JiminyJustin Aw that’s the beauty of it, an awful joke posted 2 years too late on this awful review about an awful movie. Like ogres, there’s layers to my terrible joke thought process. Someday I’ll forgive myself too, though.
JiminyJustin Yes, but don’t take me the wrong way. It’s awful at being a review but a masterpiece on every other level, and is probably the single best example of why I watch shameless hours of these hacks bullshit about movies everyday and have for years, representing what I’m assuming to be the criminally small amount of their viewing demographic of young women with a sense of humor. So yes, you completely agree with me. Good talk.
Deleted Last Jedi Scene plays Luke: Rey Your father was Lumpy Bacca! Rey: That’s not true! My father can’t be a type of cancer! Luke: No not the cancer! The Wookiee like Chewbacca! Rey: Oh
Wookies don't care what you are, they are just huge bollocked horny creatures you should never bend over within running distance of. They are like Cosby but without the date rape drugs.
He didn't mess up his face. Mark even said he didn't in an interview. He was in an accident, but it wasn't severe in the slightest. This was all just rumors.
"It was a wonderful time, but I had no idea it was even part of the whole Star Wars-thing. I just remember singing to a bunch of people with funny heads." - Bea Arthur "George gave me a copy so I had something for parties when I wanted everyone to leave." - Carrie Fisher
@@omega1397 Watching movies with people who are high on coke *sounds* fun but rarely is. Of course I've never met or watched a movie with Carrie Fisher when she was still doing bumps, more's the pity, so she may have been the rare exception
LOL I just realized why the Wookies all wear robes during their ceremony. It's so that the producers didn't have to make dozens of Wookie costumes. All they had to do was make dozens of Wookie hands and heads and then give them all long flowing robes that covered every other part of their body. That was a lot cheaper!
IMDB Trivia: "George Lucas came up with the idea of focusing on Chewbacca's family. Writer Bruce Vilanch objected, because the dialogue would all be in the Wookiee language. He feared that the special would turn into "one long episode of Lassie." But Lucas refused to change it. According to Vilanch, Lucas originally intended for the story of Chewbacca's family to appear somewhere in the "Star Wars" saga." Also IMDB Trivia: "Bruce Vilanch has admitted that he was using cocaine heavily while helping to write the special."
honestly, I'm beginning to doubt all the coke usage. seems like everyone wants to just blame coke for what was in reality something horrible that was done completely (or mostly) sober, because it's such shit. they just don't want to admit they could have full knowingly done something like this. but they did. had they really used as much coke as they say they did, it would have been alot better. the blues brothers was filmed with a separate coke budget for cast and crew. that was good. not only because of coke, but it must have helped.
@@mjfan653 Christopher Hitchens was soaked in whiskey and he was Christopher fukin' Hitchens. My times soaked in whiskey I was intolerable. Do you see how different drugs affect people differently... The world could be awash in cocaine some would use their coke granted hours not to create Good things...like the star wars holiday special
@@mjfan653 I've actually never done coke but what I'm told is that you think you have amazing ideas and a ton of confidence. So you push your ideas and the other guys just go with it. Then when we look back 40 years later we see some serious turds that were easily products of coke. One that comes to mind is the Kiss album The Elder. It's their album version of the Christmas Special with a couple of decent tracks thrown in.
One of the things 'these kids today' don't get was this was dropped on TV in November (not exactly prime Holiday Special real estate at the time) and was only watched by about 12 million people (That sounds big but Love Boat had a bigger audience that week) and then vanished. If you, like me, were one of the ones who had seen it and made a joke about it or something people would look at you like you were crazy. On two distinct occasions I had self-professed Star Wars fans call me a liar. There was no internet to back you up, no IMDb. For 2 decades it was a secret pain we couldn't reveal.
I remember years after it aired, I started to feel like it was something I had dreamed. It didn't help that I probably didn't watch the whole thing; or maybe I fell asleep through it. Or maybe it was implanted in my brain at some point.
I have a vague memory of a stormtrooper ripping the head off a teddy bear. Did that happen? If so, I saw this special when it aired. If not, my little 4 year old brain must have gone pretty dark on its own. That head ripping memory is the only thing I remember from the special. Not Luke, Leia, or Han appearing, not the Cantina, not Carrie Fisher singing, not the first appearance of Boba Fett. Just a child wookie crying over a headless teddy bear.
I had one of those story books with accompanying record with parts of the Chewbacca family story. The record had been lost by one of my siblings, probably before I was born... but I had that book with a couple of still images as proof. I remember finally downloading and seeing it in the early 2000s from like limewire or something and finally seeing it. lol
Everybody talks about how Leo kept going despite bleeding from his hands for real in Django, but nobody talks about how Mike spits out his tooth and keeps talking about the SW Holiday Special.
17:45: Jay usually being so dead pan and straight face when speaking then perfectly doing a baby wookie impression out of nowhere was a highlight for me
Wait, if the cartoon section is a fictional story in the Star Wars universe, does that mean the live action Boba Fett in the other movies is a hardcore cosplayer?
There's a lot of weirdness in the special. Like, when the wookie family tunes in to a bar scene starring Bea Arthur. You'd think this was some kind of show playing in-universe, but then the empire troops show up and shut it down, which implies this is actually a real bar and these events are happening in real time as they watch. So, they have a channel that gives them surveillance footage of a bar, with multiple camera changes. Weird enough, but then Bea busts out a musical number, which we now know is happening not on an in-universe television show, but is happening at that very moment.
13 yr. old me sat through this whole mess when it aired. Back then Star Wars was my everything and I kept watching hoping it would get better, but it kept getting worse. Unless you were there, you can't truly know the horror of this thing
I was there too. I was 8 and it was a little "uncomfortable" when you are sitting there with mom and dad watching Wookie porn by the Christmas tree eating moms fresh baked Christmas cookies. Even at 8 I knew something was really wrong with the whole debacle, and Wookie porn sealed the deal.😲
When I see the new Star Wars VII teaser trailer, and Han says, "Chewie, we're home", I can't help but think they finally made it to Chewie's house for Life Day. And that Bea Arthur will start singing. JJ Abrams, MAKE IT HAPPEN!
@@TheCodefinder The pitch where Rey has a robot scalp because of a lumpy head and gets shipped with C3P0, the main conflict for the first half of the movie is joylessly trying to get neutral aliens to join the rebels, and the final fight is between a Luke who came back from being only halfway dead (who fights by spinning two lightsabers in a "veritable dervish") and an army of Snoke clones (who have perfect memory copying as well as a contradictory and ultimately useless backstory involving Obi-Wan Kenobi) is better than what we got
According to Wookiepedia, the first thing they filmed was Bea Arthur's musical number, along with the Jefferson Starship song and one other unnamed musical segment (Cirque du soleil bit? Grandpa's porno tape?!?!). Just those three segments cost them 1/4 of their entire budget!
Between Empire and Jedi Itchy and Malla also just die in a fire while Itchy's masterbating to Diana Ross and Malla starts a fire while cooking Bantha Rump and Art Karney just tells Chewie who was at the time going to save Han so he could have sex with Han and instead fucked Lando in Han's clothes while Lando wore a white guy mask and when Art Karney told him he drowned his sorrows at the Mos Eisley Cantina and sang with Bea Arthur and Harvey Koorman.
He was probably lying on a beach somewhere while they filmed this, laughing at the others who chose not to take a cut of the royalties/ merchandise monies...
+Pvt. William Hudson He probably watched the whole thing from his home with a martini all smug, and then the stock footage of him appeared at the end and he spit-took his drink like "Oh shit"...
This daytime holiday special version of Star Wars was kind of lucky to be broadcast A DAY BEFORE the Peoples Temple mass suicide/massacre. The latter completly obliterated anybody's chance to mock the first in the mainstream media which spent months to cover the massacre. Otherwise, everyone would mock the Holiday Special endlessly, which could destroy Star Wars franchise to go on as we know.
@@johnbacon4997 Holiday Special was aired on CBS in NOVEMBER 17 1978 and the Peoples Temple incident happened NOVEMBER 18 1978. I think that sinister coincidence worked in favor of Star Wars franchise because this entertainment failure was timely superceded by the enormity of an unprecedented real event - it was the biggest civilian loss before the 9/11 in USA at the time. It's pretty obvious the medias rather jumped to the massacre to cover it than spent time to mockingly target a simple (quite costly though for production staff) failure...
Here's what I don't get... They clearly had *some* money to throw around. There's a lot of optical stuff going on. The animation sequence, the sets they did build, the number of guest stars they got... Why not just do an actual STAR WARS two hour TV episode? Like Han and Chewie on some kind of a smuggling mission and Luke and Leia and 3PO doing cameo work? Fewer guest stars, all your money can go into FX and sets and the idea would have been more focused and fun. ...Right?
Best screen shot at 19:04: Jay looks amusingly intrigued Mike is angrily confused Jack is just horrified speechless Rich is amused by the situation but totally indifferent otherwise Josh is disappointed
If the Wookies wear robes for this holiday, that would mean that they actually can wear clothes and are just a race of nudists who happen to have fur through luck and accident.
+hopscotchoblivion Its just classic rule of 90% of content are shit. Most of them attempt to compensate the lack of talent or notable content in their videos like showing their faces even though it adds no value whatsoever or awful annoying voiceovers/sound effects/music. We know who they are.
In regards to the Imperial officer saying "Okay, we'll send out a search party to look for the missing Storm Trooper"... You know, sometimes when you work in customer care, you'll just say anything to get people to hang up. You go "Sure, sure, we'll do that" to get rid of the rambling idiot on the line and after they hang up you suggest to Grandma Tarkin that you take off a nuke the entire site from orbit, since it's the only way to be sure.
George Lucas came up with the idea of focusing on Chewbacca's family. Writer Bruce Vilanch objected, because the dialogue would all be in the Wookiee language, but Lucas refused to change it. According to Vilanch, Lucas originally intended for the story of Chewbacca's family to appear somewhere in the "Star Wars" saga. Taken from the IMDB Trivia page. The very core of the disaster was his idea.
You have to understand what a mindfuck the Star Wars Holiday Special was. It was an hour and a half long and was the first Star Wars thing to come out after the original movie. It could have been another Star Wars so far as we knew. Instead it was Bea Arthur singing and Harvey Korman in drag. There was no VCRs at that time. I watched it live and only once.
Roldo Mustache quite roldo you speak of forgotten and forbidden texts if these self loving tweeters grow to understand the power of the true written language and the power of the paper information theyll be unstoppable you fool with the instant creation of communication coupled with the wisdom that comes from reading the text upon the sacred surface of paper dating back thousands theyll undo all of our plans and rise up and take over and leave us to die and coupled with the magicks of doing math in your head you might as well give them the power of GOD your insane if you dont stop your actions yourself the elders will.
Roldo Mustache Actually, my generation does remember physical paper checks (there's not currently a generation too young to remember them since they're still in widespread use, fyi), though the word you were looking for is "check register", not "checking booklet". But more to the point, either Jay's impression of George Lucas is flipping through the pages of his register with his index and middle finger from the center such that they'll obstruct his view of the entries on each page instead of flipping with his thumb from the side like a normal person would, or the imitation is of performing a scroll gesture on a touch screen. For your reference: 22:52. Also, if you'd looked closer at my wording, you might have noticed that by using the noun "impression" as I did in saying "Jay's impression of George Lucas" puts an emphasis on the action itself. Had I meant it to say that George Lucas couldn't have checked his bank account without use of a smartphone or tablet, the phrasing might have been "I love how Jay imitating George Lucas checking his bank account would imply that the man had a smartphone or tablet in 1977-78". If you have any more condescending or snarky quips that reenforces your sense of superiority to a youth population that has no experience with (what you believe to be) obsolete technology that you've had to use in your lifetime, feel free to air them here. I know living in a changing world can be scary when you start falling behind the times, and it's good to talk it out.
cerickNY ... and you completely missed the joke like a blackbird recon jet flying over any city below sea level. and apparently dont understand written sarcasm so you are even more out of touch with todays tech then you so think i am. using terms as forbiden in terms of paper information true power of it magicks of math sacred surface that is paper i thought i made it enough with the over the top words it was supposed to be a joke but i guess next time ill just do this (btw this is a joke incase anyone thinks this is serious ok good now no one can get all holier then thou responses) just to clarify when a humorous reply is being constructed.
This special is easy to explain if you keep it in context of the day. 1. George Lucas had given up ALL of his direct profits from Star Wars to get it made. All he had left was the licensing and merchandising. The network threw a ton of money at him to make this thing. Remember this was BEFORE the Kenner toys became a 30 year juggernaut. This was Georges only major payday for Star Wars. (and to put it in perspective without this sort of thing we would not have ever seen Empire Strikes Back. Yes it is like dealing Meth to und the Sistine Chappel.) 2. For the time period this was made, these insane horrid variety shows were the word of the day. The Big Show, Captain and Taniel, Donny and Marie, Every Horrid Christmas Special ever, Bing Crosby etc. The same climate that gave us David Bowie dueting "Little Drummer Boy" with Bing gave us this turd. etc. That's what they were making. It really makes you almost appreciate the worst examples of modern "reality TV". It is this awful because this is exactly what the networks wanted.
hey hey now! I am sure I am not alone in quietly hoping that some day Lego will give us the long prayed for "Star Wars Cantina Bea Arthur" minifig! I refuse to give up hope!
Even today we often get that same sort of schlocky, thrown-together Christmas special. They get a celebrity host or two, a few musical guests of varying talent, throw up some cheap sets and pad out the running time with bland routines and bits that are sure to be completely inoffensive to Grandma sitting in her recliner. It's a pretty well-established formula, and in that context the SW special seems like less of an aberration.
I hope you guys actually did give duplicates out to people. Let the shame of the Star Wars Holiday Special never fade from George Lucas's mind! I mean sure, he's got the prequels and Crystal Skull to haunt him, but apparently he's actually ashamed of this one so it has a special place in the world.
Lucas couldn't give a damn. His fake concern is an affectation designed to make him look like a creative artist that always wants to achieve perfection.
The problem is that the star war holiday special is not entertaining, it is not "so bad that is good", it is just bad, horribly painfully bad. Imagine if George Lucus said we should all pull out are toenails for entertainment and then you recommend we should actually do that just to remind George Lucus how much he fucked up saying that, that is figuratively what you are doing now recommending we hurt our selves by watching this travisty.
Somewhere on youtube there has to be the TV episode from the 70's where Adam West plays Batman on the stage for a a variety series. I just cannot think of the title of that variety series.
As Gus Grissom said as part of the reason why lunar landings should be manned missions: "...in the final analysis only man can fully evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other Men." The same can be said for the enigma that is The Stars Wars Holiday Special
James Gunn, writer and director of Marvel's 'The Guardians of the Galaxy' unironically loves 'The Star Wars Holiday Special'. Disney allowed him to make 'The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special' after he pitched it for Disney+ and then wrote a script for it in 3 days.
"If this was 15 years ago and the internet and all the information that we have now didn't exist, I would say that this is worth seeking out. But now, you can find it everything you need to know about it online without actually having to sit through it and that's far more interesting that having to sit through it." Jay This is a good point. Instead of watching the Star Wars Special, you could just watch a review of it.
I highly doubt Disney would do that, even though they SHOULD restore it and release it on Disney+, and eventually on Blu-ray with special features and on DVD, just for current Star Wars fans to know about it and see how bad it is. But they shouldn't make ads for either the Disney+ stream or the home video releases on TV, on the Internet, or anywhere else in the media to avoid George Lucas finding out about it easily. But, then again, I'm pretty sure he'd find out about what was done eventually, so...
All I can imagine after watching the most recent "wheel of the worst" is that Mark Hamel had that Teddy Bear Air Bag (Teddy B-Air Bag harhar) during his accident. "I will fuck up your face..."
You know, I watch these videos, and I think to myself: "why do these people not have a podcast?" They would absolutely kill it doing a podcast. They're all very funny, and they have lots of things to talk about, it would have to pertain to a particular topic.
Duncan Van Ooyen ***** Yeah. They have a gaming account called "Previously Recorded". It's almost always Rich and Jack. Jay joins them quite often. Mike very rarely. You're right - they should definitely do a podcast, as well.
Duncan Van Ooyen Rich has gone on record saying that if RedLetterMedia ever makes a podcast, he'd want to call it the "Fraudcast," which is a fucking perfect potential podcast name.
Duncan Van Ooyen Would you like to buy some chocolate for my daughter's fundraiser? They're small and a dollar, but they go to help funding the school so they can buy _Film Analysis and Other Media_ textbooks without references to the Star Wars Christmas Special.
I still love the fact that Jack's mirror-shine dome refuses to remain a part of reality throughout this entire video because of how it reflects the greenscreen
I actually saw this on TV when it was first shown, as a little kid I thought: "where's the space battles? where's lightsaber duels? where's Darth Vader? where's everything that made star wars fun?"
I would say it's more likely that the success for the trilogy was incorrectly given to him thus leading to him having more control because people thought he was actually a good writer
happening in a way contrary to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this. So if I am not mistaken to redlettermedia get revenues from adverts shown before their videos?
@@RAMSEY1987 Unless there is a copyright strike all youtubers get money from the ads. Notice I didn't say VALID copyright strike. People making copyright strikes don't have to prove anything.
That Die Hard Sweater is amazing. i want one. This special is soon interminable. The best part is that on most of the copies online have the commercials that originally appeared in the 70s airing.
Realtalk: I tried really hard to put myself in George Lucas/whoever's head to understand what the fuck this bizarre, incoherent mess was supposed to represent (besides money) and I flashed back to film school and remembered all the experimental disasters I made. At 17:30, Mike pretty much hits the nail on the head: This was supposed to be a fun variety show, sort of like proto-reality TV but with a sci-fi twist, and the whole Christmas/Anne Frank angle was trying to be inspiring (evil Empire looking for Jewish Wookies, but everyone stands together to overcome adversity and celebrate Life in the face of Death, and let's have some fun along the way, blah blah blah). Okay. Fine. But it's really unclear as to whether or not we're supposed to enjoy this viscerally or by proxy. Like, are WE supposed to be entertained, or are we supposed to be entertained by watching someone else be entertained? Is this a plot point or the point of the plot? And that's where it falls apart. It's easy to say "Well, it would've sucked anyway because the variety segments were terrible", but technical criticisms are never as insightful as conceptual ones. If the cartoon was well-animated and the acrobats were't nightmare monsters, this still would've sucked. The question is "Why?", and Mike totally nailed it Oh god why did I type all that
My only issue is at the end Mike said George Lucas should have taken more responsibility, stepped in, and said it was bad. He probably had full creative control because every time there isn't someone to tell George no it fucking sucks. For example see the first trilogy where he had people telling him no and the prequels where he got to do whatever he wanted
Around the13th minute mark: I've seen this episode half a dozen times and this is the first time I heard that the "missing" stormtrooper is referred to as B4711. Just in case, that's, Before 7-11. For people outside of North America, 7-11 is a chain of corner, or convenient stores. We never had them in Canada/Quebec but my Grandparents owned a Fishing pier/restaurant in Florida in the early 80's . We would visit once or twice a year and I always wanted to go to 7-11, because they had Star Wars cards...and I was around 5 years old. Lol So, if you thought Mike's Joe Pilato story was pointless... hold my Blueberry, Slush Puppy! Just one more thing we didn't have in Canada. But we did have Zap Rowsedower. So I guess that's kinda, sorta, not really, cool :) Happy life day and a belated, happy Turkey day ;)
