Like many geeks of a certain age in far-away galaxies out there, when I heard there was a new documentary about the gloriously bad “Star Wars Holiday Special,” I threw away my final bingo card this year and filled out a new one.
How could any old-school “Star Wars” fan not want to explore the how and why behind one of the most campy, hard-to-watch holiday specials of all-time? Filled as it is with long stretches of unintelligible dialogue by Wookies with names like Lumpy; interpretive disco dancing by miniature hot freaks in green pantyhose; humiliated original cast members contractually obligated to act out a stupid plot on janky sets; and bizarre cameos by Jefferson Starship (performing the terrible “Light The Sky on Fire”) and aging celebs like Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur of “The Golden Girls,” the latter playing Ackmena, wise-cracking bartender at Mos Eisley cantina. Oy vey.
I was pleasantly surprised that new documentary, “A Disturbance in the Force,” directed by Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak, is well done and comprehensive, plus the best part may be that you don’t have to watch the actual 1978 special to get all the same nostalgic laughs. While the documentary is populated with the usual parade of grown fanboys from Patton Oswalt and Seth Green to Weird Al and Kevin Smith, the more interesting interviews come from the players who were actually there and participated some way in this royal fiasco, then had to live with that decision for the the rest of their lives. The original special is so bad that years later, George Lucas, the creator of “Star Wars,” famously fumed: “If I had time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.” Well, at least we know he won’t go back and add unnecessary CGI to it.
For years, the “Star Wars Holiday Special” was a cherished bond of sorts shared among true diehard fans; especially after we had been spiritually disemboweled by the Muppefication and plummeting quality of the franchise. It used to be hard to find a copy of the holiday special, or as Weird Al calls it, “the holy grail”; most of us had to track down a severely degraded bootleg, or maybe burn a copy of a copy from Fan Video.
Watching the new doc, I realized that I am a prime example of its target audience, having grown up in the eye of the pop culture storm that was the original “Star Wars” phenomenon. In 1977, I was in kindergarten when “Star Wars” dropped like a bomb on the movie-going public, and I vividly remember seeing it multiple times at Cloverleaf Mall in the South Side and memorizing the dialogue (my kindergarten teacher confirmed this). To give you an idea of the hyper-charged atmosphere, “Star Wars” was arguably the biggest pop culture moment since the Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Once we could no longer see the original film in theaters, kids became like junkies starving for a fix. Four decades later, I can still recall how excited I was to watch the holiday special, which featured much of the original cast. You best believe my 7-year-old self was decked out in my blue “Star Wars” jammies and glued to a tiny color TV set with those loud, clunky dials on the night of Friday, Nov. 17, 1978.
But then the special started. And what 13 million of us watched that night on CBS – after a brief message that “The Incredible Hulk” and “Wonder Woman” would not be shown – was a grueling exercise in bad variety show theater, created by allegedly coked-out writers who knew nothing about the “Star Wars” universe and were accustomed to writing for a much older, much cornier audience. I can remember being bored, confused and mad that my main rapscallion, Han Solo, and his “walking carpet” buddy Chewbacca were only featured briefly at the beginning and very end of the special (what a gyp). That sinking feeling I had after it was over was probably my first lesson in just how soul-crushing capitalism can be when your dreams are co-opted by hacks and dashed on the rocks for a quick buck.
By comparison, watching the new documentary is a light-hearted joy. We learn early on that the real motivation behind the special was a guy named Charlie Lippincott, the genius marketer behind the world of “Star Wars” merchandising. If you were around for the original, this documentary will likely trigger memories for some of you, as it did for me, of being in a mob of kids inside the Toys-R-Us off Midlothian Turnpike, hoping to get my first “Star Wars” figure; instead, as the doc shows, we were given vouchers since the toys were selling out faster than they could make them.
The central question behind the special is solved early: Why did director Lucas let this monstrosity happen? The answer comes, as it often does in Hollywood, down to bad blood with a studio exec. At the time, Lucas had hoped to use the popularity of “Star Wars” to re-launch his 1971 sci-fi film, “THX 1338.” But former head of Warner Brothers, Frank Wells, in one of the dumbest predictions in Hollywood history, told Lucas during a meeting to forget it, the “Star Wars” phenomenon would be over in a year. So did a ticked off Lucas run and cry in his malted milkshake to pal Steven Spielberg? Nope. Instead he took the choke collar off his marketing and publicity team and unleashed a blitzkrieg on the American public, populating any and every weak-ass TV show with “Star Wars” spoofs; alongside all the toys, albums, comic books, bedsheets, and various other bells and whistles that populated my youth. Memorabilia was quite literally our daily bread; even Wonder Bread had collectible “Star Wars” cards stashed into its soft-loaf packaging.
The underlying lesson seems obvious: Don’t make business decisions in the throes of blinding anger, kids. Lucas should’ve thought twice about having his original characters deliver lines written by comedy writers like Bruce Villanch (“The Hollywood Squares”), or having Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia singing a terribly cheesy ballad in celebration of “Life Day.” (For years afterward, Fisher would bust out a VHS tape of “The Holiday Special” at her own drug-fueled Hollywood parties, which makes more sense than showing it to kids.)
The most hilarious parts of the documentary come from watching the vintage clips of variety TV shows of the era; like the Osmond brothers dancing as Stormtroopers, with Kris Kristofferson howling along as a bearded, honky tonk Han Solo (or Ham Salad if you’ve seen the other great “Star Wars” goof from 1978, “Hardware Wars”). Hearing R2D2 chirp like a dry basketball sneaker to Donny and Marie’s lip-synching is worth the price of admission. Sure it’s funny now, but I can remember being offended at the time: Imagine being a starry-eyed, hopeful child and seeing Chewbacca with his big hairy arm wrapped around arch nemesis Darth Vader on the Osmond show in 1978? Minds were blown and not in a cool, jump-to-lightspeed way. It just wasn’t right.
I don’t want to give away much more, but there is some cool side trivia you learn from watching this documentary. Like the fact that legendary comedian Robin Williams almost brought his then-new character, Mork from Ork, into the “Star Wars Holiday Special,” but he was rejected by show writers Ken and Mitzie Welch (“Carol Burnett Show” staffers and the adoptive parents of the great musician, Gillian Welch, which isn’t mentioned here).
My only complaint about the Blu-ray copy of this documentary is that it screams out for extra features, like uncut selections from the variety shows that spoofed “Star Wars.” (I really wanted to watch the Richard Pryor sketch set in the cantina after seeing a snippet of it … and maybe more of Redd Foxx wearing a fly Jawa cloak on “Donny and Marie.”) Better still would’ve been a second disc featuring a pristine version of the “Star Wars Holiday Special” with a scene-by-scene menu, to more easily digest it. But who am I kidding? Securing the rights would have been impossible. Lucas would probably rather commit hari-kari than embrace this pop culture moment for what it was: Video evidence that some 1970s drugs were far worse than others for the brain, and that when your ego gets offended, it’s best to cool down before signing any contracts.
