Thursday, December 17, 2009

Now, for more seasonal pain: The Star Wars Holiday Special

Worse than Dylan? You decide.

I'd had this up once before, and the link went bad.

It's back. And it has not improved with age.

This time it's accompanied by an article discussing its history, impact, and badness — though I don't think full justice is done the profundity of said badness.

How bad is it? Oh, it's bad. It's Carrie-Fischer-singing bad. It's Harvey Korman bad. It's Bea Arthur singing (and dancing) bad — and that, my friend, is bad.

Watch it and you'll understand why George Lucas is reported as saying, If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it."

The site I linked above includes the full special, in all its '70s splendor, complete with commercials. But for your convenience, and for all our punishment, here it is:



All I ask you to do is watch all the opening credits, with the full cast. Merely do that, and you will have been badly punished. But watch the whole thing...?

No. No no. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. You have better things to do... like measure your fingernails, or make ring-tones out of your dog's bark.

18 comments:

timb said...

Just one more reason to be a Trekkie. :)

greglong said...

It's good to know that long, long ago in a galaxy far, far, away, they also have "holidays."

Trinian said...

Whoawhoawhoa, no. Just, no.

Herding Grasshoppers said...

The icing on the cake... Harvey Korman's parody of Julia Childs.

Oh, this is so very, very BAD!

Brad Williams said...

Heeeey....The link is gone for me. And when I tried it on Firefox, your blog was in a different font? Is this how it's supposed to look?

Anyway, it could be that Lucas found your link and broke it with his sledgehammer. Or else my computer got whacked.

SolaMommy said...

I can't see it either, Brad :-(

Tom Chantry said...

You know what's awful? Being as I was 8 when this came out, I thought it was way cool! We actually get to see how Wookies live! Then I couldn't figure out why they never ran it again. I had forgotten it entirely until I saw your post. I went to the link and made it through about five minutes of the Wookie family grunting at each other before I just couldn't stand it any further.

Thanks for posting!

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Click on Dan's link to the article and scroll down a bit and you can see it there.

Or slide bamboo under your fingernails.

Whatever.

Anonymous said...

Dan, this is providential, since my son and I were talking about this just a few weeks ago. Now I can share this SW badness with him...

SolaMommy said...

Oh dear...I should have chosen the bamboo.

sem said...

@Herding
The bamboo is preferable.

That was beyond bad. I was old enough but still do not remember that at all. Or maybe it was so traumatic I've repressed the memory. Yeah, that's it.

Paula said...

And let's all add Blondie's rendition of We Three Kings to our list of Tortured Tunes!!

Fred Butler said...

The cartoon was pretty cool.

CR said...

I fast forward the whole thing in a few minutes and obviously didn't want to waste time and was hoping to catch Darth Vader, but didn't. Maybe I'll watch the whole thing during my vacation in a couple of things.

But I'll say this, this is the one time, I don't mind political correctness and the called this thing a "Holiday" special instead of a Christmas special.

ockennedys said...

Wow, how is it that I've never heard of this?

DJP said...

Charmed life?

(c;

Fred Butler said...

Just watched a bit of it.

The acting and dialogue is just as bad as the movies. Art Carney must had been desperate for some money. And I was wondering if that is Mark Hamill before his auto accident that caused him to have reconstructive surgery on his face?

The commercials are really an added touch and are alone worth glancing through the thing. Especially the ones for the "new" 79 cars.

They have got to release the thing on Blu-ray. Goodness, could you imagine this in HD glory?

jazzact13 said...

And to thing, this was when Boba Fett was introduced.

No wonder he hates everyone.