie started these fan promotions, 248 00:10:32,967 --> 00:10:34,606 the movie comes out. 249 00:10:35,706 --> 00:10:37,235 To the world famous Chinese Theater 250 00:10:37,235 --> 00:10:41,140 come the stars of the biggest box office success 251 00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:43,813 in motion picture history. 252 00:10:43,813 --> 00:10:44,583 Star Wars. 253 00:10:44,583 --> 00:10:46,519 It is more than just a successful movie, 254 00:10:46,519 --> 00:10:47,619 it is a box office phenomenon. 255 00:10:47,619 --> 00:10:51,183 The film is breaking attendance records all over the country. 256 00:10:51,183 --> 00:10:53,922 Not since Jaws have so many people 257 00:10:53,922 --> 00:10:55,121 stood in line to see a movie. 258 00:10:55,121 --> 00:10:58,861 It was kind of like a nuclear explosion had gone off 259 00:10:58,861 --> 00:10:59,730 in pop culture. 260 00:10:59,730 --> 00:11:00,731 It blew people’s minds. 261 00:11:00,731 --> 00:11:03,998 I mean, I remember people waiting in line all day 262 00:11:03,998 --> 00:11:04,900 to see this movie. 263 00:11:04,900 --> 00:11:06,704 Star Wars became the new box office champion 264 00:11:06,704 --> 00:11:09,267 by providing pure, 100% escapist entertainment. 265 00:11:09,267 --> 00:11:13,238 And it appears this is what just about everybody in the country 266 00:11:13,238 --> 00:11:14,580 is in the mood for. 267 00:11:14,580 --> 00:11:15,977 This was world-changing. 268 00:11:15,977 --> 00:11:17,110 It’s like the Beatles. 269 00:11:17,110 --> 00:11:21,521 We’d all seen science fiction movies before, but not 270 00:11:21,521 --> 00:11:22,082 like this. 271 00:11:22,082 --> 00:11:23,688 It only opened in America at the end of May, 272 00:11:23,688 --> 00:11:25,789 but already it’s the biggest box office hit in cinema history. 273 00:11:25,789 --> 00:11:28,792 The overwhelming success of the picture surprised everybody. 274 00:11:28,792 --> 00:11:31,861 As one Fox executive put it, it’s not so much a film, 275 00:11:31,861 --> 00:11:32,895 it’s more an industry. 276 00:11:32,895 --> 00:11:37,031 I love that the world between Star Wars and Empire-- 277 00:11:37,031 --> 00:11:41,805 the world between Star Wars and Empire to me is this bizarre-- 278 00:11:41,805 --> 00:11:43,906 it’s not completely thought out. 279 00:11:43,906 --> 00:11:45,138 There’s no mythology built up. 280 00:11:45,138 --> 00:11:47,305 For the fans, it’s interesting in many ways. 281 00:11:47,305 --> 00:11:49,241 One of the ways, it gives them an insight 282 00:11:49,241 --> 00:11:51,309 into this very brief period where 283 00:11:51,309 --> 00:11:52,882 things were not set up yet. 284 00:11:52,882 --> 00:11:55,687 And it was kind of like Lucasfilm 1.5. 285 00:11:55,687 --> 00:11:58,789 1.0 is over, but 2.0 wasn’t there yet. 286 00:11:58,789 --> 00:12:02,155 And it wasn’t until Empire forward that everything 287 00:12:02,155 --> 00:12:03,123 became more fully formed. 288 00:12:03,123 --> 00:12:05,598 So I have a real affection for that time 289 00:12:05,598 --> 00:12:09,228 where it was this wild thing that nobody could figure out. 290 00:12:09,228 --> 00:12:13,298 So somewhere in the summer after Star Wars has come out, 291 00:12:13,298 --> 00:12:18,039 George takes a meeting with Frank Wells of Warner Brothers 292 00:12:18,039 --> 00:12:20,811 with Gary Kurtz and Charlie Lippincott. 293 00:12:20,811 --> 00:12:25,585 The goal of that meeting was to re-release to try and piggyback 294 00:12:25,585 --> 00:12:26,982 on the success of Star Wars. 295 00:12:26,982 --> 00:12:31,052 Somewhere along the line in that meeting, 296 00:12:31,052 --> 00:12:34,957 Frank said something to George to the effect of, 297 00:12:34,957 --> 00:12:38,059 come September you guys will be nothing. 298 00:12:38,059 --> 00:12:41,832 And George left really angry. 299 00:12:41,832 --> 00:12:45,935 And so, it kind of redoubled George’s interest 300 00:12:45,935 --> 00:12:49,367 in making sure Star Wars succeeded 301 00:12:49,367 --> 00:12:51,303 and continued to be in theaters. 302 00:12:51,303 --> 00:12:55,010 To promote Star Wars, getting the stars of Star Wars 303 00:12:55,010 --> 00:12:57,716 to appear on all of these talk and variety shows-- 304 00:12:57,716 --> 00:13:00,950 Donny and Marie or any of these other places. 305 00:13:00,950 --> 00:13:03,051 The Star Wars Holiday Special may well 306 00:13:03,051 --> 00:13:05,724 have been created out of spite. 307 00:13:06,989 --> 00:13:08,826 We’re Darth Vader’s raiders, 308 00:13:08,826 --> 00:13:12,093 and we can’t believe the things that you do. 309 00:13:12,093 --> 00:13:13,226 You’re all right. 310 00:13:13,226 --> 00:13:15,195 We never met a trooper played hide and-- 311 00:13:15,195 --> 00:13:18,869 My brothers were dressed as the storm troopers dancing. 312 00:13:18,869 --> 00:13:24,006 I’m Luke, and Marie’s Leah with the bagels 313 00:13:24,006 --> 00:13:25,040 on the side of her head. 314 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:27,174 Han solo, played by Kris Christofferson. 315 00:13:27,174 --> 00:13:31,849 And I’m dancing around R2-D2, and there’s C-3PO, 316 00:13:31,849 --> 00:13:34,786 and we’re talking, and Chewbacca is there. 317 00:13:34,786 --> 00:13:35,952 And I’m thinking, this is probably 318 00:13:35,952 --> 00:13:37,756 one of the coolest finales we’ve ever done. 319 00:13:37,756 --> 00:13:42,761 His transistors are in trouble and his tubes are weak. 320 00:13:45,060 --> 00:13:48,096 And if we stay, our chances for survival are bleak. 321 00:13:48,096 --> 00:13:53,398 So show us the way to get out of this world for that’s 322 00:13:53,398 --> 00:13:57,776 where everything is. 323 00:14:00,075 --> 00:14:04,948 I’m thinking, how in the world is George Lucas allowing 324 00:14:04,948 --> 00:14:05,817 this to happen? 325 00:14:05,817 --> 00:14:10,448 Because that’s just so far from the movie. 326 00:14:10,448 --> 00:14:12,791 But it sure was funny at the time, 327 00:14:12,791 --> 00:14:15,024 and it’s funny to look back right now. 328 00:14:15,024 --> 00:14:16,861 Push the fuel button. 329 00:14:16,861 --> 00:14:19,094 Light the fire. 330 00:14:19,094 --> 00:14:19,864 Fire. 331 00:14:19,864 --> 00:14:21,800 Going to take you higher. 332 00:14:22,768 --> 00:14:25,067 We broke a lot of rules when we had the Star Wars 333 00:14:25,067 --> 00:14:27,707 characters on the Donny and Marie show for that finale. 334 00:14:27,707 --> 00:14:30,105 There was a shot with Chewbacca with his arm 335 00:14:30,105 --> 00:14:31,403 around Darth Vader. 336 00:14:31,403 --> 00:14:32,140 Oof. 337 00:14:32,140 --> 00:14:33,108 How does that happen? 338 00:14:33,108 --> 00:14:36,243 But on Donny and Marie, I guess everybody was friends. 339 00:14:37,442 --> 00:14:41,017 Come back to me. 340 00:14:41,017 --> 00:14:43,723 Come back to me. 341 00:14:43,723 --> 00:14:46,088 Come back to me! 342 00:14:46,088 --> 00:14:51,093 The Star Wars Holiday Special is Citizen Kane compared 343 00:14:51,093 --> 00:14:52,193 to that Donny and Marie thing. 344 00:14:52,193 --> 00:14:57,099 I mean, that’s truly train wreck sort of television. 345 00:14:57,099 --> 00:14:59,266 You-- you intergalactic fool. 346 00:14:59,266 --> 00:15:01,433 You’ll never get them back that way. 347 00:15:01,433 --> 00:15:03,105 I suppose you have a better plan. 348 00:15:03,105 --> 00:15:06,372 No plan at all, just a little "force." 349 00:15:06,372 --> 00:15:09,078 You can’t imagine that happening in 1981. 350 00:15:09,078 --> 00:15:11,377 Like, that Star Wars couldn’t have gone 351 00:15:11,377 --> 00:15:13,181 near a show like that in ’81. 352 00:15:13,181 --> 00:15:16,481 But in ’77, everyone’s going, I don’t know what this is 353 00:15:16,481 --> 00:15:19,418 or how big it’s going to be, but yeah, take it. 354 00:15:19,418 --> 00:15:20,089 Go. 355 00:15:20,089 --> 00:15:21,156 Put it on a t-shirt or whatever. 356 00:15:21,156 --> 00:15:22,091 Put it in your show. 357 00:15:22,091 --> 00:15:23,521 Do a dance with the stormtroopers. 358 00:15:24,357 --> 00:15:29,362 But fee-fi-fo-fum, look out people, cause here we come. 359 00:15:29,362 --> 00:15:31,265 I think that’s one of the coolest moments 360 00:15:31,265 --> 00:15:32,805 my brothers ever had in show business 361 00:15:32,805 --> 00:15:38,041 was transforming stormtroopers to vaudevillian dancers. 362 00:15:38,041 --> 00:15:41,539 That’s so funny. 363 00:15:41,539 --> 00:15:44,080 So get ready. 364 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:45,081 Get ready. 365 00:15:45,081 --> 00:15:45,917 Here we come. 366 00:15:45,917 --> 00:15:50,185 So the public appearances helped the ticket sales 367 00:15:50,185 --> 00:15:50,988 in the theaters. 368 00:15:50,988 --> 00:15:54,552 They had the entire family watching the Donny and Marie 369 00:15:54,552 --> 00:15:55,256 Show. 370 00:15:55,256 --> 00:15:57,929 George wanted to tap into that magic. 371 00:15:57,929 --> 00:16:00,800 We had the demographics that he wanted. 372 00:16:00,800 --> 00:16:04,804 And through research, he was right. 373 00:16:04,804 --> 00:16:06,333 And that Donny and Marie Show aired, 374 00:16:06,333 --> 00:16:10,139 and everybody saw Star Wars characters on Donny and Marie. 375 00:16:10,139 --> 00:16:11,239 They went back to the theater. 376 00:16:11,239 --> 00:16:14,011 It’s almost as if at that time in the entertainment world 377 00:16:14,011 --> 00:16:15,540 there were like two tracks. 378 00:16:15,540 --> 00:16:17,311 It was, like, for entertainment. 379 00:16:17,311 --> 00:16:18,983 And it had been going on since the silent movies, 380 00:16:18,983 --> 00:16:24,021 where you did your kind of high art form, which was the movie, 381 00:16:24,021 --> 00:16:26,892 and then you did a lot of stuff to support it, 382 00:16:26,892 --> 00:16:27,519 whatever it took. 383 00:16:27,519 --> 00:16:30,159 If you had to put on the disguise in front of a shopping 384 00:16:30,159 --> 00:16:31,193 mall, you did it. 385 00:16:31,193 --> 00:16:32,293 And they did it for Star Wars. 386 00:16:32,293 --> 00:16:34,427 George was about to start shooting The Empire Strikes 387 00:16:34,427 --> 00:16:39,267 Back, and he was concerned that there be momentum, 388 00:16:39,267 --> 00:16:43,502 that there would be a stirring the pot to make sure people 389 00:16:43,502 --> 00:16:44,877 were aware of the franchise. 390 00:16:44,877 --> 00:16:46,912 And you saw the proliferation of Star Wars 391 00:16:46,912 --> 00:16:50,443 on television in the late 1970s, in 1977 specifically, 392 00:16:50,443 --> 00:16:56,350 on these variety shows, as a way to keep Star Wars cemented 393 00:16:56,350 --> 00:16:57,186 in the zeitgeist. 394 00:16:57,186 --> 00:16:58,891 Prior to that, the big movie was Jaws, right? 395 00:16:58,891 --> 00:17:00,893 But you couldn’t just throw Jaws onto a thing. 396 00:17:00,893 --> 00:17:02,961 Like, ladies and gentlemen, Jaws is here to sing. 397 00:17:02,961 --> 00:17:05,898 In retrospect, I think it’s exceptionally foolish, 398 00:17:05,898 --> 00:17:07,900 because the brand was not going to die. 399 00:17:07,900 --> 00:17:09,066 It was very, very popular. 400 00:17:09,066 --> 00:17:14,203 Somebody, somewhere, said, if we don’t give them something, 401 00:17:14,203 --> 00:17:15,336 they’re going to forget about us. 402 00:17:15,336 --> 00:17:18,306 And suddenly, it’s everywhere on TV after that. 403 00:17:18,306 --> 00:17:21,881 Like, just the promotion was everywhere you looked. 404 00:17:21,881 --> 00:17:23,982 Let’s crank out as much stuff as we can. 405 00:17:23,982 --> 00:17:28,217 Let’s let Richard Pryor have all the alien makeup for a cantina 406 00:17:28,217 --> 00:17:29,251 sketch on his show. 407 00:17:33,992 --> 00:17:35,389 That sketch actually kind of works. 408 00:17:35,389 --> 00:17:37,325 It’s Richard Pryor in that world, 409 00:17:37,325 --> 00:17:42,396 and he’s using it to ding riffs on race, and social class, 410 00:17:42,396 --> 00:17:43,529 and stuff like that. 411 00:17:43,529 --> 00:17:44,233 Hey, Hey. 412 00:17:44,233 --> 00:17:44,904 Hey! 413 00:17:44,904 --> 00:17:46,301 Why don’t you watch where you’re going? 414 00:17:46,301 --> 00:17:47,665 You got the biggest eyes in the place. 415 00:17:48,908 --> 00:17:50,239 Also, these characters weren’t embedded 416 00:17:50,239 --> 00:17:52,340 in our consciousness the way they are now. 417 00:17:52,340 --> 00:17:53,539 We’d met them once in one film. 418 00:17:53,539 --> 00:17:57,477 It’s not like we’d gone on a nine-film adventure with R2-D2, 419 00:17:57,477 --> 00:17:59,281 and we know the parameters of R2-D2 420 00:17:59,281 --> 00:18:01,019 or how he would speak-- or C-3PO. 421 00:18:01,019 --> 00:18:02,119 Hello, welcome to Burger Chef. 422 00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:04,055 We’d like a Star Wars poster, please. 423 00:18:04,055 --> 00:18:04,990 Or even Darth Vader. 424 00:18:04,990 --> 00:18:07,619 With guest appearances by Darth Vader! 425 00:18:07,619 --> 00:18:08,422 Humongous. 426 00:18:17,101 --> 00:18:18,366 We’d seen them once in that film, 427 00:18:18,366 --> 00:18:19,631 and that was the only voice we knew. 428 00:18:19,631 --> 00:18:22,172 So the fact that Darth Vader was being lampooned, 429 00:18:22,172 --> 00:18:24,977 or that the droids were doing things out of context, or even 430 00:18:24,977 --> 00:18:27,672 Mark Hamill was doing something in a different way-- 431 00:18:27,672 --> 00:18:29,707 Bob Hope’s All-Star Christmas Comedy 432 00:18:29,707 --> 00:18:34,514 Special, starring special guest star Mark Hamill. 433 00:18:51,630 --> 00:18:55,975 It’s more egregious now looking back than it was, I think, 434 00:18:55,975 --> 00:18:56,569 at the time. 435 00:18:56,569 --> 00:18:59,308 It was a very normal way of getting it out there, 436 00:18:59,308 --> 00:19:02,113 and Star Wars embraced that opportunity. 437 00:19:02,113 --> 00:19:03,708 Its Luke Skywalker! 438 00:19:03,708 --> 00:19:05,182 Did you bring the force? 439 00:19:05,182 --> 00:19:06,216 You better believe it. 440 00:19:06,216 --> 00:19:08,482 The Los Angeles Police Force. 441 00:19:09,252 --> 00:19:10,748 How did you find them? 442 00:19:11,518 --> 00:19:14,323 Now, you’re all under arrest for malicious mutilation 443 00:19:14,323 --> 00:19:16,094 of a marvelous movie. 444 00:19:16,996 --> 00:19:20,626 I should have stuck to looking for Mr. Goodbar. 445 00:19:20,626 --> 00:19:23,365 Any kind of artwork out of context 446 00:19:23,365 --> 00:19:24,498 is going to look funny-- 447 00:19:24,498 --> 00:19:26,203 any kind of artwork. 448 00:19:26,203 --> 00:19:27,435 Any kind, period. 449 00:19:27,435 --> 00:19:31,571 If you don’t know the history and the context, 450 00:19:31,571 --> 00:19:33,012 you cannot appreciate it fully. 451 00:19:33,012 --> 00:19:36,114 This was in the days of crazy specials-- you know, 452 00:19:36,114 --> 00:19:38,644 Wayne Newton at SeaWorld. 453 00:19:38,644 --> 00:19:40,778 Wayne, meet Shamu. 454 00:19:40,778 --> 00:19:42,318 Kids, let’s do a show. 455 00:19:42,318 --> 00:19:47,719 From Orlando, Florida, it’s Wayne Newton at SeaWorld. 456 00:19:48,489 --> 00:19:51,030 And special guest appearance by Shamu, the killer whale! 457 00:19:52,361 --> 00:19:54,693 old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog. 458 00:19:54,693 --> 00:20:01,205 When ’70s TV was bad, there was no description for it. 459 00:20:01,205 --> 00:20:03,537 I mean, it’s corny, and it’s stupid. 460 00:20:03,537 --> 00:20:04,703 That’s kind of what it was. 461 00:20:04,703 --> 00:20:06,507 Everybody had a variety show. 462 00:20:06,507 --> 00:20:09,444 Howard Cosell had a variety show. 463 00:20:09,444 --> 00:20:12,084 You know what’s going to make this show work? 464 00:20:12,084 --> 00:20:14,647 Yours truly, the born superstar. 465 00:20:14,647 --> 00:20:16,682 Didn’t Shields and Yarnell have a show? 466 00:20:16,682 --> 00:20:22,127 They were mimes, and they did something on Donny and Marie, 467 00:20:22,127 --> 00:20:23,062 and it was popular. 468 00:20:23,062 --> 00:20:24,492 So they went, well, give them a show. 469 00:20:24,492 --> 00:20:25,460 Let’s see if it works. 470 00:20:25,460 --> 00:20:27,594 At least ’70s television was way more in touch 471 00:20:27,594 --> 00:20:30,366 with, hey, no one knows anything. 472 00:20:30,366 --> 00:20:31,235 Oh, didn’t work. 473 00:20:31,235 --> 00:20:32,104 Well, we tried. 474 00:20:32,104 --> 00:20:33,072 Like, they don’t know. 475 00:20:33,072 --> 00:20:33,666 They don’t know! 476 00:20:33,666 --> 00:20:36,801 It became a way to bring the family together 477 00:20:36,801 --> 00:20:41,311 in front of the television set without fully satisfying 478 00:20:41,311 --> 00:20:43,478 any one member of that family. 479 00:20:43,478 --> 00:20:44,809 It was disposable television. 480 00:20:44,809 --> 00:20:48,846 People are going to see this once, and that’s it. 481 00:20:48,846 --> 00:20:51,222 Variety shows did not repeat well. 482 00:20:51,222 --> 00:20:52,685 They look arcane today. 483 00:20:52,685 --> 00:20:55,490 The funny thing is, if you think the Star Wars Holiday 484 00:20:55,490 --> 00:21:01,100 Special is bad or the "worst thing" that ever aired on TV, 485 00:21:01,100 --> 00:21:03,564 you never saw The Lawrence Welk Show. 486 00:21:03,564 --> 00:21:07,502 And that calls for a little soul music. 487 00:21:15,180 --> 00:21:20,251 You never saw the Paul Lynde Halloween special. 488 00:21:20,251 --> 00:21:22,649 Move it in, move it out. 489 00:21:22,649 --> 00:21:24,684 Move it in and about. 490 00:21:24,684 --> 00:21:26,224 Disco baby. 491 00:21:27,357 --> 00:21:32,131 You never saw The Brady Bunch Variety Show. 492 00:21:34,232 --> 00:21:37,862 There’s a new kind of dancing. 493 00:21:37,862 --> 00:21:40,370 It’s going to be the rage. 494 00:21:40,370 --> 00:21:45,870 Just move yourself behind like an actor on a stage. 495 00:21:45,870 --> 00:21:49,346 The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and the Paul Lynde Halloween 496 00:21:49,346 --> 00:21:52,646 Special, those stand out because they are so bad. 497 00:21:52,646 --> 00:21:56,650 But there are other ones that are forgotten just because they 498 00:21:56,650 --> 00:21:59,158 weren’t even memorably bad. 499 00:21:59,158 --> 00:22:02,722 There are astronomically worse shows 500 00:22:02,722 --> 00:22:07,166 that aired around this time, they just didn’t carry the name 501 00:22:07,166 --> 00:22:07,892 Star Wars. 502 00:22:07,892 --> 00:22:11,632 The Star Wars Holiday Special happened, again, 503 00:22:11,632 --> 00:22:12,864 for multiple reasons. 504 00:22:12,864 --> 00:22:16,637 CBS approached Lucasfilm wanting to do it. 505 00:22:16,637 --> 00:22:20,509 We talked to George at one point about how this happened. 506 00:22:20,509 --> 00:22:21,807 You don’t like this piece of content. 507 00:22:21,807 --> 00:22:25,679 How does anything that you don’t like or you didn’t approve of 508 00:22:25,679 --> 00:22:26,482 get through? 509 00:22:26,482 --> 00:22:27,945 It’s like, it’s not that I didn’t approve of it. 510 00:22:27,945 --> 00:22:30,387 There was so much pressure in between Star Wars and Empire. 511 00:22:30,387 --> 00:22:32,752 The way that executives thought about the audience 512 00:22:32,752 --> 00:22:35,854 is that everyone would just forget Star Wars was a thing. 513 00:22:35,854 --> 00:22:37,658 The audience, they just can’t be depended upon. 514 00:22:37,658 --> 00:22:42,432 So you got to make some other kind of short-term Star Wars 515 00:22:42,432 --> 00:22:42,894 content. 516 00:22:42,894 --> 00:22:44,335 What kind of TV show can you make 517 00:22:44,335 --> 00:22:46,238 on the kind of budget it takes to make Star Wars? 518 00:22:46,238 --> 00:22:48,603 And they’re like, holiday special. 519 00:22:48,603 --> 00:22:50,275 And this was a way, a TV special, 520 00:22:50,275 --> 00:22:53,542 to get mass exposure, to get more excitement until Empire 521 00:22:53,542 --> 00:22:56,809 comes back and certainly it would help the toys. 522 00:22:56,809 --> 00:23:00,219 Star Wars, the toys came later on. 523 00:23:00,219 --> 00:23:02,848 They were ill-prepared for how successful 524 00:23:02,848 --> 00:23:03,882 the movie was going to be. 525 00:23:03,882 --> 00:23:06,423 Because there was no such thing as merchandising on movies. 526 00:23:06,423 --> 00:23:08,392 Some TV stuff, but not movies. 527 00:23:08,392 --> 00:23:09,822 Their lifespan is just too short. 528 00:23:09,822 --> 00:23:12,693 Back then, by the time you would get a toy line out, 529 00:23:12,693 --> 00:23:14,926 it would be 12 months to 18 months 530 00:23:14,926 --> 00:23:17,302 after the movie already left theaters, 531 00:23:17,302 --> 00:23:18,600 and nobody would remember the movie. 532 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:20,866 So nobody was willing to take that risk. 533 00:23:20,866 --> 00:23:22,703 The official Kenner Star Wars models 534 00:23:22,703 --> 00:23:24,474 are still in production in the orient 535 00:23:24,474 --> 00:23:26,245 and won’t be ready for several months. 536 00:23:26,245 --> 00:23:30,612 First Christmas, every kid in America wants a Star Wars toy, 537 00:23:30,612 --> 00:23:32,713 but they had nothing to sell for Christmas. 538 00:23:32,713 --> 00:23:36,684 And so, what they did was they sold you a coupon that you 539 00:23:36,684 --> 00:23:41,689 would send in, and once the toys had been made, 540 00:23:41,689 --> 00:23:43,460 they would ship you a set. 541 00:23:43,460 --> 00:23:46,991 But in 1978, the toys were everywhere. 542 00:23:46,991 --> 00:23:51,336 And this was the first Christmas where you could get Star Wars 543 00:23:51,336 --> 00:23:52,403 toys, Star Wars everything. 544 00:23:52,403 --> 00:23:56,737 And a key component of marketing that was the Star Wars Holiday 545 00:23:56,737 --> 00:23:57,408 Special. 546 00:23:57,408 --> 00:23:59,740 May the force be with you and your children. 547 00:24:03,348 --> 00:24:07,286 Our agent called and said that there’s a Star Wars Holiday 548 00:24:07,286 --> 00:24:07,748 Special. 549 00:24:07,748 --> 00:24:09,552 And we got really excited because we 550 00:24:09,552 --> 00:24:13,688 thought this was going to be our annuity, that this holiday 551 00:24:13,688 --> 00:24:17,725 show would run every year for an eternity. 552 00:24:17,725 --> 00:24:20,596 The Charlie Brown Christmas, the Grinch That 553 00:24:20,596 --> 00:24:23,731 Stole Christmas I mean, all of these things that’ll 554 00:24:23,731 --> 00:24:24,600 be one forever. 555 00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,339 As it turned out, it was only one viewing. 556 00:24:27,339 --> 00:24:29,737 So the people who wrote the special-- 557 00:24:29,737 --> 00:24:31,508 and there were a bunch of them-- 558 00:24:31,508 --> 00:24:33,477 were not science fiction people. 559 00:24:33,477 --> 00:24:35,413 They weren’t Star Wars fans. 560 00:24:35,413 --> 00:24:38,548 I don’t know if they all had even seen Star Wars. 561 00:24:38,548 --> 00:24:40,880 They were people who wrote variety, 562 00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,387 and that’s what this show was. 563 00:24:42,387 --> 00:24:45,786 It just happened to be themed to Star Wars. 564 00:24:45,786 --> 00:24:48,492 I mean, you have to remember, we were comedy writers. 565 00:24:48,492 --> 00:24:54,630 And to get into something like this was really thrilling. 566 00:24:54,630 --> 00:24:55,961 And I said, where do I sign? 567 00:24:55,961 --> 00:24:59,701 And it was fun from the beginning. 568 00:24:59,701 --> 00:25:03,507 And the first day it was the staff-- 569 00:25:03,507 --> 00:25:05,377 Lenny Ripps and Pat Proft. 570 00:25:05,377 --> 00:25:05,971 They were there. 571 00:25:05,971 --> 00:25:08,545 And Ken and Mitzie Welch, who were writers 572 00:25:08,545 --> 00:25:13,077 from The Carol Burnett Show, who did all the big musical things, 573 00:25:13,077 --> 00:25:13,880 and George-- 574 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:14,716 George Lucas. 575 00:25:14,716 --> 00:25:16,014 And Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion, 576 00:25:16,014 --> 00:25:18,918 who were actually allegedly producing it, 577 00:25:18,918 --> 00:25:21,459 but they didn’t really produce it in the end. 578 00:25:21,459 --> 00:25:24,055 When I was looking at the credits on the show and I saw 579 00:25:24,055 --> 00:25:25,925 that they had-- it was a Smith-Hemion-- 580 00:25:25,925 --> 00:25:28,433 I said, it was a Smith-Hemion production? 581 00:25:28,433 --> 00:25:29,060 That’s so stupid. 582 00:25:29,060 --> 00:25:30,567 Because I don’t remember them being there. 583 00:25:30,567 --> 00:25:32,932 But they were at the beginning when I thought about it. 584 00:25:32,932 --> 00:25:34,439 And the other thing was we worked 585 00:25:34,439 --> 00:25:38,069 with his director, a guy named David Acomba, who 586 00:25:38,069 --> 00:25:42,909 was a director of rock and roll videos. 587 00:25:42,909 --> 00:25:48,420 He made a successful rock and roll documentary there. 588 00:25:48,420 --> 00:25:50,785 And there was that USC connection. 589 00:25:50,785 --> 00:25:51,951 David was the voice of George. 590 00:25:51,951 --> 00:25:55,856 If David had an idea, or we wanted to run something by him, 591 00:25:55,856 --> 00:25:58,628 or there were questions, our assumption 592 00:25:58,628 --> 00:26:02,731 was that it’s also what George wanted. 593 00:26:02,731 --> 00:26:05,602 My intent was to see what George wanted 594 00:26:05,602 --> 00:26:06,966 and try and make it happen. 595 00:26:06,966 --> 00:26:07,934 But quickly there were-- 596 00:26:07,934 --> 00:26:11,102 Ken and Mitzie were assigned to the show, whom I didn’t know. 597 00:26:11,102 --> 00:26:13,742 And then, when I found out what they did, I mean, 598 00:26:13,742 --> 00:26:17,581 they wrote the music for the singing numbers and that. 599 00:26:17,581 --> 00:26:19,077 I just thought that was one of the worst 600 00:26:19,077 --> 00:26:20,815 parts of the show when she started singing 601 00:26:20,815 --> 00:26:25,457 and all those kinds of fake, Broadway, forgettable show 602 00:26:25,457 --> 00:26:25,952 tunes. 603 00:26:25,952 --> 00:26:28,053 The wrong people to be assigned to work with me or vice versa. 604 00:26:28,053 --> 00:26:31,925 The film industry and the variety television industry 605 00:26:31,925 --> 00:26:34,499 are completely two separate animals. 606 00:26:34,499 --> 00:26:37,568 I hear that David did not get along with the Welches. 607 00:26:37,568 --> 00:26:38,998 And I didn’t realize that because I 608 00:26:38,998 --> 00:26:42,067 wasn’t in the room with them when that was happening. 609 00:26:42,067 --> 00:26:44,773 But that was the team. 610 00:26:44,773 --> 00:26:48,073 What’s so unique about the Star Wars Holiday Special is not 611 00:26:48,073 --> 00:26:51,615 just that they have the costumes and the permission 612 00:26:51,615 --> 00:26:53,881 to use everything that we know of Star Wars, 613 00:26:53,881 --> 00:26:56,719 but they actually got the cast-- 614 00:26:56,719 --> 00:26:57,786 the cast of Star Wars. 615 00:26:57,786 --> 00:27:00,217 When I read it, I said this is awful. 616 00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,158 I was-- it was in my contract. 617 00:27:08,060 --> 00:27:08,995 There was no way-- 618 00:27:08,995 --> 00:27:10,766 no known way-- to get out of it. 619 00:27:10,766 --> 00:27:12,999 Oh, all right, but I’m not singing! 620 00:27:12,999 --> 00:27:15,771 They all slum it for a TV special. 621 00:27:15,771 --> 00:27:19,676 Again, I have to imagine the paychecks made it worth it. 622 00:27:19,676 --> 00:27:24,648 The talent was supposed to be the caliber of Cher, 623 00:27:24,648 --> 00:27:27,211 Baryshnikov, and Ann-Margaret. 624 00:27:27,211 --> 00:27:29,917 That was the people that they had hoped 625 00:27:29,917 --> 00:27:31,886 would be on the variety show. 626 00:27:31,886 --> 00:27:33,789 I didn’t think it was going to be 627 00:27:33,789 --> 00:27:35,659 so much of a traditional variety show. 628 00:27:35,659 --> 00:27:40,158 It never occurred to me that Harvey Korman, and Bea Arthur, 629 00:27:40,158 --> 00:27:41,830 and Art Carney were going to be in it. 630 00:27:41,830 --> 00:27:47,198 Yes, they were TV stars, but they were the elderly audience, 631 00:27:47,198 --> 00:27:49,068 CBS audience TV stars. 632 00:27:49,068 --> 00:27:51,235 It always occurred to me as something that 633 00:27:51,235 --> 00:27:54,711 was put together by old TV. 634 00:27:54,711 --> 00:27:56,108 You know, what is this? 635 00:27:56,108 --> 00:27:57,076 Star what? 636 00:27:57,076 --> 00:27:57,780 Whatever. 637 00:27:57,780 --> 00:27:59,012 You know, where’s Captain Kirk? 638 00:27:59,012 --> 00:28:00,816 Bring in-- you know who we need? 639 00:28:00,816 --> 00:28:01,619 Art Carney. 640 00:28:01,619 --> 00:28:02,246 He’s a TV legend. 641 00:28:02,246 --> 00:28:06,624 You felt like they could have had cooler, hipper 642 00:28:06,624 --> 00:28:08,890 people that they would have brought in 643 00:28:08,890 --> 00:28:09,957 to do these various parts. 644 00:28:09,957 --> 00:28:12,223 Ken and Mitzie were old school, and they were 645 00:28:12,223 --> 00:28:14,093 used to doing it a certain way. 646 00:28:14,093 --> 00:28:18,229 And David wasn’t crazy about that. 647 00:28:18,229 --> 00:28:22,101 So there’s an interesting rumor about the Star Wars Holiday 648 00:28:22,101 --> 00:28:24,609 Special, which I’ve always found fascinating, 649 00:28:24,609 --> 00:28:29,075 which is that David Acomba was scouring improv clubs looking 650 00:28:29,075 --> 00:28:32,815 for great acts that could appear in the special 651 00:28:32,815 --> 00:28:34,619 and came across Robin Williams. 652 00:28:34,619 --> 00:28:38,282 This was after he’d already been Mork on Happy Days 653 00:28:38,282 --> 00:28:42,924 but before he had gotten Mork and Mindy on the air. 654 00:28:42,924 --> 00:28:47,995 And he brought Robin to the Welches, who 655 00:28:47,995 --> 00:28:50,030 immediately turned him away and said, 656 00:28:50,030 --> 00:28:51,702 we’re only looking for name talent. 657 00:28:51,702 --> 00:28:54,331 About a month later Mork and Mindy airs, 658 00:28:54,331 --> 00:28:57,708 and Robin Williams explodes and could 659 00:28:57,708 --> 00:29:02,207 have been a part of what made the Star Wars Holiday 660 00:29:02,207 --> 00:29:03,648 Special fantastic. 661 00:29:03,648 --> 00:29:05,749 They weren’t on-- just weren’t on the same wavelength. 662 00:29:05,749 --> 00:29:09,819 And David felt that he was on George’s wavelength and that 663 00:29:09,819 --> 00:29:10,655 they weren’t. 664 00:29:10,655 --> 00:29:14,626 And they were there because there 665 00:29:14,626 --> 00:29:17,189 had to be professionals who had done this kind of thing 666 00:29:17,189 --> 00:29:19,290 before who knew what the requirements were. 667 00:29:19,290 --> 00:29:21,864 And George came up with the original story. 668 00:29:21,864 --> 00:29:23,602 It was going to be a one-hour special. 669 00:29:23,602 --> 00:29:25,868 Now, the Star Wars holiday special that we know 670 00:29:25,868 --> 00:29:28,871 didn’t start off the way that we experienced it. 671 00:29:28,871 --> 00:29:32,039 It actually started off I think from a much purer place, which 672 00:29:32,039 --> 00:29:36,780 is George Lucas trying to write a variety holiday 673 00:29:36,780 --> 00:29:39,145 special, or at least just a holiday special. 674 00:29:39,145 --> 00:29:41,785 So after Ralph McQuarrie passed in 2012, 675 00:29:41,785 --> 00:29:46,988 they discovered, in his archive, a five-page treatment 676 00:29:46,988 --> 00:29:48,154 for the Star Wars Holiday Special. 677 00:29:48,154 --> 00:29:50,354 And it’s debated as to who actually wrote this treatment. 678 00:29:50,354 --> 00:29:54,897 And when reading it, it does feel decidedly Lucas. 679 00:29:54,897 --> 00:29:59,066 And when you look at those old Ralph McQuarrie concept pieces, 680 00:29:59,066 --> 00:30:00,364 it makes sense that George would have 681 00:30:00,364 --> 00:30:04,368 floated this five-page treatment to his key collaborator 682 00:30:04,368 --> 00:30:05,204 on A New Hope. 683 00:30:05,204 --> 00:30:07,943 When you read through the treatment, 684 00:30:07,943 --> 00:30:11,276 George Lucas has a Jules Verne quality. 685 00:30:11,276 --> 00:30:12,211 He sees the future. 686 00:30:12,211 --> 00:30:14,785 Whether it is an iPad or virtual reality, 687 00:30:14,785 --> 00:30:19,691 this idea of this kind of walking through a teleporter 688 00:30:19,691 --> 00:30:21,253 and being able to be in a different spot. 689 00:30:21,253 --> 00:30:24,927 But then there are other things that are so decidedly 690 00:30:24,927 --> 00:30:28,095 weird like Raquel Welch. 691 00:30:28,095 --> 00:30:30,064 "Guest star-- Raquel Welch-- 692 00:30:30,064 --> 00:30:32,363 volunteers for the job and leaves 693 00:30:32,363 --> 00:30:33,430 to intercept the starship." 694 00:30:33,430 --> 00:30:37,038 So Raquel is playing a starship officer, 695 00:30:37,038 --> 00:30:40,976 which is already odd because most imperial officers are 696 00:30:40,976 --> 00:30:41,438 British. 697 00:30:41,438 --> 00:30:45,013 And she’s going to infiltrate the Starship Musica to stop 698 00:30:45,013 --> 00:30:46,014 the Life Day celebration. 699 00:30:46,014 --> 00:30:47,378 Raquel, under the guise of telling Lumpy 700 00:30:47,378 --> 00:30:50,381 a story with dance and gestures about what drives a spaceship, 701 00:30:50,381 --> 00:30:54,858 dances her way into the power supply room and screws 702 00:30:54,858 --> 00:30:55,694 everything up. 703 00:30:55,694 --> 00:31:00,765 This idea that Raquel Welch is doing some performance 704 00:31:00,765 --> 00:31:03,229 art, Alvin Ailey kind of-- 705 00:31:03,229 --> 00:31:07,266 she’s describing how a spaceship works through dance? 706 00:31:07,266 --> 00:31:09,708 There’s a lot of questions to be had here. 707 00:31:09,708 --> 00:31:10,434 Look, who am I to judge? 708 00:31:10,434 --> 00:31:12,238 But in reading this, it feels like, hey, 709 00:31:12,238 --> 00:31:15,274 a nerdy guy who has maybe a crush on Raquel Welch. 710 00:31:15,274 --> 00:31:17,012 He’s like, maybe I get to meet her. 711 00:31:17,012 --> 00:31:18,310 Maybe she’ll be impressed by me. 712 00:31:18,310 --> 00:31:19,311 Maybe we’ll hit it off. 713 00:31:19,311 --> 00:31:20,246 We’ll go get a sandwich. 714 00:31:20,246 --> 00:31:21,082 Nothing weird. 715 00:31:21,082 --> 00:31:26,186 We spent one full 12-hour day working with George Lucas, 716 00:31:26,186 --> 00:31:27,891 and that was worth everything. 717 00:31:27,891 --> 00:31:32,291 I mean, he was the most-intense, most-focused person 718 00:31:32,291 --> 00:31:33,160 I had ever met. 719 00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:36,768 I mean, we were so into it that I forgot about lunch. 720 00:31:36,768 --> 00:31:38,902 And that’s infrequent for me. 721 00:31:38,902 --> 00:31:44,006 Then he told us the mythology of the story. 722 00:31:44,006 --> 00:31:49,440 There was this Life Day. 723 00:31:50,507 --> 00:31:52,476 I know your family’s waiting. 724 00:31:53,510 --> 00:31:55,820 I know it’s an important day. 725 00:31:58,218 --> 00:31:59,758 All right, we’ll give it a try. 726 00:31:59,758 --> 00:32:03,894 The story was Luke and Leia were-- 727 00:32:03,894 --> 00:32:08,800 and Han Solo were-- accompanying Chewbacca home 728 00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,198 to his home planet for Life Day. 729 00:32:11,198 --> 00:32:13,233 Which was a holiday George invented, 730 00:32:13,233 --> 00:32:15,268 and he thought it would be like later 731 00:32:15,268 --> 00:32:18,942 "Festivus for the rest of us" from Seinfeld would be. 732 00:32:18,942 --> 00:32:20,339 But not so much. 733 00:32:20,339 --> 00:32:21,208 Never happened. 734 00:32:21,208 --> 00:32:23,177 It was kind of a Wookiee Rosh Hashanah. 735 00:32:23,177 --> 00:32:23,881 You know? 736 00:32:23,881 --> 00:32:26,378 I mean, it was the biggest day of the year. 737 00:32:26,378 --> 00:32:28,380 The whole Life Day with the Wookiees 738 00:32:28,380 --> 00:32:31,988 was something that George took very seriously at the time 739 00:32:31,988 --> 00:32:34,353 and that also sort of expanded the Star Wars 740 00:32:34,353 --> 00:32:37,521 universe in his first major visual expansion. 741 00:32:37,521 --> 00:32:39,963 George didn’t choose the storyline lightly. 742 00:32:39,963 --> 00:32:42,361 They wanted Chewbacca’s family have 743 00:32:42,361 --> 00:32:48,070 exposure to show them as a loving family of creatures. 744 00:32:48,070 --> 00:32:50,237 And to George Lucas, this was real. 745 00:32:50,237 --> 00:32:52,074 I mean, you have to remember, he had come up 746 00:32:52,074 --> 00:32:57,475 with at least a dozen stories, so he knew what this was about. 747 00:32:57,475 --> 00:33:00,445 George met with the writers on the special 748 00:33:00,445 --> 00:33:03,085 and actually showed them a large binder-- 749 00:33:03,085 --> 00:33:06,825 a Bible of sorts-- for the universe, where 750 00:33:06,825 --> 00:33:09,520 we got to know a lot more about the characters 751 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,126 that we didn’t know at the time. 752 00:33:11,126 --> 00:33:15,097 He was kind of like a reporter sharing with us 753 00:33:15,097 --> 00:33:16,164 a world that we didn’t know. 754 00:33:16,164 --> 00:33:20,300 Obviously, we were going to get to know a lot about Chewbacca’s 755 00:33:20,300 --> 00:33:21,906 home life on Kashyyyk. 756 00:33:21,906 --> 00:33:26,075 But there’s rumor that we were even potentially going 757 00:33:26,075 --> 00:33:29,474 to learn more about Han Solo. 758 00:33:29,474 --> 00:33:33,016 You’re like family to me. 759 00:33:37,449 --> 00:33:40,287 He said that Han Solo was married to a Wookiee, 760 00:33:40,287 --> 00:33:44,126 but we can’t say that because people wouldn’t accept it. 761 00:33:44,126 --> 00:33:46,095 Family to me. 762 00:33:46,095 --> 00:33:49,032 That Wookiee looked at you with-- with lust. 763 00:33:49,032 --> 00:33:49,626 That was-- 764 00:33:51,001 --> 00:33:52,233 Real affection. 765 00:33:53,267 --> 00:33:55,874 No, Han was never married to-- 766 00:33:55,874 --> 00:33:59,438 that’s-- that’s not true-- 767 00:33:59,438 --> 00:34:01,011 That’s impossible! 768 00:34:01,011 --> 00:34:02,540 Uh, OK. 769 00:34:02,540 --> 00:34:07,281 Most of our work was with the Chewbacca stuff, not 770 00:34:07,281 --> 00:34:08,183 the variety stuff. 771 00:34:08,183 --> 00:34:11,054 The variety parts we left blank. 772 00:34:11,054 --> 00:34:13,122 And originally the special was going 773 00:34:13,122 --> 00:34:17,995 to be a one-hour special, which was typical for those variety 774 00:34:17,995 --> 00:34:20,096 specials that the networks did. 775 00:34:20,096 --> 00:34:22,659 But as Star Wars was more and more successful, 776 00:34:22,659 --> 00:34:27,466 CBS got more and more excited and came back and said, 777 00:34:27,466 --> 00:34:29,072 can we do a 90-minute special? 778 00:34:29,072 --> 00:34:31,107 Can we do a two-hour special? 779 00:34:31,107 --> 00:34:32,405 Then I found out what it actually 780 00:34:32,405 --> 00:34:36,310 was going to be once we went to work. 781 00:34:36,310 --> 00:34:37,278 And so did George. 782 00:34:37,278 --> 00:34:39,676 And I think he was stunned. 783 00:34:39,676 --> 00:34:40,380 You know? 784 00:34:40,380 --> 00:34:42,085 I mean, we were pretty clear that it 785 00:34:42,085 --> 00:34:44,351 was wonderful to spend a day with Lucas, 786 00:34:44,351 --> 00:34:47,486 but we knew that we were not going to spend any more 787 00:34:47,486 --> 00:34:48,652 time with him. 788 00:34:48,652 --> 00:34:49,356 You know? 789 00:34:49,356 --> 00:34:51,556 I mean, he had much bigger fish to fry. 790 00:34:51,556 --> 00:34:53,228 George had detached himself. 791 00:34:53,228 --> 00:34:57,364 I don’t think he ever envisioned a show with guest stars 792 00:34:57,364 --> 00:34:58,167 and numbers. 793 00:34:58,167 --> 00:35:01,940 Once again, we weren’t creating the material. 794 00:35:01,940 --> 00:35:02,501 They were. 795 00:35:02,501 --> 00:35:04,041 We just sort of approved it. 796 00:35:04,041 --> 00:35:07,077 And then George got busy with pre-production 797 00:35:07,077 --> 00:35:12,445 on The Empire Strikes Back, so he got less and less involved 798 00:35:12,445 --> 00:35:14,480 with the holiday special. 799 00:35:18,649 --> 00:35:20,453 Smith-Hemion were the top. 800 00:35:20,453 --> 00:35:22,521 I mean, they had 92 Emmys, and they 801 00:35:22,521 --> 00:35:25,062 were famous for doing really classy shows. 802 00:35:25,062 --> 00:35:28,296 And Smith-Hemion, who the previous year had just done 803 00:35:28,296 --> 00:35:33,037 the iconic David Bowie Bing Crosby Christmas special, 804 00:35:33,037 --> 00:35:34,104 which endures to this day-- 805 00:35:36,238 --> 00:35:38,273 Peace on Earth, can it be? 806 00:35:38,273 --> 00:35:40,638 was put in charge of the Star Wars Holiday Special. 807 00:35:40,638 --> 00:35:42,739 This was not really in their wheelhouse. 808 00:35:42,739 --> 00:35:47,150 The first day I went to the set, and nobody was paying attention 809 00:35:47,150 --> 00:35:49,988 to David Acomba because he was kind of bouncing off 810 00:35:49,988 --> 00:35:50,989 the walls a little bit. 811 00:35:50,989 --> 00:35:52,683 It was a mixture of worlds, and David’s approach 812 00:35:52,683 --> 00:35:57,490 was to try to do it documentary, kind of one camera, even 813 00:35:57,490 --> 00:35:58,689 shaky camera kind of thing. 814 00:35:58,689 --> 00:36:00,163 And the production company really 815 00:36:00,163 --> 00:36:03,430 wanted it to be multiple camera more often because you 816 00:36:03,430 --> 00:36:04,398 could just get more done. 817 00:36:04,398 --> 00:36:06,235 This is not-- everything was taking forever. 818 00:36:06,235 --> 00:36:09,370 And I remember the beginning of the Star Wars show 819 00:36:09,370 --> 00:36:12,142 was just absolutely brutal. 820 00:36:12,142 --> 00:36:14,375 The hours were ridiculous. 821 00:36:14,375 --> 00:36:17,609 But now, let’s get started, shall we? 822 00:36:17,609 --> 00:36:20,117 And Harvey Korman is working his butt off, 823 00:36:20,117 --> 00:36:24,649 but ooh, boy, does he know what he’s doing is not good. 824 00:36:24,649 --> 00:36:27,322 And Harvey would wear anything I’d put on him. 825 00:36:27,322 --> 00:36:30,391 And he did like to get into drag. 826 00:36:30,391 --> 00:36:37,563 He also dressed up as Julia Child and did a bit as her. 827 00:36:37,563 --> 00:36:41,039 A bit of the chloranthum root. 828 00:36:41,039 --> 00:36:41,600 Wonderful. 829 00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:43,107 Just adds that touch of piquancy. 830 00:36:43,107 --> 00:36:44,603 I mean, Harvey has a character called 831 00:36:44,603 --> 00:36:46,638 Mother Marcus on The Carol Burnett Show, 832 00:36:46,638 --> 00:36:51,478 a big Jewish mama with big boobs and really funny. 833 00:36:51,478 --> 00:36:54,712 And this is not that far from that character. 834 00:36:54,712 --> 00:36:55,779 Consistency, don’t we? 835 00:36:55,779 --> 00:37:00,322 And on the count of 1, stir, whip, stir, whip. 836 00:37:00,322 --> 00:37:01,488 Whip, whip, stir. 837 00:37:01,488 --> 00:37:03,622 Stir, whip, stir, whip. 838 00:37:03,622 --> 00:37:04,458 Whip, whip, stir. 839 00:37:04,458 --> 00:37:08,759 Sometimes when I’m cooking, that does come to mind. 840 00:37:08,759 --> 00:37:10,761 Stir, whip, stir, whip. 841 00:37:10,761 --> 00:37:13,632 Ooh, coming along. 842 00:37:13,632 --> 00:37:14,402 Very nice. 843 00:37:14,402 --> 00:37:18,142 OK, Harvey Korman is in a purple dress with silver hair 844 00:37:18,142 --> 00:37:21,673 and forearms, and that’s still not the most weird thing 845 00:37:21,673 --> 00:37:23,114 that’s happening in this film. 846 00:37:23,114 --> 00:37:28,515 Harvey Korman is trying to pick up Bea Arthur, uh, 847 00:37:28,515 --> 00:37:32,123 which is very disturbing. 848 00:37:32,123 --> 00:37:33,388 What’ll it be? 849 00:37:33,388 --> 00:37:34,785 Hello, Ackmena. 850 00:37:36,655 --> 00:37:38,327 Come back soon. 851 00:37:38,327 --> 00:37:39,790 I’ll be waiting. 852 00:37:39,790 --> 00:37:42,694 And to somehow make the scene weirder, 853 00:37:42,694 --> 00:37:51,802 he has, like, a hole in his head that he pours the drinks into. 854 00:37:51,802 --> 00:37:53,177 I don’t remember it. 855 00:37:53,177 --> 00:37:57,412 I just absolutely eliminated it from my mind. 856 00:37:57,412 --> 00:37:59,117 It was too bizarre. 857 00:37:59,117 --> 00:38:01,218 It was too otherworldly. 858 00:38:01,218 --> 00:38:02,516 I couldn’t remember it. 859 00:38:02,516 --> 00:38:03,550 I didn’t know what it was. 860 00:38:03,550 --> 00:38:05,420 I couldn’t recognize myself. 861 00:38:05,420 --> 00:38:06,718 The only thing I remember out of it 862 00:38:06,718 --> 00:38:09,523 was the fun of working with Bea Arthur. 863 00:38:09,523 --> 00:38:12,592 I mean, we had fun, but I don’t know what the hell 864 00:38:12,592 --> 00:38:13,560 that thing was about. 865 00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:18,334 Some things are so contradictory to the film that just came 866 00:38:18,334 --> 00:38:19,335 out and established it. 867 00:38:19,335 --> 00:38:21,337 Like, so, is this that cantina? 868 00:38:21,337 --> 00:38:24,736 Because it’s all the same costumes and characters, 869 00:38:24,736 --> 00:38:27,442 but it’s not at all dangerous. 870 00:38:27,442 --> 00:38:28,146 Right? 871 00:38:28,146 --> 00:38:29,609 Like, that is the purpose it serves in the film. 872 00:38:29,609 --> 00:38:33,184 This is the most dangerous place, where arms are cut off, 873 00:38:33,184 --> 00:38:35,813 people are shot under tables, and occasionally 874 00:38:35,813 --> 00:38:37,815 Beatrice Arthur will break out into song. 875 00:38:37,815 --> 00:38:41,225 Bea wanted to sing the "Alabama Song." 876 00:38:41,225 --> 00:38:42,622 She wanted to do a number. 877 00:38:42,622 --> 00:38:43,656 That was her proviso. 878 00:38:43,656 --> 00:38:45,790 They finally, I think, went to the Brecht 879 00:38:45,790 --> 00:38:49,794 estate, which was not interested in having the song done 880 00:38:49,794 --> 00:38:51,763 on the Star Wars Holiday Special. 881 00:38:51,763 --> 00:38:52,896 Oh, and you know who was in it? 882 00:38:52,896 --> 00:39:00,178 Harvey Korman and I were in a bar with aliens 883 00:39:00,178 --> 00:39:01,410 and strange-looking people. 884 00:39:01,410 --> 00:39:06,844 And it’s a lovely piece written by Mitzie and Ken Welch. 885 00:39:06,844 --> 00:39:11,684 So Ken and Mitzie wrote a song for Bea that was a lot like-- 886 00:39:11,684 --> 00:39:14,258 those were the days, my friend. 887 00:39:14,258 --> 00:39:15,226 We thought they’d never-- 888 00:39:15,226 --> 00:39:18,526 which was like an up version of-- 889 00:39:18,526 --> 00:39:20,924 show me the way to the next whiskey bar. 890 00:39:20,924 --> 00:39:24,961 and that’s what Bea winds up singing on the show. 891 00:39:24,961 --> 00:39:28,767 Then homeward bound, friend, 892 00:39:28,767 --> 00:39:32,408 don’t forget me in your dreams. 893 00:39:34,410 --> 00:39:36,742 It’s the cantina music slowed down. 894 00:39:36,742 --> 00:39:41,219 But it’s so funny, because none of us had lyrics to that. 895 00:39:41,219 --> 00:39:42,748 And then this happens, and then kids 896 00:39:42,748 --> 00:39:46,455 are starting to sing it on the playground and stuff. 897 00:39:46,455 --> 00:39:49,854 I was hired as a Wookiee. 898 00:39:49,854 --> 00:39:51,691 But I remember, when I showed up, 899 00:39:51,691 --> 00:39:55,728 they had plenty of Wookiees, and they were looking 900 00:39:55,728 --> 00:39:56,828 for someone that could dance. 901 00:39:56,828 --> 00:39:59,468 So the choreographer said, we’re just going to pop you in here. 902 00:39:59,468 --> 00:40:01,338 You’re going to be walrus man from now on. 903 00:40:01,338 --> 00:40:05,672 And I became walrus man, and I got to dance with Bea Arthur. 904 00:40:05,672 --> 00:40:08,609 I think part of the issue for that day 905 00:40:08,609 --> 00:40:11,315 was the fact that there were so many people 906 00:40:11,315 --> 00:40:13,383 being fitted into costumes. 907 00:40:13,383 --> 00:40:14,549 That took hours. 908 00:40:14,549 --> 00:40:18,289 I mean, the Bea Arthur thing took forever too. 909 00:40:18,289 --> 00:40:21,853 But that was because the aliens kept fainting. 910 00:40:21,853 --> 00:40:25,725 Those costumes were pretty hot, pretty unbearable. 911 00:40:25,725 --> 00:40:27,760 There is no oxygen in these costumes. 912 00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:29,366 You could not breathe in these costumes. 913 00:40:29,366 --> 00:40:31,269 And this went on for hours, and hours, and hours. 914 00:40:31,269 --> 00:40:35,372 Because it was like 103 degrees on the set, and you put 915 00:40:35,372 --> 00:40:39,002 those heads on, and it’s kind of like waterboarding. 916 00:40:39,002 --> 00:40:42,511 I think had we not stepped in, the actors-- 917 00:40:42,511 --> 00:40:43,578 We would have killed them. 918 00:40:43,578 --> 00:40:45,481 David had no sense of-- 919 00:40:45,481 --> 00:40:47,043 The fact that they were suffocating. 920 00:40:47,043 --> 00:40:49,012 their needs as human beings. 921 00:40:49,782 --> 00:40:51,047 My eyes were supposed to be here, 922 00:40:51,047 --> 00:40:53,687 but I’m looking through two little holes. 923 00:40:53,687 --> 00:40:56,019 I can’t see out of the holes. 924 00:40:56,019 --> 00:40:56,987 It’s like, OK? 925 00:40:56,987 --> 00:40:58,395 And then, I have to-- 926 00:40:58,395 --> 00:40:59,561 and I don’t have hands. 927 00:40:59,561 --> 00:41:00,397 I have hooves. 928 00:41:00,397 --> 00:41:03,862 So it was just kind of like, here, you go grab her. 929 00:41:03,862 --> 00:41:10,066 I felt my way down, and I just kind of grabbed her wrists 930 00:41:10,066 --> 00:41:10,935 as best I could. 931 00:41:10,935 --> 00:41:13,410 And I just started doing this with her. 932 00:41:13,410 --> 00:41:17,546 -- one more dance, friend. 933 00:41:17,546 --> 00:41:18,415 Just one more-- 934 00:41:18,415 --> 00:41:21,913 Kind of like L’chaim to life, like from Fiddler on the Roof. 935 00:41:21,913 --> 00:41:23,651 That’s kind of that two-step dance. 936 00:41:23,651 --> 00:41:29,393 So going, swaying back and forth to the music with Bea Arthur. 937 00:41:29,393 --> 00:41:32,363 If you’re a friend, friend. 938 00:41:32,363 --> 00:41:38,864 One part, it looks like Bea Arthur is having 939 00:41:38,864 --> 00:41:41,064 an affair with a giant rat. 940 00:41:41,064 --> 00:41:47,774 Just one more drop, friend, before we stop friends. 941 00:41:47,774 --> 00:41:51,745 And interestingly enough, the gigantic rat 942 00:41:51,745 --> 00:41:55,749 was saying, oh my god, get Bea Arthur off me. 943 00:41:55,749 --> 00:41:59,522 And there’s that scene where Bea Arthur is like nuzzling a rat. 944 00:41:59,522 --> 00:42:02,492 Rick Baker actually used that on another project. 945 00:42:02,492 --> 00:42:05,792 And it was from a film he’d done two years ago, Food 946 00:42:05,792 --> 00:42:07,695 of the Gods-- 947 00:42:12,700 --> 00:42:14,471 which is insane. 948 00:42:14,471 --> 00:42:15,901 So we got a lot of remainder aliens 949 00:42:15,901 --> 00:42:21,412 that kind of had mill flaws, so they looked fairly cheesy. 950 00:42:21,412 --> 00:42:23,744 So the idea was, don’t go too close on any of them. 951 00:42:23,744 --> 00:42:27,847 I never gave it much thought once we finished with it. 952 00:42:27,847 --> 00:42:31,653 But even to this day, I get pictures 953 00:42:31,653 --> 00:42:36,086 that fans send of me in the costume and everything. 954 00:42:36,086 --> 00:42:37,461 And please autograph it. 955 00:42:37,461 --> 00:42:39,056 I don’t remember how long we went. 956 00:42:39,056 --> 00:42:43,764 I just remember doing another take, and then another take, 957 00:42:43,764 --> 00:42:44,600 and another take. 958 00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:47,999 I’m not surprised if I was there for 24 hours. 959 00:42:47,999 --> 00:42:54,643 Is that a tear, friend, in your eye? 960 00:42:54,643 --> 00:42:56,073 And it wasn’t even that good. 961 00:42:56,073 --> 00:43:00,748 Like once you saw it, you went, wow. 962 00:43:00,748 --> 00:43:01,452 You know? 963 00:43:01,452 --> 00:43:05,082 They could have done that in an hour or two hours. 964 00:43:05,082 --> 00:43:08,085 Now, it’s good night, friend. 965 00:43:08,085 --> 00:43:09,592 What? 966 00:43:13,662 --> 00:43:14,531 I’m Bob Mackie. 967 00:43:14,531 --> 00:43:15,895 Welcome aboard, Mr. Mackie. 968 00:43:15,895 --> 00:43:16,896 I’m Captain Stubing. 969 00:43:16,896 --> 00:43:18,095 It’s an honor to meet you. 970 00:43:18,095 --> 00:43:19,030 Thank you, captain. 971 00:43:19,030 --> 00:43:22,165 Mr. Mackie designs the gowns for all the big TV stars. 972 00:43:22,165 --> 00:43:24,838 Carol Burnett, Ann-Margaret, Cher. 973 00:43:24,838 --> 00:43:25,674 That’s right. 974 00:43:25,674 --> 00:43:27,170 You’ve heard them say, "clothes make the man?" 975 00:43:27,170 --> 00:43:29,073 Well, I’m the man that makes the clothes. 976 00:43:29,843 --> 00:43:33,781 Well, I had heard enough people enthusiastic about the Star 977 00:43:33,781 --> 00:43:35,046 Wars Christmas Special. 978 00:43:35,046 --> 00:43:38,753 And someone said-- and they were talking about it, 979 00:43:38,753 --> 00:43:41,019 and I said, oh, I designed that. 980 00:43:41,019 --> 00:43:42,152 You did? 981 00:43:42,152 --> 00:43:43,824 really? 982 00:43:43,824 --> 00:43:44,957 It was like that. 983 00:43:44,957 --> 00:43:46,728 And I just went, oh, OK. 984 00:43:46,728 --> 00:43:48,565 Well, I guess it was more important 985 00:43:48,565 --> 00:43:49,533 than I thought it was. 986 00:43:49,533 --> 00:43:52,965 And when we walked in, they had big drawings of the costumes. 987 00:43:52,965 --> 00:43:54,934 And we saw the ones that we would be wearing. 988 00:43:54,934 --> 00:43:58,201 It was fantastic, and Bob Mackie was there, 989 00:43:58,201 --> 00:44:00,676 and we had to do fittings. 990 00:44:00,676 --> 00:44:03,074 And Bob Mackie was there. 991 00:44:03,074 --> 00:44:05,241 It was-- I was thrilled. 992 00:44:05,241 --> 00:44:08,684 We had the acrobats, and the gymnasts, 993 00:44:08,684 --> 00:44:12,248 and all that whole group of circus people, which 994 00:44:12,248 --> 00:44:13,084 I loved doing. 995 00:44:13,084 --> 00:44:14,657 So that was our going to be our role. 996 00:44:14,657 --> 00:44:18,056 We would be tumbling inside this little music box 997 00:44:18,056 --> 00:44:24,260 to entertain the baby Chewbacca, Junior. I 998 00:44:24,260 --> 00:44:26,966 don’t know what his name is. 999 00:44:26,966 --> 00:44:27,670 Sorry. 1000 00:44:27,670 --> 00:44:31,509 It is very similar to a scene my father did in a movie 1001 00:44:31,509 --> 00:44:34,644 many years prior to that, Thief of Bagdad. 1002 00:44:34,644 --> 00:44:37,878 So in that one, pop was inside. 1003 00:44:37,878 --> 00:44:40,111 He was miniature, inside a little music box. 1004 00:44:40,111 --> 00:44:43,818 And then I have to have their heads cut off. 1005 00:44:43,818 --> 00:44:44,280 Oh! 1006 00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:48,526 And in this particular movie, we were going to be on a table, 1007 00:44:48,526 --> 00:44:50,121 like a flat surface. 1008 00:44:50,121 --> 00:44:54,158 And we were more like holograms. 1009 00:44:54,158 --> 00:44:55,698 I wanted to do them in bright colors 1010 00:44:55,698 --> 00:45:00,263 because everything in that film was like a neutral color. 1011 00:45:00,263 --> 00:45:05,268 You know, it’s all grays, and taupes, and browns, and beiges, 1012 00:45:05,268 --> 00:45:07,974 and a little black, and a little. 1013 00:45:07,974 --> 00:45:11,010 But basically no color really. 1014 00:45:11,010 --> 00:45:13,848 I guess in space they don’t have color. 1015 00:45:13,848 --> 00:45:15,113 This is the girl-- 1016 00:45:15,113 --> 00:45:16,246 the gymnast girl. 1017 00:45:16,246 --> 00:45:18,754 And it’s a whole body suit. 1018 00:45:18,754 --> 00:45:21,152 So anything-- any time they moved, 1019 00:45:21,152 --> 00:45:23,187 the elastic would move with them, 1020 00:45:23,187 --> 00:45:25,057 and it would stay in place. 1021 00:45:25,057 --> 00:45:31,129 And then the five of us were in hot pink and Black. 1022 00:45:33,802 --> 00:45:38,169 That took a little getting used to for tumbling in and doing 1023 00:45:38,169 --> 00:45:39,137 pyramids, climbing up. 1024 00:45:39,137 --> 00:45:41,843 Because I was the top man-- 1025 00:45:41,843 --> 00:45:42,580 person. 1026 00:45:42,580 --> 00:45:44,615 So climbing up, and so they wouldn’t get in your way. 1027 00:45:44,615 --> 00:45:50,214 So we had two jugglers, and they were in the Spandex as well. 1028 00:45:50,214 --> 00:45:53,756 What better testament to the mastery of John Williams 1029 00:45:53,756 --> 00:45:56,154 than whoever scored this entire holiday special? 1030 00:45:56,154 --> 00:45:59,729 Because somebody came in with a new Casio, like, synth sound. 1031 00:45:59,729 --> 00:46:02,831 And they’re like, you got to let me flex this out, you guys. 1032 00:46:02,831 --> 00:46:05,966 I’m telling you, it’s going to be timeless! 1033 00:46:05,966 --> 00:46:07,099 This is the first sketch I did. 1034 00:46:07,099 --> 00:46:13,611 And I wanted to have this kind of Asian, half man, half bird 1035 00:46:13,611 --> 00:46:15,272 kind of situation. 1036 00:46:15,272 --> 00:46:16,240 And he’s still a warrior. 1037 00:46:16,240 --> 00:46:18,715 They’re all like warriors of a certain kind. 1038 00:46:18,715 --> 00:46:23,016 He had this big tail that he could whip around like a whip, 1039 00:46:23,016 --> 00:46:23,951 but it was attached. 1040 00:46:23,951 --> 00:46:26,624 And he had all these pheasant feathers that 1041 00:46:26,624 --> 00:46:30,353 were dyed this green color. 1042 00:46:34,929 --> 00:46:36,161 Dance, slave. 1043 00:46:36,161 --> 00:46:37,294 Dance. 1044 00:46:37,294 --> 00:46:38,229 It was comfortable. 1045 00:46:38,229 --> 00:46:45,203 But only problem was then bathroom. 1046 00:46:46,336 --> 00:46:48,646 Yeah, every once in a while, someone will pop up 1047 00:46:48,646 --> 00:46:51,946 and they’ll want us to-- oh, I bought all the costumes. 1048 00:46:51,946 --> 00:46:53,783 One of things I love to collect are 1049 00:46:53,783 --> 00:46:56,346 when I have costume sketches of an actual costume I own. 1050 00:46:56,346 --> 00:46:58,887 So this is the only costume I own from the holiday special. 1051 00:46:58,887 --> 00:47:00,691 And this was very exciting too, that, like, 1052 00:47:00,691 --> 00:47:02,385 when I saw the things in the Julien’s auction, 1053 00:47:02,385 --> 00:47:05,762 I was like, that is one I definitely have to win. 1054 00:47:05,762 --> 00:47:06,961 It’s been over 40 years. 1055 00:47:06,961 --> 00:47:09,161 There’s people are still watching it online. 1056 00:47:09,161 --> 00:47:13,165 Like, it just-- yeah, it’s-- people still talk about it. 1057 00:47:13,165 --> 00:47:18,038 Jefferson Starship had this song that was a deep cut. 1058 00:47:18,038 --> 00:47:20,711 It was the last song of one of their albums 1059 00:47:20,711 --> 00:47:21,437 called "Hyperdrive." 1060 00:47:21,437 --> 00:47:24,880 Almost as if a producer looked at a list of artists 1061 00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:30,017 that were popular and then called someone and said, 1062 00:47:30,017 --> 00:47:30,853 "Hyperdrive." 1063 00:47:30,853 --> 00:47:33,350 We have hyperdrive. 1064 00:47:33,350 --> 00:47:35,352 Call up this Jefferson Star-- 1065 00:47:35,352 --> 00:47:36,188 Starship? 1066 00:47:36,188 --> 00:47:37,761 We have starships! 1067 00:47:37,761 --> 00:47:39,895 It’s as if it wrote itself. 1068 00:47:39,895 --> 00:47:40,390 Yeah. 1069 00:47:40,390 --> 00:47:42,766 So we recorded this song "Light the Sky on Fire" 1070 00:47:42,766 --> 00:47:43,800 with Marty Bannon singing. 1071 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,837 And he was the main singer because Grace was in rehab. 1072 00:47:47,837 --> 00:47:53,337 So we went ahead and ended up-- somehow we ended up on the Star 1073 00:47:53,337 --> 00:47:54,140 Wars Christmas-- 1074 00:47:54,140 --> 00:47:56,406 Holiday Special-- it was Christmas special we called it 1075 00:47:56,406 --> 00:47:57,209 at the time. 1076 00:47:57,209 --> 00:47:59,981 And none of us really knew what was going on, 1077 00:47:59,981 --> 00:48:01,279 but we ended up playing there. 1078 00:48:01,279 --> 00:48:04,381 So when I found out that Jefferson Starship was going 1079 00:48:04,381 --> 00:48:06,317 to be part of the shoot-- we were actually 1080 00:48:06,317 --> 00:48:07,483 going to shoot a number with them. 1081 00:48:07,483 --> 00:48:09,892 So I thought, oh, this is going to be really cool. 1082 00:48:09,892 --> 00:48:11,190 We had a connection-- not really. 1083 00:48:11,190 --> 00:48:14,358 I mean, I didn’t know a lot about what was going on. 1084 00:48:14,358 --> 00:48:17,735 I remember we were rehearsing at Paul’s-- it was Grace’s house 1085 00:48:17,735 --> 00:48:21,134 over in San Francisco overlooking the Bay. 1086 00:48:21,134 --> 00:48:22,135 It’s a beautiful house. 1087 00:48:22,135 --> 00:48:26,205 And Darth Vader came by, and it was like a publicity thing. 1088 00:48:26,205 --> 00:48:27,371 Came by and took some photographs, 1089 00:48:27,371 --> 00:48:30,044 and we got some photographs of us hanging out 1090 00:48:30,044 --> 00:48:30,880 with Darth Vader. 1091 00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,344 So we had some relationship already. 1092 00:48:33,344 --> 00:48:35,478 Of course, I didn’t really know what to expect. 1093 00:48:35,478 --> 00:48:40,417 I mean, I figured they had their stuff together, you know? 1094 00:48:42,023 --> 00:48:42,958 It’s really bizarre. 1095 00:48:42,958 --> 00:48:46,456 It’s really bad, bad special effects. 1096 00:48:46,456 --> 00:48:47,358 But you know what? 1097 00:48:47,358 --> 00:48:50,295 A lot of reviewers in 1978 praised this. 1098 00:48:50,295 --> 00:48:53,034 They thought the special effects in this thing 1099 00:48:53,034 --> 00:48:54,200 were the highlight of the show. 1100 00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:59,777 Looking back on it now, this can’t be a highlight. 1101 00:48:59,777 --> 00:49:00,404 It was a trip. 1102 00:49:00,404 --> 00:49:01,911 I remember a little bit about it. 1103 00:49:01,911 --> 00:49:06,509 I mean, I remember they let us loose in a room full of props, 1104 00:49:06,509 --> 00:49:08,885 like a costume room kind of thing. 1105 00:49:08,885 --> 00:49:11,217 They said, just try and make up an outfit. 1106 00:49:11,217 --> 00:49:13,516 No direction really, just individually 1107 00:49:13,516 --> 00:49:15,023 make up anything you want. 1108 00:49:15,023 --> 00:49:16,156 And it just-- as long as it looks 1109 00:49:16,156 --> 00:49:19,225 like it’s from another galaxy or something or from the future. 1110 00:49:19,225 --> 00:49:21,161 I think the finished product didn’t really 1111 00:49:21,161 --> 00:49:24,263 come out as if it was a music video as much 1112 00:49:24,263 --> 00:49:25,330 as they thought it might. 1113 00:49:25,330 --> 00:49:28,069 I guess-- yeah, I guess Art Carney-- 1114 00:49:28,069 --> 00:49:29,367 it’s sort of they’re interacting, 1115 00:49:29,367 --> 00:49:33,074 and it’s with his wry humor with one 1116 00:49:33,074 --> 00:49:36,407 of the stormtrooper guys sitting there in front 1117 00:49:36,407 --> 00:49:39,443 of this futuristic device. 1118 00:49:39,443 --> 00:49:41,379 Will you get on with it? 1119 00:49:42,116 --> 00:49:44,052 And they press the button, and then we start-- 1120 00:49:44,052 --> 00:49:46,021 we’re suddenly, there we are, playing 1121 00:49:46,021 --> 00:49:48,287 our song "Light the Sky on Fire" with all 1122 00:49:48,287 --> 00:49:51,323 these weird, cheesy effects all around. 1123 00:49:51,323 --> 00:49:57,263 And we’re all sort looking like we’re from another galaxy 1124 00:49:57,263 --> 00:49:58,066 supposedly. 1125 00:49:58,066 --> 00:50:00,134 But we really probably didn’t. 1126 00:50:00,134 --> 00:50:01,135 We looked pretty silly. 1127 00:50:02,939 --> 00:50:05,304 Will you light the sky on fire. 1128 00:50:06,569 --> 00:50:12,575 Will you light the sky on fire every night? 1129 00:50:12,575 --> 00:50:18,350 You can take me higher than the diamonds in the sky. 1130 00:50:19,285 --> 00:50:22,222 We didn’t really know how they were going to use it. 1131 00:50:22,222 --> 00:50:25,390 I’m not even certain they knew how they were going to use it. 1132 00:50:25,390 --> 00:50:28,393 So eventually we started just running behind 1133 00:50:28,393 --> 00:50:29,229 on that schedule. 1134 00:50:29,229 --> 00:50:31,968 And the more we ran behind, the more the people 1135 00:50:31,968 --> 00:50:35,136 who are in the production side of things with the money 1136 00:50:35,136 --> 00:50:36,104 got a little bit nervous. 1137 00:50:36,104 --> 00:50:38,634 And I remember that we shot considerable amount 1138 00:50:38,634 --> 00:50:41,010 of the entire show budget the first three 1139 00:50:41,010 --> 00:50:46,015 days of the production because we were over into overtime 1140 00:50:46,015 --> 00:50:46,477 so much. 1141 00:50:46,477 --> 00:50:47,918 And the network freaked out. 1142 00:50:47,918 --> 00:50:49,986 Because they said, this guy is going 1143 00:50:49,986 --> 00:50:51,515 to go over schedule, over budget, 1144 00:50:51,515 --> 00:50:53,550 and then we’re going to have to edit this thing, 1145 00:50:53,550 --> 00:50:56,025 and we won’t have what we need, and all that. 1146 00:50:56,025 --> 00:50:58,159 And it went on to the point where they 1147 00:50:58,159 --> 00:50:59,622 said we have to get rid of him. 1148 00:50:59,622 --> 00:51:01,426 We have to lose him. 1149 00:51:05,496 --> 00:51:08,004 One of the reasons why I left was 1150 00:51:08,004 --> 00:51:11,073 that it just was not working. 1151 00:51:11,073 --> 00:51:11,568 You know? 1152 00:51:11,568 --> 00:51:15,473 And it was very confusing because so many people 1153 00:51:15,473 --> 00:51:17,013 had their fingers in the pie. 1154 00:51:17,013 --> 00:51:19,576 And I’m not sure if George understood 1155 00:51:19,576 --> 00:51:23,250 just what the difference was between film 1156 00:51:23,250 --> 00:51:24,548 and television in the US. 1157 00:51:24,548 --> 00:51:26,550 Because I don’t think he ever worked in television. 1158 00:51:26,550 --> 00:51:31,390 I don’t think George realized that he picked the wrong format 1159 00:51:31,390 --> 00:51:33,359 in which to do these stories. 1160 00:51:33,359 --> 00:51:34,525 That wouldn’t happen today. 1161 00:51:34,525 --> 00:51:39,200 But then, 40 years ago, this was the style. 1162 00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:41,367 And so, it was executed by people who 1163 00:51:41,367 --> 00:51:44,073 did these things all the time. 1164 00:51:44,073 --> 00:51:45,272 But I felt sorry for David. 1165 00:51:45,272 --> 00:51:47,604 Because he kind of went back with his-- 1166 00:51:47,604 --> 00:51:50,145 partially with his tail tucked between his legs, 1167 00:51:50,145 --> 00:51:53,643 but partially with the time-honored-- 1168 00:51:53,643 --> 00:51:54,446 "it’s Hollywood. 1169 00:51:54,446 --> 00:51:56,052 They don’t know what they’re doing. 1170 00:51:56,052 --> 00:51:57,482 No wonder everything is such crap 1171 00:51:57,482 --> 00:51:59,022 when it comes out of Hollywood. 1172 00:51:59,022 --> 00:52:01,024 I’m going back to Toronto." 1173 00:52:01,024 --> 00:52:03,125 And he went back and did some beautiful stuff. 1174 00:52:03,125 --> 00:52:09,032 I don’t want to answer any more questions about the show. 1175 00:52:09,032 --> 00:52:09,494 OK? 1176 00:52:09,494 --> 00:52:12,233 It’s just-- it’s just that simple. 1177 00:52:12,233 --> 00:52:12,728 You know? 1178 00:52:12,728 --> 00:52:14,400 You guys go ahead and do whatever you want. 1179 00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:17,139 You do whatever you want to do with all the people you get 1180 00:52:17,139 --> 00:52:21,209 and all that, but I’m not interested in contributing 1181 00:52:21,209 --> 00:52:24,542 to the story at all. 1182 00:52:26,313 --> 00:52:28,986 At that point, given the amount of overtime 1183 00:52:28,986 --> 00:52:31,318 that they were creating and how expensive that was all 1184 00:52:31,318 --> 00:52:35,751 becoming for the production company, something very unusual 1185 00:52:35,751 --> 00:52:38,688 happened is that we just hit the brakes 1186 00:52:38,688 --> 00:52:40,756 and we came to a complete stop. 1187 00:52:40,756 --> 00:52:44,364 When David left, there were problems. 1188 00:52:44,364 --> 00:52:48,401 Because directors don’t leave when things are going well. 1189 00:52:48,401 --> 00:52:52,471 So they were scrambling. 1190 00:52:52,471 --> 00:52:55,045 But we were out of it at that point. 1191 00:52:55,045 --> 00:52:58,312 I mean Ken and Mitzie apparently were on the set 1192 00:52:58,312 --> 00:53:01,612 every day working with the show all day. 1193 00:53:01,612 --> 00:53:04,021 They put in an emergency call into Steve Binder, 1194 00:53:04,021 --> 00:53:08,322 who was a terrific variety show director who had done the Elvis 1195 00:53:08,322 --> 00:53:11,160 Comeback specials and a lot of other stuff 1196 00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,262 and who knew how to direct a variety 1197 00:53:14,262 --> 00:53:15,461 show in the conventional way. 1198 00:53:15,461 --> 00:53:19,564 So when Gary phoned me at home, and I said, what’s going on? 1199 00:53:19,564 --> 00:53:21,599 And he said, well, the truth of the matter 1200 00:53:21,599 --> 00:53:28,804 is we started a two-hour prime time special for CBS. 1201 00:53:28,804 --> 00:53:32,148 We’re way over budget, and there’s 1202 00:53:32,148 --> 00:53:35,085 a decision being made right now whether to continue 1203 00:53:35,085 --> 00:53:39,221 making the special or shutting it down permanently. 1204 00:53:39,221 --> 00:53:41,520 He was replaced by Steve Binder, who 1205 00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:45,590 was really a top-notch guy who knew what he was doing. 1206 00:53:45,590 --> 00:53:49,264 He brought a sense of control that 1207 00:53:49,264 --> 00:53:51,530 was missing from the production, I think, 1208 00:53:51,530 --> 00:53:54,368 which helped get things back on track. 1209 00:53:54,368 --> 00:53:55,567 The budget was $1 million. 1210 00:53:55,567 --> 00:54:01,540 I don’t think that Steve had the opportunity to really make 1211 00:54:01,540 --> 00:54:02,442 very many changes. 1212 00:54:02,442 --> 00:54:06,248 The way I saw it, for him, it was pretty much triage. 1213 00:54:07,414 --> 00:54:09,482 It’s long been said that George had always 1214 00:54:09,482 --> 00:54:14,487 wanted to do a story that focused specifically 1215 00:54:14,487 --> 00:54:18,128 on the Wookiee home planet. 1216 00:54:18,128 --> 00:54:19,096 I can’t tell you why. 1217 00:54:19,096 --> 00:54:22,462 That’s something that he wanted to see on screen. 1218 00:54:22,462 --> 00:54:26,169 The origins of this concept of a Wookiee family 1219 00:54:26,169 --> 00:54:27,302 can be traced back to Lucas. 1220 00:54:27,302 --> 00:54:30,701 I know there’s audio, 1976, and a brainstorming 1221 00:54:30,701 --> 00:54:32,142 session between Alan Dean Foster, 1222 00:54:32,142 --> 00:54:36,344 George Lucas, and Charlie Lippincott which was recorded. 1223 00:55:01,633 --> 00:55:05,472 Obviously, he didn’t go and do that as a sequel concept. 1224 00:55:05,472 --> 00:55:08,211 But that idea remained in his head. 1225 00:55:08,211 --> 00:55:10,411 And it seems like it was the seed for the holiday 1226 00:55:10,411 --> 00:55:13,414 special, which he then revisited several years later. 1227 00:55:13,414 --> 00:55:15,449 There was no way it could be done. 1228 00:55:15,449 --> 00:55:16,912 It featured the Wookiees. 1229 00:55:16,912 --> 00:55:18,518 They were the stars of the story. 1230 00:55:18,518 --> 00:55:21,521 And the Wookiees speak no known language. 1231 00:55:32,169 --> 00:55:35,370 This was in the era when they wouldn’t put subtitles 1232 00:55:35,370 --> 00:55:39,242 on television because they figured most of America 1233 00:55:39,242 --> 00:55:40,177 would not read them. 1234 00:55:40,177 --> 00:55:43,510 There’s a terrific YouTube thing where someone has gone in 1235 00:55:43,510 --> 00:55:46,711 and added their own subtitles. 1236 00:55:59,592 --> 00:56:01,297 Had we been able to use subtitles, 1237 00:56:01,297 --> 00:56:02,364 it would have been a lot easier. 1238 00:56:02,364 --> 00:56:06,599 Because we could have had the Wookiees interacting more. 1239 00:56:06,599 --> 00:56:07,435 But we didn’t. 1240 00:56:07,435 --> 00:56:10,636 Instead we had to have people translating from the Wookiee 1241 00:56:10,636 --> 00:56:14,871 to English, which was an opening for a lot of guest stars. 1242 00:56:14,871 --> 00:56:15,740 CBS liked that. 1243 00:56:15,740 --> 00:56:20,382 I suspect Art Carney didn’t really know what Star Wars was. 1244 00:56:20,382 --> 00:56:22,912 And how are my favorite Wookiees today? 1245 00:56:25,354 --> 00:56:26,553 Why are the long, hairy faces? 1246 00:56:26,553 --> 00:56:29,853 Art Carney understood the Wookiee language, 1247 00:56:29,853 --> 00:56:34,792 and he could translate so the audience would understand 1248 00:56:34,792 --> 00:56:36,860 what they were talking about. 1249 00:56:38,730 --> 00:56:41,568 Officer, maybe I could be of some help here. 1250 00:56:41,568 --> 00:56:43,273 I found, in Art Carney’s trailer, 1251 00:56:43,273 --> 00:56:46,441 he filled the shower with ice, and then he 1252 00:56:46,441 --> 00:56:49,840 had bottles of different kinds of alcohol 1253 00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:52,007 in the bottom of the trailer. 1254 00:56:52,007 --> 00:56:57,650 So when I met Art, he was pleasant enough. 1255 00:56:57,650 --> 00:57:02,886 But I learned soon that I had to shoot all of his scenes 1256 00:57:02,886 --> 00:57:03,722 early in the day. 1257 00:57:03,722 --> 00:57:06,021 That wherever he went to eat lunch, 1258 00:57:06,021 --> 00:57:10,663 he may have had a little bit too much to drink at the time. 1259 00:57:10,663 --> 00:57:12,467 It’s me, Saun Dann. 1260 00:57:17,538 --> 00:57:19,639 God bless, Art Carney and his character 1261 00:57:19,639 --> 00:57:25,040 of Saun Dann, where Saun Dann brings gifts to the family, 1262 00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:31,651 hands Itchy a mind evaporator, which tells you 1263 00:57:31,651 --> 00:57:33,785 everything you need to know about what they 1264 00:57:33,785 --> 00:57:36,788 thought VR would be for people. 1265 00:57:36,788 --> 00:57:40,693 Now then, Itchy, I thought you might like this. 1266 00:57:40,693 --> 00:57:41,694 It’s one of those-- 1267 00:57:41,694 --> 00:57:44,763 well, it’s a real-- it’s kind of hard to explain. 1268 00:57:44,763 --> 00:57:47,931 It’s a wow! 1269 00:57:47,931 --> 00:57:48,866 If you know what I mean. 1270 00:57:48,866 --> 00:57:51,638 When you put this helmet on, it attached 1271 00:57:51,638 --> 00:57:56,874 to a port that had been put under your skin in your brain, 1272 00:57:56,874 --> 00:58:00,449 and it would realize your fantasies. 1273 00:58:00,449 --> 00:58:02,715 So you could sit at home in your chair, 1274 00:58:02,715 --> 00:58:06,521 and your fantasies would play out in front of you. 1275 00:58:06,521 --> 00:58:07,918 Happy Life Day. 1276 00:58:10,789 --> 00:58:12,494 I do mean Happy Life Day. 1277 00:58:12,494 --> 00:58:15,497 So we were going to see all the Wookiee’s dreams. 1278 00:58:15,497 --> 00:58:19,666 So itchy, the silverback Wookiee, had a fantasy. 1279 00:58:19,666 --> 00:58:21,668 It was supposed to be about Cher, 1280 00:58:21,668 --> 00:58:24,704 but Cher suddenly couldn’t do it. 1281 00:58:24,704 --> 00:58:26,541 And so, Diane Carroll stepped in. 1282 00:58:26,541 --> 00:58:30,006 And Diane fit into the Bob Mackie costume. 1283 00:58:30,006 --> 00:58:31,975 I exist for you. 1284 00:58:31,975 --> 00:58:36,980 I am in your mind as you create me. 1285 00:58:36,980 --> 00:58:39,521 Oh, yes. 1286 00:58:39,521 --> 00:58:41,116 I can feel my creation. 1287 00:58:41,116 --> 00:58:45,725 I’m getting your message. 1288 00:58:45,725 --> 00:58:47,023 Are you getting mine? 1289 00:58:47,859 --> 00:58:52,864 In what world, planet, galaxy, in any time, 1290 00:58:52,864 --> 00:58:54,965 has anybody ever wanted their grandpa 1291 00:58:54,965 --> 00:58:57,803 to enjoy porn in the middle of the living room? 1292 00:58:57,803 --> 00:59:05,514 That’s the least believable thing in a holiday special. 1293 00:59:05,514 --> 00:59:06,845 Oh. 1294 00:59:06,845 --> 00:59:10,717 We are excited, aren’t we? 1295 00:59:10,717 --> 00:59:11,982 Well, just relax. 1296 00:59:11,982 --> 00:59:13,148 Just relax. 1297 00:59:13,148 --> 00:59:15,117 Yes. 1298 00:59:16,151 --> 00:59:21,464 It’s him watching humans or aliens that are not Wookiees. 1299 00:59:21,464 --> 00:59:22,498 And we had to be careful-- 1300 00:59:22,498 --> 00:59:26,766 I remember this-- not to make it too racy for the grandfather 1301 00:59:26,766 --> 00:59:27,569 with Diane. 1302 00:59:27,569 --> 00:59:28,438 Yes. 1303 00:59:28,438 --> 00:59:31,870 You know, I didn’t have approval of anything, 1304 00:59:31,870 --> 00:59:34,972 but that just seemed wrong. 1305 00:59:34,972 --> 00:59:36,941 But I didn’t see that when I was a kid. 1306 00:59:36,941 --> 00:59:41,979 All I saw was, why isn’t Han Solo on the screen? 1307 00:59:41,979 --> 00:59:44,454 Why can’t we see the real Chewie? 1308 00:59:44,454 --> 00:59:46,456 Chewie’s family sucks! 1309 00:59:46,456 --> 00:59:50,955 Now, we can have a good time. 1310 00:59:50,955 --> 00:59:53,056 Can’t we? 1311 00:59:53,056 --> 00:59:54,057 And it’s cringe-worthy. 1312 00:59:54,057 --> 00:59:59,766 Because as he sits there and rewinds, and replays, 1313 00:59:59,766 --> 01:00:02,197 and rewinds, and replays. 1314 01:00:02,197 --> 01:00:09,710 I find you adorable. 1315 01:00:09,710 --> 01:00:14,451 And then goes into a song that Itchy enjoys thoroughly. 1316 01:00:14,451 --> 01:00:17,080 This minute now. 1317 01:00:17,080 --> 01:00:27,080 This minute now. 1318 01:00:36,473 --> 01:00:37,639 This was not made for children. 1319 01:00:37,639 --> 01:00:41,038 Whoever the creative team was in charge of the Star Wars Holiday 1320 01:00:41,038 --> 01:00:44,547 Special has zero time for children’s entertainment. 1321 01:00:44,547 --> 01:00:47,682 They’re like, uh, uh, uh, I saw that Star Wars movie, 1322 01:00:47,682 --> 01:00:51,851 and there wasn’t enough VR Wookiee porn for me. 1323 01:00:53,919 --> 01:00:55,052 Where’s Chewbacca? 1324 01:00:55,888 --> 01:00:58,693 When you were on the Wookiee home planet, 1325 01:00:58,693 --> 01:01:01,795 how did you even understand what they were saying? 1326 01:01:01,795 --> 01:01:05,700 I don’t remember ever being on a Wookiee home planet. 1327 01:01:06,261 --> 01:01:09,605 Actually, Luke was on the Wookiee home planet Kashyyyk 1328 01:01:09,605 --> 01:01:11,871 in the Holiday Special when he helped 1329 01:01:11,871 --> 01:01:13,741 Chewie get home to his wife. 1330 01:01:15,941 --> 01:01:18,812 Chewie had a wife? 1331 01:01:18,812 --> 01:01:20,209 Her name is Malla. 1332 01:01:20,209 --> 01:01:21,078 Come on, Malla. 1333 01:01:21,078 --> 01:01:22,882 Let’s see a little smile. 1334 01:01:22,882 --> 01:01:24,554 Come on. 1335 01:01:24,554 --> 01:01:26,787 Mark Hamill’s makeup in the holiday special 1336 01:01:26,787 --> 01:01:31,528 rivals Huey Lewis’s makeup in the "Do You Believe in Love" 1337 01:01:31,528 --> 01:01:32,023 video. 1338 01:01:32,023 --> 01:01:34,927 We always thought it was because Mark Hamill was covering up 1339 01:01:34,927 --> 01:01:37,094 a scar, like the plastic surgery didn’t heal. 1340 01:01:37,094 --> 01:01:40,834 And that’s why they added that wampa capture scene, 1341 01:01:40,834 --> 01:01:45,003 because they needed to show why Luke Skywalker had 1342 01:01:45,003 --> 01:01:46,301 a scar on his face. 1343 01:01:46,301 --> 01:01:47,610 Now, decades pass. 1344 01:01:47,610 --> 01:01:49,612 We find out that that’s not true at all. 1345 01:01:49,612 --> 01:01:51,240 But that really wasn’t the main emphasis 1346 01:01:51,240 --> 01:01:53,616 of why we wrote the monster in the beginning. 1347 01:01:53,616 --> 01:01:56,883 It was just we needed something to kind of keep the film 1348 01:01:56,883 --> 01:02:01,085 suspenseful at the beginning while the empire is 1349 01:02:01,085 --> 01:02:01,921 finding them. 1350 01:02:01,921 --> 01:02:03,989 But the truth is, it’s just bad makeup. 1351 01:02:03,989 --> 01:02:07,289 These are Tony producers making this special. 1352 01:02:07,289 --> 01:02:11,700 They are used to caking on the makeup for musicals, 1353 01:02:11,700 --> 01:02:12,899 for stage performances. 1354 01:02:12,899 --> 01:02:14,571 Also, you have to remember the degradation 1355 01:02:14,571 --> 01:02:17,332 of each copy of the holiday special gets worse and worse 1356 01:02:17,332 --> 01:02:19,906 and worse, which means the coloring is not 1357 01:02:19,906 --> 01:02:20,874 going to be corrected. 1358 01:02:20,874 --> 01:02:24,108 Over the period of years, it’s built up 1359 01:02:24,108 --> 01:02:26,583 into having my face reconstructed 1360 01:02:26,583 --> 01:02:28,585 with plastic surgery. 1361 01:02:28,585 --> 01:02:32,622 George told us that he had 10 stories 1362 01:02:32,622 --> 01:02:34,184 that he had come up with, and he was 1363 01:02:34,184 --> 01:02:35,724 planning on making six movies. 1364 01:02:35,724 --> 01:02:39,222 And he had four other stories that he was 1365 01:02:39,222 --> 01:02:40,729 putting in different places. 1366 01:02:40,729 --> 01:02:43,930 And one of them was Boba Fett, but he hadn’t quite 1367 01:02:43,930 --> 01:02:46,735 figured out what Boba Fett’s story was going to be. 1368 01:02:46,735 --> 01:02:49,672 So he took his pilot version of it 1369 01:02:49,672 --> 01:02:53,610 and made it an animated thing and was going to inserted it 1370 01:02:53,610 --> 01:02:54,303 into this special. 1371 01:02:54,303 --> 01:02:57,878 They were doing this holiday special, 1372 01:02:57,878 --> 01:03:01,244 and there wasn’t much of our involvement, 1373 01:03:01,244 --> 01:03:04,984 but I came up with the idea, why don’t we take the Boba Fett 1374 01:03:04,984 --> 01:03:06,722 character and put him in that. 1375 01:03:06,722 --> 01:03:08,317 Make a little movie out of it. 1376 01:03:08,317 --> 01:03:09,824 I am Boba Fett. 1377 01:03:09,824 --> 01:03:10,726 Follow me, friend. 1378 01:03:10,726 --> 01:03:12,860 After Return of the Jedi, all the Tim Zahn novels, 1379 01:03:12,860 --> 01:03:15,159 all the Dark Horse comics, like all of this content 1380 01:03:15,159 --> 01:03:17,931 came out about how awesome Boba Fett was. 1381 01:03:17,931 --> 01:03:21,132 But it all starts with that animation 1382 01:03:21,132 --> 01:03:23,002 in the holiday special. 1383 01:03:23,002 --> 01:03:24,674 The animated bit, which I think was 1384 01:03:24,674 --> 01:03:26,775 done by Nelvana, which is a Canadian company that 1385 01:03:26,775 --> 01:03:30,405 eventually did the Droids and Ewoks TV series. 1386 01:03:30,405 --> 01:03:36,950 George had seen a special that we did called Cosmic Christmas 1387 01:03:36,950 --> 01:03:39,150 and really liked it. 1388 01:03:39,150 --> 01:03:43,792 And so, when he was working with David Acomba, who 1389 01:03:43,792 --> 01:03:46,058 was a mutual friend, you know, David 1390 01:03:46,058 --> 01:03:49,798 had suggested that we might be good for the Star Wars special. 1391 01:03:49,798 --> 01:03:52,295 That was how the relationship all started. 1392 01:03:52,295 --> 01:03:55,969 So the cartoon that’s contained within the holiday special 1393 01:03:55,969 --> 01:03:59,335 is this kind of short, 10 or 11-minute cartoon, 1394 01:03:59,335 --> 01:04:01,205 subtitled "The Faithful Wookiee." 1395 01:04:01,205 --> 01:04:03,977 And it’s the story about how the rebels are 1396 01:04:03,977 --> 01:04:06,815 looking for Han Solo and Chewbacca who have disappeared. 1397 01:04:06,815 --> 01:04:11,314 They find them, and they’ve been affected by this sleeping 1398 01:04:11,314 --> 01:04:12,447 virus that only affects humans. 1399 01:04:12,447 --> 01:04:15,956 And as soon as they discover it, Luke gets infected. 1400 01:04:15,956 --> 01:04:19,421 And then it’s up to Chewbacca and the droids 1401 01:04:19,421 --> 01:04:21,423 to try and rescue them. 1402 01:04:21,423 --> 01:04:22,897 And it was written by George. 1403 01:04:22,897 --> 01:04:25,427 And I loved the roughness of Star Wars. 1404 01:04:25,427 --> 01:04:29,871 I loved the fact that everything was beaten up and lived in. 1405 01:04:29,871 --> 01:04:32,434 We wanted to get that kind of real world quality 1406 01:04:32,434 --> 01:04:35,712 into the animation too and not make it too pristine. 1407 01:04:35,712 --> 01:04:40,882 It was a little bit loosely based on Moebius. 1408 01:04:40,882 --> 01:04:42,477 George wanted the style of Moebius, 1409 01:04:42,477 --> 01:04:45,755 who was a famous science fiction Illustrator. 1410 01:04:45,755 --> 01:04:49,825 And so, that was the inspiration for the style 1411 01:04:49,825 --> 01:04:50,727 of the characters. 1412 01:04:50,727 --> 01:04:53,488 That style of animation, that like nearly rotoscoped, 1413 01:04:53,488 --> 01:04:56,326 everything that was vogue in animation in that era, 1414 01:04:56,326 --> 01:04:59,736 it was that applied to Star Wars. 1415 01:04:59,736 --> 01:05:00,363 But it was crazy. 1416 01:05:00,363 --> 01:05:03,938 Like, this was-- there’s nothing like it, that animated 1417 01:05:03,938 --> 01:05:04,433 sequence. 1418 01:05:04,433 --> 01:05:06,875 To me, to this day, even if I don’t-- 1419 01:05:06,875 --> 01:05:08,437 I know what the holiday special is. 1420 01:05:08,437 --> 01:05:11,308 I know it’s crazy and kind of a mess. 1421 01:05:11,308 --> 01:05:15,081 But I still point to that animated bit and go, 1422 01:05:15,081 --> 01:05:16,214 this is crazy. 1423 01:05:16,214 --> 01:05:17,347 Like, this is just vibrant. 1424 01:05:17,347 --> 01:05:21,186 But I love the introduction of Boba Fett and that rifle 1425 01:05:21,186 --> 01:05:21,989 that he had. 1426 01:05:21,989 --> 01:05:23,991 That animated piece still holds up. 1427 01:05:23,991 --> 01:05:24,827 It’s pretty cool. 1428 01:05:24,827 --> 01:05:26,092 And I draw inspiration from that. 1429 01:05:26,092 --> 01:05:30,360 Jon Favreau has declared himself a fan of the Star Wars Holiday 1430 01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:32,461 Special and he made a concerted effort 1431 01:05:32,461 --> 01:05:36,036 to put lots of little Easter eggs and little references 1432 01:05:36,036 --> 01:05:38,401 to the holiday special throughout The Mandalorian. 1433 01:05:38,401 --> 01:05:41,140 Because we all ordered the Boba Fett figure 1434 01:05:41,140 --> 01:05:42,405 by sending in our proofs of purchase 1435 01:05:42,405 --> 01:05:45,881 from the back of the package, and we got this figure 1436 01:05:45,881 --> 01:05:47,278 before he ever appeared on screen. 1437 01:05:47,278 --> 01:05:51,315 You could get Boba Fett in the mail before the movie came out. 1438 01:05:51,315 --> 01:05:52,822 So at the time, the action figure 1439 01:05:52,822 --> 01:05:56,419 Boba Fett was supposed to have a little rocket that fired out 1440 01:05:56,419 --> 01:05:57,288 of the jetpack. 1441 01:05:57,288 --> 01:05:58,553 But there were a lot of safety issues 1442 01:05:58,553 --> 01:06:01,193 at the time with a lot of toys that came out then that had 1443 01:06:01,193 --> 01:06:02,799 that rocket-firing feature. 1444 01:06:02,799 --> 01:06:04,933 And so, they never made it that way. 1445 01:06:04,933 --> 01:06:08,200 His toy is so badass, it might kill me. 1446 01:06:08,200 --> 01:06:10,268 They had to include the rocket in. 1447 01:06:10,268 --> 01:06:14,107 And so, a generation of kids were like, whoa, 1448 01:06:14,107 --> 01:06:14,910 who is this guy? 1449 01:06:14,910 --> 01:06:16,109 And the only time we’d seen him was 1450 01:06:16,109 --> 01:06:18,144 in the holiday special, which you know well 1451 01:06:18,144 --> 01:06:19,211 because you put the gun in. 1452 01:06:19,211 --> 01:06:22,577 So the forked rifle that the Mandalorian carries 1453 01:06:22,577 --> 01:06:24,414 is a direct reference to the holiday special, 1454 01:06:24,414 --> 01:06:29,353 because Boba Fett does not have that weapon when he appears 1455 01:06:29,353 --> 01:06:30,420 in The Empire Strikes Back. 1456 01:06:30,420 --> 01:06:31,894 So it’s not in any of the movies. 1457 01:06:31,894 --> 01:06:34,490 It’s only in the Star Wars Holiday Special. 1458 01:06:34,490 --> 01:06:38,263 I remember when you were all proud when George came to set. 1459 01:06:38,263 --> 01:06:40,001 Did you see the gun we have? 1460 01:06:40,001 --> 01:06:40,496 Yeah. 1461 01:06:40,496 --> 01:06:43,136 Do you know that was a homage too. 1462 01:06:43,136 --> 01:06:44,533 That cannon, right? 1463 01:06:44,533 --> 01:06:45,875 Because you wrote it. 1464 01:06:45,875 --> 01:06:46,469 Not really. 1465 01:06:46,469 --> 01:06:48,372 You said, hey, we put that gun in from the holiday special. 1466 01:06:48,372 --> 01:06:51,177 And he goes, oh, I had nothing to do with that. 1467 01:06:52,112 --> 01:06:57,018 One thing people love to talk about in terms of Chewbacca’s 1468 01:06:57,018 --> 01:07:00,285 role and how important he was at the end of Star Wars, 1469 01:07:00,285 --> 01:07:01,451 and how important he may have even 1470 01:07:01,451 --> 01:07:05,158 been seen by the filmmakers at the end of Star Wars, 1471 01:07:05,158 --> 01:07:07,391 is that you give Han Solo a medal, 1472 01:07:07,391 --> 01:07:09,129 and you give Luke Skywalker a medal, 1473 01:07:09,129 --> 01:07:11,593 but Chewbacca only gets a chance to stand up 1474 01:07:11,593 --> 01:07:14,431 on the platform and roar at the end of Star Wars. 1475 01:07:14,431 --> 01:07:17,907 There was a question-- why didn’t Chewbacca 1476 01:07:17,907 --> 01:07:21,174 get a medal at the end of Star Wars? 1477 01:07:21,174 --> 01:07:26,245 And George’s answer to that was Wookiees 1478 01:07:26,245 --> 01:07:28,379 don’t want-- he didn’t want a medal. 1479 01:07:28,379 --> 01:07:32,218 But his reward was that Han would take them 1480 01:07:32,218 --> 01:07:36,552 back to his home planet for Life Day celebration. 1481 01:07:36,552 --> 01:07:40,160 So on the very last day of shooting, from day one 1482 01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:41,326 when I arrived at Warner Brothers, 1483 01:07:41,326 --> 01:07:43,064 I was curious how we were going to approach 1484 01:07:43,064 --> 01:07:46,232 shooting the finale, which has not only the original 1485 01:07:46,232 --> 01:07:51,270 cast from Star Wars I the movie, but also about 100 extras. 1486 01:07:51,270 --> 01:07:52,909 They saved all this money by not having 1487 01:07:52,909 --> 01:07:56,671 to suit them by just dressing them in these robes-- 1488 01:07:56,671 --> 01:07:58,310 these honorary Life Day robes. 1489 01:07:58,310 --> 01:08:03,546 And they’re all parading through while Carrie sings her song. 1490 01:08:03,546 --> 01:08:05,581 And that song that I sing-- 1491 01:08:05,581 --> 01:08:12,621 We celebrate a day of peace. 1492 01:08:12,621 --> 01:08:15,426 --a day of harmony. 1493 01:08:17,230 --> 01:08:20,002 She wasn’t-- she wasn’t a great singer. 1494 01:08:20,002 --> 01:08:25,172 But the song was apparently the deciding factor 1495 01:08:25,172 --> 01:08:28,142 in getting her onto the show. 1496 01:08:28,142 --> 01:08:31,607 Just the set itself looked so fake. 1497 01:08:31,607 --> 01:08:32,311 You know? 1498 01:08:32,311 --> 01:08:34,676 Film is very forgiving, especially 1499 01:08:34,676 --> 01:08:36,117 if it’s lit properly. 1500 01:08:36,117 --> 01:08:39,989 But this just looked so cheesy. 1501 01:08:39,989 --> 01:08:41,650 I called my art director in. 1502 01:08:41,650 --> 01:08:44,554 What’s the set for the big finale? 1503 01:08:44,554 --> 01:08:47,128 And he looked at me straight in the eye, and he said, 1504 01:08:47,128 --> 01:08:51,297 Steve, I hate to break it to you, but we’re out of money. 1505 01:08:51,297 --> 01:08:53,200 We have no set for the finale. 1506 01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:56,269 I want you to go into Hollywood, go to every candle 1507 01:08:56,269 --> 01:08:59,173 store you can find, and buy every candle 1508 01:08:59,173 --> 01:09:00,108 they have in their shop. 1509 01:09:00,108 --> 01:09:03,474 So the night before we actually shot the finale, 1510 01:09:03,474 --> 01:09:08,215 we placed fat candles, thin candles, tall candles, 1511 01:09:08,215 --> 01:09:12,153 short candles all over the floor of the stage. 1512 01:09:12,153 --> 01:09:17,158 And we spent the morning of the actual shoot lighting 1513 01:09:17,158 --> 01:09:18,489 all of these candles. 1514 01:09:18,489 --> 01:09:19,996 The end of this movie is basically 1515 01:09:19,996 --> 01:09:23,626 like the Heaven’s Gate cult occurs to the Wookiee family. 1516 01:09:23,626 --> 01:09:26,035 Like, they all-- 1517 01:09:26,035 --> 01:09:26,530 right? 1518 01:09:26,530 --> 01:09:29,533 Like, they start singing a song, they hold up their light orbs, 1519 01:09:29,533 --> 01:09:32,767 and clearly they die and ascend to a new realm 1520 01:09:32,767 --> 01:09:36,144 where they enter the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet. 1521 01:09:36,144 --> 01:09:37,343 I think that’s what it-- 1522 01:09:37,343 --> 01:09:38,410 I think that’s what’s happening. 1523 01:09:38,410 --> 01:09:42,480 The line producers of the Star Wars Holiday Special 1524 01:09:42,480 --> 01:09:43,679 were Ken and Mitzie Welch. 1525 01:09:43,679 --> 01:09:46,220 They admittedly came to me and said, hey, 1526 01:09:46,220 --> 01:09:48,486 we’ve never produced anything like this. 1527 01:09:48,486 --> 01:09:52,556 Miki was the point person between Lucasfilm, and CBS, 1528 01:09:52,556 --> 01:09:55,328 and the production company, Smith-Hemion, 1529 01:09:55,328 --> 01:09:58,496 that was actually making the special. 1530 01:09:58,496 --> 01:10:00,729 We couldn’t tell them what to do. 1531 01:10:00,729 --> 01:10:04,766 I mean, that was their project, their show, and they didn’t-- 1532 01:10:04,766 --> 01:10:06,768 it was, like, out of control. 1533 01:10:06,768 --> 01:10:11,080 I told Gary if I came in to direct and help put 1534 01:10:11,080 --> 01:10:15,414 the fire out, the one thing I would not be available 1535 01:10:15,414 --> 01:10:18,681 was I had a show to go to, I was already committed to. 1536 01:10:18,681 --> 01:10:23,290 I would not be able to participate in one day or one 1537 01:10:23,290 --> 01:10:24,192 second of editing. 1538 01:10:24,192 --> 01:10:26,260 But we weren’t in-- you have to understand, 1539 01:10:26,260 --> 01:10:27,756 we weren’t in the loop at that point. 1540 01:10:27,756 --> 01:10:31,793 I mean, at that point, it was Ken and Mitzie Welch’s show. 1541 01:10:31,793 --> 01:10:35,698 Ken and Mitzie were variety show producers, 1542 01:10:35,698 --> 01:10:39,075 but they didn’t know anything about science fiction, 1543 01:10:39,075 --> 01:10:42,606 and they didn’t know how to edit. 1544 01:10:42,606 --> 01:10:47,182 I had never edited anything in my life. 1545 01:10:47,182 --> 01:10:47,743 You know? 1546 01:10:47,743 --> 01:10:48,579 I write. 1547 01:10:48,579 --> 01:10:49,514 I’ll never forget this-- 1548 01:10:49,514 --> 01:10:54,651 I saw all of those tapes, and I thought, what am I going to do? 1549 01:10:54,651 --> 01:10:57,357 And I do remember, I burst into tears. 1550 01:10:57,357 --> 01:11:02,494 I have never ever not edited any of my shows other than the Star 1551 01:11:02,494 --> 01:11:04,298 Wars Holiday Special. 1552 01:11:04,298 --> 01:11:06,201 And to this day, I regret it. 1553 01:11:06,201 --> 01:11:07,169 I’m sorry I wasn’t there. 1554 01:11:07,169 --> 01:11:10,139 Because I knew it would fall on Mitzie and Ken, 1555 01:11:10,139 --> 01:11:12,537 and I knew they had zero experience. 1556 01:11:12,537 --> 01:11:14,770 They were there to get the show done. 1557 01:11:14,770 --> 01:11:17,344 It would never have gotten done otherwise. 1558 01:11:17,344 --> 01:11:19,478 But we were in contact with George Lucas, 1559 01:11:19,478 --> 01:11:21,843 and he knew what he wanted in terms 1560 01:11:21,843 --> 01:11:24,219 of the look and everything. 1561 01:11:24,219 --> 01:11:25,121 Yeah, Miki Herman. 1562 01:11:25,121 --> 01:11:26,749 She was our liaison with-- 1563 01:11:26,749 --> 01:11:27,585 That’s right. 1564 01:11:27,585 --> 01:11:28,289 George. 1565 01:11:28,289 --> 01:11:30,489 She was there all the time, every day. 1566 01:11:30,489 --> 01:11:31,853 And there in editing too. 1567 01:11:31,853 --> 01:11:32,821 And in editing, yeah. 1568 01:11:32,821 --> 01:11:37,430 They just left it up to the variety show producers. 1569 01:11:37,430 --> 01:11:42,765 And, you know, they regretted it. 1570 01:11:43,898 --> 01:11:47,407 On Friday night, blast off to a galaxy far, far away. 1571 01:11:47,407 --> 01:11:50,542 It’s the Star Wars Holiday Special. 1572 01:11:50,542 --> 01:11:51,312 You’re on. 1573 01:11:51,312 --> 01:11:53,182 So we would throw a Thanksgiving for the lost 1574 01:11:53,182 --> 01:11:56,218 boys-- for all the people who couldn’t go home. 1575 01:11:56,218 --> 01:11:57,318 So that was the night before. 1576 01:11:57,318 --> 01:12:00,453 So the next night we all went back and had leftovers 1577 01:12:00,453 --> 01:12:01,850 and watched the Star Wars special, 1578 01:12:01,850 --> 01:12:03,489 which was on Friday night of that weekend. 1579 01:12:03,489 --> 01:12:06,756 This is the days before the VCR, so we couldn’t tape it. 1580 01:12:06,756 --> 01:12:11,167 If you did not see it when it aired, that was it. 1581 01:12:11,167 --> 01:12:14,401 So I had a party at my house that night 1582 01:12:14,401 --> 01:12:15,732 for when the show was there. 1583 01:12:15,732 --> 01:12:18,669 It was catered, and it had all of my friends, 1584 01:12:18,669 --> 01:12:20,869 and there were people with trays. 1585 01:12:20,869 --> 01:12:24,708 I wanted to see this more than I wanted to live. 1586 01:12:24,708 --> 01:12:26,215 You know, I was a young Catholic kid, 1587 01:12:26,215 --> 01:12:28,943 and I was always afraid God was going to kill me and stuff. 1588 01:12:28,943 --> 01:12:30,219 And I was like, oh lord, please. 1589 01:12:30,219 --> 01:12:33,882 Please, just don’t kill me until I see the Star Wars Christmas 1590 01:12:33,882 --> 01:12:34,553 special. 1591 01:12:34,553 --> 01:12:36,291 And after that first commercial, I turned it off, 1592 01:12:36,291 --> 01:12:38,491 and I said, OK, everybody, let’s eat. 1593 01:12:38,491 --> 01:12:39,195 You know? 1594 01:12:39,195 --> 01:12:42,561 I had no idea what it had become. 1595 01:12:42,561 --> 01:12:43,397 And it was great. 1596 01:12:43,397 --> 01:12:45,531 I mean, they loved me Bea, and they loved Harvey, 1597 01:12:45,531 --> 01:12:46,598 and they loved all of that. 1598 01:12:46,598 --> 01:12:48,633 They loved all the crap, of course. 1599 01:12:48,633 --> 01:12:51,240 All the camp stuff they loved. 1600 01:12:51,240 --> 01:12:53,242 But what wasn’t camp in that show? 1601 01:12:53,242 --> 01:12:56,410 It just seemed so weird even at the time. 1602 01:12:56,410 --> 01:13:01,316 And when it came out, it was like, oh my god, this 1603 01:13:01,316 --> 01:13:03,252 is what they did for the holiday special? 1604 01:13:03,252 --> 01:13:06,651 They made the mistake of farming it out I think was the problem. 1605 01:13:06,651 --> 01:13:07,916 They farmed it out to people that 1606 01:13:07,916 --> 01:13:11,425 were used to doing Perry Como and Bob Hope specials. 1607 01:13:11,425 --> 01:13:12,261 And it shows. 1608 01:13:12,261 --> 01:13:16,661 I noticed that a lot of people who write me and make comments 1609 01:13:16,661 --> 01:13:19,829 about the Star Wars Holiday Special say, 1610 01:13:19,829 --> 01:13:21,897 I was five years old when I watched it. 1611 01:13:21,897 --> 01:13:24,339 I was 10 years old when I watched it. 1612 01:13:24,339 --> 01:13:26,341 They have a whole different perspective of it. 1613 01:13:26,341 --> 01:13:28,673 Because they usually add, "And I loved it." 1614 01:13:28,673 --> 01:13:33,942 From what I remember as a kid, the Star Wars Holiday Special 1615 01:13:33,942 --> 01:13:36,010 was tremendous. 1616 01:13:36,010 --> 01:13:37,748 I was super excited. 1617 01:13:37,748 --> 01:13:40,916 I was over anxious, simply because something 1618 01:13:40,916 --> 01:13:44,854 from the Star Wars world was going to be on television. 1619 01:13:44,854 --> 01:13:48,495 We’re starving, as fans, for anything Star Wars. 1620 01:13:48,495 --> 01:13:51,465 Other than the movie, that’s the only other thing 1621 01:13:51,465 --> 01:13:55,931 that I saw that had Harrison Ford in it or on it at all. 1622 01:13:55,931 --> 01:13:56,866 I’ll take anything. 1623 01:13:56,866 --> 01:13:58,868 I don’t care if they’re going to juggle, sing, dance. 1624 01:13:58,868 --> 01:14:01,739 And all the kids talked about it at school 1625 01:14:01,739 --> 01:14:02,872 the next day and so forth. 1626 01:14:02,872 --> 01:14:06,513 And then everybody promptly forgot about it after that. 1627 01:14:06,513 --> 01:14:09,879 A sinking feeling came in, where I was like, 1628 01:14:09,879 --> 01:14:12,849 oh, this isn’t going to be as good as I’d hoped it. 1629 01:14:12,849 --> 01:14:15,621 In a weird way, it was a prep for what 1630 01:14:15,621 --> 01:14:18,723 I would experience decades later with the prequels, 1631 01:14:18,723 --> 01:14:21,660 where I sat down, could not have been more excited, 1632 01:14:21,660 --> 01:14:23,299 could not have been more jazzed, and then 1633 01:14:23,299 --> 01:14:28,337 it took time, as I was watching it, to realize like something’s 1634 01:14:28,337 --> 01:14:28,832 wrong. 1635 01:14:28,832 --> 01:14:32,737 I think with probably like the plague in the Middle Ages, 1636 01:14:32,737 --> 01:14:37,511 after everybody died, they decided to change the subject. 1637 01:14:37,511 --> 01:14:41,713 So I don’t remember people talking about it much. 1638 01:14:43,913 --> 01:14:45,981 It’s like one of those Mandela effect things, 1639 01:14:45,981 --> 01:14:47,587 where for a long time a bunch of people 1640 01:14:47,587 --> 01:14:50,854 didn’t even know the Star Wars Christmas special existed. 1641 01:14:50,854 --> 01:14:53,626 As the internet grew, it became this sort 1642 01:14:53,626 --> 01:14:54,726 of like talking point. 1643 01:14:54,726 --> 01:14:55,958 Are you a Star Wars fan? 1644 01:14:55,958 --> 01:14:56,662 Yeah. 1645 01:14:56,662 --> 01:14:57,960 Do you know about the holiday special? 1646 01:14:57,960 --> 01:14:59,401 Now, I know you’re a Star Wars fan. 1647 01:14:59,401 --> 01:15:00,963 But this really showed a different level of commitment. 1648 01:15:00,963 --> 01:15:03,999 Like, most casual Star Wars fans don’t 1649 01:15:03,999 --> 01:15:05,539 know about the holiday special. 1650 01:15:05,539 --> 01:15:08,036 And so, all of a sudden, it kind of surfaced. 1651 01:15:08,036 --> 01:15:10,709 And that was when he tried to really bury it. 1652 01:15:10,709 --> 01:15:13,580 You tell somebody you can’t have something, 1653 01:15:13,580 --> 01:15:14,647 they want it even more. 1654 01:15:14,647 --> 01:15:19,388 So I got the Star Wars Holiday Special on a VHS tape, 1655 01:15:19,388 --> 01:15:20,620 sixth-generation copy. 1656 01:15:20,620 --> 01:15:22,919 That would have been valuable currency 1657 01:15:22,919 --> 01:15:24,855 to a prototypical nerd, Star Wars fan. 1658 01:15:24,855 --> 01:15:27,055 Years later, when I first interviewed George Lucas, 1659 01:15:27,055 --> 01:15:30,597 and we finished the main part of the interview, and I said, 1660 01:15:30,597 --> 01:15:32,434 I’ve got another question for you. 1661 01:15:32,434 --> 01:15:33,864 What about the holiday special? 1662 01:15:33,864 --> 01:15:36,097 And he said, "Oh, that damn thing." 1663 01:15:36,097 --> 01:15:40,640 He said, "If I could personally go out and find 1664 01:15:40,640 --> 01:15:44,512 all of the bootleg VHS tapes, I would smash them all." 1665 01:15:44,512 --> 01:15:48,846 And I told that anecdote at a convention in Australia. 1666 01:15:48,846 --> 01:15:50,617 That sort of went around the world. 1667 01:15:50,617 --> 01:15:54,555 George Lucas wishes there were never a holiday special, 1668 01:15:54,555 --> 01:15:56,557 and he would smash all the tapes. 1669 01:15:56,557 --> 01:15:59,560 I take some pride in having started that anecdote, 1670 01:15:59,560 --> 01:16:02,090 and I got it right from the horse’s mouth. 1671 01:16:02,090 --> 01:16:04,466 In a way, the fact that Lucas has 1672 01:16:04,466 --> 01:16:09,130 spent so much time denying it makes it 1673 01:16:09,130 --> 01:16:10,571 more popular for some people. 1674 01:16:10,571 --> 01:16:12,166 Because it seems like it’s something 1675 01:16:12,166 --> 01:16:15,004 they shouldn’t see or can’t see. 1676 01:16:20,042 --> 01:16:23,144 George didn’t say anything during production. 1677 01:16:23,144 --> 01:16:27,852 Because, again he had moved away to work on other things. 1678 01:16:27,852 --> 01:16:29,557 I blame-- not blame. 1679 01:16:29,557 --> 01:16:30,525 That’s the wrong word. 1680 01:16:30,525 --> 01:16:33,957 Lucas-- when Lucas walked away, he said, do whatever you want. 1681 01:16:33,957 --> 01:16:37,059 And then he got upset because we did whatever we wanted. 1682 01:16:37,059 --> 01:16:39,468 He knew it wasn’t going to be wonderful. 1683 01:16:39,468 --> 01:16:41,569 And really, I don’t think he saw it 1684 01:16:41,569 --> 01:16:44,099 until about the same time we all did. 1685 01:16:44,099 --> 01:16:46,035 And he immediately hated it. 1686 01:16:46,035 --> 01:16:48,510 Because I’m bold with George when we’re having 1687 01:16:48,510 --> 01:16:51,579 conversations, and I asked him. 1688 01:16:51,579 --> 01:16:54,813 And I was like, "Oh, man, what did you-- 1689 01:16:54,813 --> 01:16:56,947 how did you feel when you saw the first cut?" 1690 01:16:56,947 --> 01:17:01,457 And he was like, "Well, I did ask if there was 1691 01:17:01,457 --> 01:17:04,053 a way that we couldn’t air it. 1692 01:17:04,053 --> 01:17:05,989 Did it have to air?" 1693 01:17:05,989 --> 01:17:09,498 But it was a lot of money, and it had to air. 1694 01:17:09,498 --> 01:17:11,533 To this day, I’ve never met George Lucas. 1695 01:17:11,533 --> 01:17:13,865 All I heard was he tried to buy the negatives 1696 01:17:13,865 --> 01:17:17,033 and never ever showed this again after it aired. 1697 01:17:17,033 --> 01:17:22,005 I don’t blame anybody, but he is the only person who really 1698 01:17:22,005 --> 01:17:23,039 could have controlled it. 1699 01:17:23,039 --> 01:17:24,777 You know, all the Star Wars actors 1700 01:17:24,777 --> 01:17:28,715 were in this thing playing the roles that they made famous 1701 01:17:28,715 --> 01:17:29,584 a year earlier. 1702 01:17:29,584 --> 01:17:31,685 And now, the guy who created those roles 1703 01:17:31,685 --> 01:17:34,985 for them, George Lucas, says, eh, I’m not 1704 01:17:34,985 --> 01:17:38,186 really associated with this. 1705 01:17:42,927 --> 01:17:46,733 I have my name on all the good things I’ve done 1706 01:17:46,733 --> 01:17:49,197 and all the bad things I’ve done. 1707 01:17:50,198 --> 01:17:53,971 But maybe if I could have taken my name off of the bad things 1708 01:17:53,971 --> 01:17:55,269 I would have. 1709 01:17:55,269 --> 01:17:57,546 George, to be fair, hasn’t been out there 1710 01:17:57,546 --> 01:17:59,581 going, like, I hate the Christmas special. 1711 01:17:59,581 --> 01:18:02,584 It’s not like he’s lamenting it loudly. 1712 01:18:02,584 --> 01:18:05,213 But it’s very-- he’s made it clear over the years 1713 01:18:05,213 --> 01:18:06,148 that he ain’t into this. 1714 01:18:06,148 --> 01:18:08,854 I think, at the time, when the holiday special was broadcast, 1715 01:18:08,854 --> 01:18:12,627 it was not considered to be a big failure or giant 1716 01:18:12,627 --> 01:18:15,289 anomaly that it is considered to be today. 1717 01:18:15,289 --> 01:18:17,027 I don’t know for sure, but I certainly 1718 01:18:17,027 --> 01:18:18,259 didn’t hear from anybody that there 1719 01:18:18,259 --> 01:18:22,131 was any fallout from the show, that anybody was fired. 1720 01:18:22,131 --> 01:18:24,573 I think life just went on at Lucasfilm. 1721 01:18:24,573 --> 01:18:27,268 The whole purpose of this show was to sell toys to kids. 1722 01:18:27,268 --> 01:18:31,712 There were also going to be action figures of the Wookiee 1723 01:18:31,712 --> 01:18:32,240 family. 1724 01:18:32,240 --> 01:18:34,946 We only know of one set of the prototype Wookiee action 1725 01:18:34,946 --> 01:18:38,246 figures that Kenner was maybe going to make. 1726 01:18:38,246 --> 01:18:40,083 But there were the four action figures-- 1727 01:18:40,083 --> 01:18:44,120 Itchy, Chewbacca, Mallatobuck, and Lumpy. 1728 01:18:44,120 --> 01:18:45,924 So clearly, somebody thought that there 1729 01:18:45,924 --> 01:18:50,599 was money to be made in doing merchandise based on the Star 1730 01:18:50,599 --> 01:18:52,095 Wars Holiday Special. 1731 01:18:52,095 --> 01:18:53,701 But that never happened. 1732 01:18:53,701 --> 01:18:57,166 When something is that huge, people 1733 01:18:57,166 --> 01:19:01,907 can’t control, as hard as they do, the way it’s 1734 01:19:01,907 --> 01:19:02,875 going to be marketed. 1735 01:19:02,875 --> 01:19:05,141 An advertising series in Japan for Panasonic, 1736 01:19:05,141 --> 01:19:11,246 between 1989 and 1993, and they used George Lucas and all 1737 01:19:11,246 --> 01:19:12,885 of the characters in Star Wars. 1738 01:19:12,885 --> 01:19:13,886 And I saw the contract. 1739 01:19:13,886 --> 01:19:18,792 There was a series of penalties if any of these commercials 1740 01:19:18,792 --> 01:19:19,628 showed in the US. 1741 01:19:19,628 --> 01:19:22,191 And in terms of embarrassment to the franchise, 1742 01:19:22,191 --> 01:19:25,260 I remember a commercial where Darth Vader was fighting 1743 01:19:25,260 --> 01:19:27,328 with a lightsaber, and then it shorted out, 1744 01:19:27,328 --> 01:19:29,836 and he opened up the hilt and the batteries were dead. 1745 01:19:29,836 --> 01:19:33,642 Energizer bunny, like, goes cymballing through the frame. 1746 01:19:33,642 --> 01:19:38,174 And I was like, there goes the dignity of the great Sith Lord. 1747 01:19:38,174 --> 01:19:41,947 You can see the awful George Lucas Super Live 1748 01:19:41,947 --> 01:19:44,147 Adventure in seven parts from Japan 1749 01:19:44,147 --> 01:19:46,182 from 1993 on the internet. 1750 01:19:46,182 --> 01:19:47,249 And it’s like a stage show. 1751 01:19:47,249 --> 01:19:50,252 And it covered not only like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. 1752 01:19:50,252 --> 01:19:52,023 I mean, I think it was covering Tucker, 1753 01:19:52,023 --> 01:19:54,762 and it’s covering everything that Lucas has done. 1754 01:19:54,762 --> 01:19:57,864 That was all singing, all dancing stormtroopers. 1755 01:19:57,864 --> 01:19:59,965 I mean, you know, give me a break. 1756 01:19:59,965 --> 01:20:04,266 It’s just the machine is just going to take over. 1757 01:20:04,266 --> 01:20:09,645 And it’s like, why not make a holiday special? 1758 01:20:18,346 --> 01:20:22,053 And at that time, I have a feeling that George just 1759 01:20:22,053 --> 01:20:22,724 wasn’t-- 1760 01:20:22,724 --> 01:20:26,024 either he was too busy, or he didn’t fully understand 1761 01:20:26,024 --> 01:20:29,830 the changes that were happening, or maybe just figured this is 1762 01:20:29,830 --> 01:20:32,327 a variety show, who cares. You know? 1763 01:20:32,327 --> 01:20:36,133 A lot of people came into watching it thinking, oh, 1764 01:20:36,133 --> 01:20:39,433 we’re going to get a TV sequel to Star Wars. 1765 01:20:39,433 --> 01:20:43,107 It’s going to be a science fiction adventure show 1766 01:20:43,107 --> 01:20:44,075 and stuff like that? 1767 01:20:44,075 --> 01:20:46,011 And that’s never what it was. 1768 01:20:46,011 --> 01:20:47,683 It was a variety show. 1769 01:20:47,683 --> 01:20:49,212 It’s easy to poke fun at stuff after the fact, 1770 01:20:49,212 --> 01:20:52,248 and question how it happened, and sort of make fun of it. 1771 01:20:52,248 --> 01:20:57,088 It’s cliche, at this point, to crap on the Star Wars Holiday 1772 01:20:57,088 --> 01:20:57,759 Special. 1773 01:20:57,759 --> 01:20:58,386 It really is. 1774 01:20:58,386 --> 01:21:02,258 Everybody, without even having sat through the entire thing, 1775 01:21:02,258 --> 01:21:03,963 just instantly it’s a punch line. 1776 01:21:03,963 --> 01:21:06,735 The legacy of the Star Wars Holiday Special 1777 01:21:06,735 --> 01:21:10,167 is in how it impacted all of us fans. 1778 01:21:10,167 --> 01:21:12,972 And as people continue to create for Star Wars, 1779 01:21:12,972 --> 01:21:15,139 they’ll keep on adding these Easter eggs in. 1780 01:21:15,139 --> 01:21:16,910 You’ll keep on seeing things in the background-- 1781 01:21:16,910 --> 01:21:22,014 these callbacks, these little things that tip the hat to you, 1782 01:21:22,014 --> 01:21:26,084 the viewer, that this is made by someone 1783 01:21:26,084 --> 01:21:27,217 who truly loves Star Wars. 1784 01:21:27,217 --> 01:21:30,726 Together we will rule the galaxy-- 1785 01:21:30,726 --> 01:21:32,321 Cut, cut, cut. 1786 01:21:32,321 --> 01:21:33,058 I quit. 1787 01:21:33,058 --> 01:21:35,225 This is the holiday special all over again. 1788 01:21:36,996 --> 01:21:39,966 The Glee Holiday Spectacular. 1789 01:21:42,936 --> 01:21:46,137 Our first ever, live-action holiday special. 1790 01:21:46,137 --> 01:21:48,304 What is it, Star Wars Christmas? 1791 01:21:49,437 --> 01:21:51,307 No, don’t be ridiculous. 1792 01:21:51,307 --> 01:21:53,111 That’s Wookiee Life Day. 1793 01:21:55,146 --> 01:21:56,884 I’ve got you now. 1794 01:21:58,787 --> 01:21:59,282 Sorry. 1795 01:21:59,282 --> 01:22:04,859 Yeah, I was hoping to be free for Life Day. 1796 01:22:04,859 --> 01:22:06,025 I love these connective tissues. 1797 01:22:06,025 --> 01:22:08,929 I love the fact that we’ve taken Life Day, 1798 01:22:08,929 --> 01:22:12,097 and we said, no, November 17, the day the special was 1799 01:22:12,097 --> 01:22:13,131 released, is now Life Day. 1800 01:22:13,131 --> 01:22:16,937 So on Earth, in the Disney Parks, in the world, 1801 01:22:16,937 --> 01:22:17,531 we celebrate it. 1802 01:22:17,531 --> 01:22:20,402 As much as Lucasfilm might not want to acknowledge its 1803 01:22:20,402 --> 01:22:24,373 existence, we’ve seen it infiltrate Disney+. 1804 01:22:24,373 --> 01:22:29,851 We’ve seen merchandise all over the theme parks themed 1805 01:22:29,851 --> 01:22:30,445 around Life Day. 1806 01:22:30,445 --> 01:22:32,315 No one’s talking about the holiday special directly, 1807 01:22:32,315 --> 01:22:36,451 but we are, as a fandom, embracing Life Day. 1808 01:22:36,451 --> 01:22:39,025 Maybe this could mean, down the road, at some point, 1809 01:22:39,025 --> 01:22:41,962 they might release the entire holiday special. 1810 01:22:41,962 --> 01:22:43,799 Who knows? 1811 01:22:54,304 --> 01:22:55,404 I think he should embrace it. 1812 01:22:55,404 --> 01:22:59,375 I mean, like, it’s not his fault. He didn’t do it-- 1813 01:22:59,375 --> 01:23:00,211 I don’t think. 1814 01:23:00,211 --> 01:23:03,412 And am I going to stand on a soapbox 1815 01:23:03,412 --> 01:23:05,480 and proclaim that this is canon? 1816 01:23:05,480 --> 01:23:06,151 No. 1817 01:23:06,151 --> 01:23:09,088 But it’s really interesting, and it’s really fun. 1818 01:23:09,088 --> 01:23:12,157 The Star Wars special is kind of an anomaly for fans, 1819 01:23:12,157 --> 01:23:14,995 because it was kind of the one big thing 1820 01:23:14,995 --> 01:23:19,164 that Lucasfilm did before it got its act together and got 1821 01:23:19,164 --> 01:23:22,464 its system together to make sure that things like this 1822 01:23:22,464 --> 01:23:24,070 never happened again. 1823 01:23:24,070 --> 01:23:25,335 It’s just a curiosity. 1824 01:23:25,335 --> 01:23:29,878 I mean, the Star Wars universe is so different now. 1825 01:23:29,878 --> 01:23:31,110 As much as I, as a fan, would love 1826 01:23:31,110 --> 01:23:35,378 to have a nice, pristine copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special, 1827 01:23:35,378 --> 01:23:38,051 I understand why he probably wouldn’t want 1828 01:23:38,051 --> 01:23:39,151 to put that out in the world. 1829 01:23:39,151 --> 01:23:42,550 You know, it may not be, like, our favorite part of the Star 1830 01:23:42,550 --> 01:23:44,552 Wars mythos, but it has its place. 1831 01:23:44,552 --> 01:23:47,126 It’s an important part of Star Wars history. 1832 01:23:47,126 --> 01:23:48,963 Star Wars fans are collectors, right? 1833 01:23:48,963 --> 01:23:54,166 So it does have, built into it, more than any film or TV 1834 01:23:54,166 --> 01:23:59,633 show made for Star Wars, this exclusive collectibility 1835 01:23:59,633 --> 01:24:00,469 element of it. 1836 01:24:00,469 --> 01:24:02,075 I don’t think Disney+ should put it out. 1837 01:24:02,075 --> 01:24:05,078 Part of the thing that makes it so wonderful 1838 01:24:05,078 --> 01:24:07,344 is that it still has that bootleg feel to it. 1839 01:24:07,344 --> 01:24:11,018 I think it’s actually surprising that Lucasfilm and Disney 1840 01:24:11,018 --> 01:24:14,054 haven’t released the holiday special in some format. 1841 01:24:14,054 --> 01:24:15,352 Why let the bootlegs run the show? 1842 01:24:15,352 --> 01:24:17,926 They should actually have an official release of it. 1843 01:24:17,926 --> 01:24:19,026 Let the audience discover it. 1844 01:24:19,026 --> 01:24:21,457 And when they discover it, it means more. 1845 01:24:21,457 --> 01:24:23,195 Here’s the one way they should release it. 1846 01:24:23,195 --> 01:24:27,661 They should let George Lucas have it and then put 1847 01:24:27,661 --> 01:24:28,530 all the crazy-- 1848 01:24:28,530 --> 01:24:31,203 just let him George Lucas the hell out of it. 1849 01:24:31,203 --> 01:24:32,138 I would love to do-- 1850 01:24:32,138 --> 01:24:34,569 someday, maybe on Disney+, we’ll do a holiday special too. 1851 01:24:34,569 --> 01:24:38,342 Do you think we’ll ever see another Star Wars holiday 1852 01:24:38,342 --> 01:24:39,013 special. 1853 01:24:39,013 --> 01:24:40,476 Not if I have anything to say about it. 1854 01:24:40,476 --> 01:24:42,445 Maybe there’s a version that none of us 1855 01:24:42,445 --> 01:24:44,414 can imagine that would be genius. 1856 01:24:44,414 --> 01:24:45,118 Yeah. 1857 01:24:45,118 --> 01:24:46,185 Wouldn’t that be wonderful? 1858 01:24:46,185 --> 01:24:47,153 Oh, that’d be insane. 1859 01:24:47,153 --> 01:24:48,517 I got to pitch that to them. We’ll see. 1860 01:24:48,517 --> 01:24:50,354 If you want to see a holiday special, let Disney+ know. 1861 01:24:50,354 --> 01:24:51,454 Wow, you heard it here first. 1862 01:24:51,454 --> 01:24:55,359 I also believe that George Lucas is, at his heart, 1863 01:24:55,359 --> 01:24:57,130 an experimental filmmaker, and he 1864 01:24:57,130 --> 01:25:00,364 wants to make things that are weird and different. 1865 01:25:00,364 --> 01:25:02,399 And the holiday special is that. 1866 01:25:02,399 --> 01:25:06,403 The greatest crime of the Star Wars Christmas and/or Holiday 1867 01:25:06,403 --> 01:25:11,309 Special is that it ain’t Star Wars. 1868 01:25:11,309 --> 01:25:12,673 But to be fair, what is? 1869 01:25:12,673 --> 01:25:15,511 At this point, George Lucas is probably 1870 01:25:15,511 --> 01:25:18,184 like, you know what, it’s been out there. 1871 01:25:18,184 --> 01:25:18,679 Whatever. 1872 01:25:18,679 --> 01:25:19,515 I’ve moved on. 1873 01:25:19,515 --> 01:25:20,582 It’s a thing that happened. 1874 01:25:20,582 --> 01:25:22,452 But if Star Wars Holiday Special kind of sneaks in there, 1875 01:25:22,452 --> 01:25:23,585 I don’t think he cares anymore. 1876 01:25:23,585 --> 01:25:26,962 Though, I don’t think he’d want another one. 1877 01:25:35,003 --> 01:25:38,237 George once asked us, please, never mention it again. 1878 01:25:38,237 --> 01:25:40,635 And I said, George, we should own that. 1879 01:25:40,635 --> 01:25:43,605 Because it shows that everybody’s fallible. 1880 01:25:43,605 --> 01:25:44,606 Everybody makes mistakes. 1881 01:25:44,606 --> 01:25:48,049 When you work in any project, you fall in love. 1882 01:25:48,049 --> 01:25:49,446 What else are you going to do? 1883 01:25:49,446 --> 01:25:51,646 I have worked on shows that were really popular 1884 01:25:51,646 --> 01:25:55,584 and shows that were horrible, and I didn’t work any more 1885 01:25:55,584 --> 01:25:58,257 or less hard on any of them. 1886 01:25:59,093 --> 01:26:03,064 Every filmmaker has to grapple with not everything is 1887 01:26:03,064 --> 01:26:03,757 going to be a hit. 1888 01:26:03,757 --> 01:26:05,429 There is no being an artist without failure. 1889 01:26:05,429 --> 01:26:07,629 There just-- there is no being an artist without failure. 1890 01:26:07,629 --> 01:26:14,141 Time has a real amazing way of allowing 1891 01:26:14,141 --> 01:26:15,175 you to embrace the past. 1892 01:26:15,175 --> 01:26:17,111 It’s a very difficult place to be 1893 01:26:17,111 --> 01:26:20,444 an artist on the public stage making movies. 1894 01:26:20,444 --> 01:26:23,348 Because everybody is watching you, 1895 01:26:23,348 --> 01:26:25,185 and many people are rooting for you to fail. 1896 01:26:25,185 --> 01:26:29,288 All my life, since the Donny and Marie Show was created, 1897 01:26:29,288 --> 01:26:32,786 I’ve wanted nothing to do with it. 1898 01:26:32,786 --> 01:26:35,624 If you look at other franchises, they 1899 01:26:35,624 --> 01:26:39,298 would die to have the fan base of Star Wars. 1900 01:26:39,298 --> 01:26:40,101 It’s crazy. 1901 01:26:40,101 --> 01:26:42,136 Like, Star Trek would love to have what Star Wars has. 1902 01:26:42,136 --> 01:26:44,072 They don’t have anything like it. 1903 01:26:44,072 --> 01:26:44,666 Nobody does. 1904 01:26:44,666 --> 01:26:46,371 When you have a bunch of people that love something 1905 01:26:46,371 --> 01:26:50,144 and take it into their hearts, they claim it. 1906 01:26:50,144 --> 01:26:55,248 And when these things don’t behave the way we want them to, 1907 01:26:55,248 --> 01:26:59,747 well, it seems like we’ve become a culture that doesn’t 1908 01:26:59,747 --> 01:27:00,682 know how to handle that. 1909 01:27:00,682 --> 01:27:03,619 Watch the good stuff, and either ignore the bad stuff 1910 01:27:03,619 --> 01:27:06,655 or delight in the bad stuff ironically. 1911 01:27:06,655 --> 01:27:08,063 I have learned to embrace it. 1912 01:27:08,063 --> 01:27:12,496 I’ve learned to say, you know, I’m not embarrassed about it 1913 01:27:12,496 --> 01:27:13,794 as much. 1914 01:27:13,794 --> 01:27:17,138 You know, I did the best I could at the time. 1915 01:27:17,138 --> 01:27:18,073 That’s what was popular. 1916 01:27:18,073 --> 01:27:21,406 That’s what people were buying and watching, 1917 01:27:21,406 --> 01:27:25,806 and it was appropriate for the day. 1918 01:27:25,806 --> 01:27:30,448 I think failure defines people sometimes more than success. 1919 01:27:30,448 --> 01:27:34,551 I think failure is one of the great motivators. 1920 01:27:34,551 --> 01:27:40,392 The Star Wars Holiday Special led to stuff like Andor. 1921 01:27:40,392 --> 01:27:43,560 That all of that failure is part of that process. 1922 01:27:43,560 --> 01:27:46,761 Someway, somewhere, somehow, somebody 1923 01:27:46,761 --> 01:27:50,369 is going to make fun of you. 1924 01:27:50,369 --> 01:27:51,568 Don’t let it bother you. 1925 01:27:51,568 --> 01:27:52,470 Move ahead. 1926 01:27:52,470 --> 01:27:53,306 Be an artist. 1927 01:27:53,306 --> 01:27:56,672 Sometimes the magic happens, and sometimes it’s 1928 01:27:56,672 --> 01:27:59,147 the Star Wars Holiday Special. 1929 01:28:33,775 --> 01:28:36,910 There was a new flash in between the commercials, 1930 01:28:36,910 --> 01:28:40,815 and the bootleg had all the commercials from 1978. 1931 01:28:40,815 --> 01:28:42,751 And that was actually-- eventually, 1932 01:28:42,751 --> 01:28:43,851 that became part of the charm. 1933 01:28:43,851 --> 01:28:46,359 They’ve become part of this movie. 1934 01:28:46,359 --> 01:28:48,691 And the anchor is the funniest part is. 1935 01:28:48,691 --> 01:28:50,726 Because he’s just there, and he’s like 1936 01:28:50,726 --> 01:28:51,760 fighting the frizzies. 1937 01:28:51,760 --> 01:28:53,267 You know, tonight at 11:00. 1938 01:28:53,267 --> 01:28:55,335 Fighting the frizzies at 11:00. 1939 01:28:55,335 --> 01:29:01,176 I’ve been surreptitiously made a cult figure, 1940 01:29:01,176 --> 01:29:02,243 whether I wanted to or not. 1941 01:29:02,243 --> 01:29:04,278 And then they parodied that on South Park. 1942 01:29:04,278 --> 01:29:07,809 And now, fighting the frizzies. 1943 01:29:07,809 --> 01:29:09,910 Why are they doing this? 1944 01:29:09,910 --> 01:29:11,252 Why the parody? 1945 01:29:11,252 --> 01:29:16,422 Nobody remembers the serious things and the profound things 1946 01:29:16,422 --> 01:29:18,721 that I did in my career, but they all 1947 01:29:18,721 --> 01:29:22,659 remember fighting the frizzies at 11:00.