Rolling Stone
Documentary About Infamous ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ Sets Streaming Release Date
By Daniel Creps
November 17, 2023

THE STORY BEHIND the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special is the focus of the documentary A Disturbance in the Force, which — following its premiere at Sundance earlier this year — will head to streaming (Dec 5, 2023) and DVD this December.

The ill-fated special, which aired Thanksgiving weekend in 1978, is now legend: Fresh off the success of Star Wars, George Lucas was talked into capitalizing on the craze in the form of a holiday-themed TV special, but what resulted was a “Life Day” celebration that hued closer to a Seventies variety show than The Mandalorian. The special aired just once before it was banished to a lifetime of bootlegging.

“What could possibly go wrong? ANSWER: Everything…,” September Club and Giant Pictures said of the special. “CBS aired the two-hour Star Wars Holiday Special during the week of Thanksgiving, and it was watched by 13 million people. It never re-aired. While some fans of the franchise are aware of this dark secret, this bizarre two hours of television still remains relatively unknown among the general public. Simply put, the documentary will answer how and why the Holiday Special got made.”

On Friday, A Disturbance in the Force revealed it would arrive digitally on December 5. In addition to interviews with those involved in the special (like Bruce Vilanch and Donny Osmond), the documentary also corralled Seth Green, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Paul Scheer, Taran Killam, Patton Oswalt, and the late Gilbert Gottfried to create an almost “one of those old VH-1 I Heart the ’80s shows,” as Rolling Stone wrote after watching the doc at Sundance.

“What Disturbance arguably does best isn’t how it traces the way this special went from The Thing That Must Not Be Named and, thanks to bootlegs, an object of affection. It’s the way it maps a transitional moment between old showbiz razzle-dazzle and New Hollywood blockbuster entertainment,” our review read.

“For one gloriously WTF hour, we got to see these two things crash into each other and cause a pop-culture disaster. A Disturbance in the Force doesn’t come to bury this famous misstep, and it doesn’t quite praise it either.”

The post Documentary ‘A Disturbance In The Force’ Gets A Streaming Release Date first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

ComingSoon.net
Scrooge & Marley Trailer Previews 10th Anniversary Release of Gay Holiday Comedy
By Anthony Nash
September 14, 2022

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the LGBTQ holiday comedy Scrooge & Marley will be released on digital for the first time, as well as on DVD.

The news comes from Dark Star Pictures, who are set to release the film digitally for the first time. Scrooge & Marley will also receive a special 10th Anniversary DVD release on October 4.

“Returning to the 1970s days of his teen years by the saucy Ghost of Christmas Past (Ronnie Kroell),” reads the official synopsis for the film. “Scrooge bitterly recalls being kicked out of his home during the holidays for being gay, meeting the young rogue Jacob Marley, the fabulous disco impresario Fezziwig (Bruce Vilanch), and the luckless love of his life, Bill, whose love Scrooge eventually destroys in his pursuit of wealth. The jolly Ghost of Christmas Present (Megan Cavanagh) next whisks Scrooge on a joyous, music-filled tour of current holiday sights, including a visit to a lively party hosted by Scrooge’s niece Freda (Rusty Schwimmer) and her expectant partner Mary.”

Check out the Scrooge & Marley trailer below:

Starring David Pevsner, Tim Kazurinsky, Rusty Schwimmer, Bruce Vilanch, Megan Cavanagh, Ronnie Kroell, and David Moretti, Scrooge & Marley is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s iconic 1843 novella A Christmas Carol that reimagines the story by turning Scrooge into a successful piano bar owner who despises people and makes life miserable for everyone in the gay community that he resides in.

Originally released in 2012, the film was partially crowdfunded through an Indiegogo campaign and was released to limited theaters. Following its premiere, the film received mixed reviews, with many praising its “campy” style and attention to care to a niche audience.

The post Director/Writer Richard Knight, Jr’s ‘Scrooge & Marley’Goes Digital & DVD On 10th Anniversary first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Times Square Chronicles
Still Waiting in the Wings
By Suzanna Bowling
May 3, 2020

The new film Still Waiting in the Wings is an all-star musical homage to Broadway. The film will be released worldwide on May 15, 2020, on DVD and all digital platforms. Directed by Q. Allan Brocka and written by Jeffrey A. Johns and Arie Gonzalez. The cast includes Jeffrey A. Johns, Joe Abraham, Rena Strober, Adam Huss, Blake Peyrot, Harrison White, and Rebekah Kochan, with special appearances by Nick Adams, Ed Asner, Carole Cook, Lee Meriwether, Patricia Richardson, Chita Rivera, Seth Rudetsky, Sally Struthers, Bruce Vilanch, and Cindy Williams.

The stars sing and dance while living the reality of slinging hash under the florescent lights at Times Square’s famed “Café Broadway.” The movie features original songs by Danny Abosch, Andrew Byrne, Ken Clifton, Arie Gonzalez, Paul Louis, Matthew Lee Robinson, Nick Santa Maria, Ruth Wallis, and Michael Whitney, with choreography by Cassie Nordgren, Arianna Hyatt, and Lee Martino.

The post Musical Homage To Broadway, ‘Still Waiting in the Wings’ will be released worldwide on May 15, 2020, on DVD and all digital platforms first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

NewNowNext
Paul Lynde’s Absurdly Gay 1976 Halloween Special
by Lester Fabian Brathwaite
10/25/2019

Can We Talk About…? is a weekly series that wants to be somebody, wants to go somewhere—so it’s waking up and paying attention.

Full disclosure: I’m one of the few gays who doesn’t love Halloween. I’m not sure why: I love dressing up, pulling pranks, and laughing maniacally by the light of a full moon, but Halloween has never done it for me. But I’m glad so many people love it because it leads to things like The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, a mythically bad variety special that boasted a veritable “Who’s that?” of Hollywood.

It only aired once, on October 29, 1976, but bootleg copies of it floated around on VHS for decades before it was officially released on DVD in 2007. YouTube followed suit, as did, most recently, Amazon Prime, where you can watch this screen gem in all its cheesy, extremely retro glory (?). Of course, most of you reading this probably have no idea who Paul Lynde was, so let’s start there.

Ben de la Creme as Paul Lynde during a RuPaul’s Drag Race Snatch Game challenge.

Lynde was the biggest queen in Hollywood this side of Liberace, having crafted a lovingly acerbic persona in ’60s fare like Bye Bye Birdie, Bewitched (playing the sneaky and snarky warlock, Uncle Arthur), and The Munsters before finding his true calling as the center square in The Hollywood Squares. Though clearly a homosexual, Lynde, like Liberace, existed in a glass closet where no one talked about the pink elephant mincing into the room.

Lynde was also a notorious alcoholic, fueled by his insecurities and the pressures of having to remain closeted despite fooling literally no one. In 1965, a young man fell to his death after spending a boozed-up night with Lynde in his hotel room. Instead of being a career-ending scandal, it was covered up and Lynde was still slinging tired zingers when this special aired a decade later.

Those zingers, much like Lynde’s famous one-liners from Hollywood Squares, were written, at least partly, by Bruce Vilanch. Judging from the quality of the writing on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Vilanch may have snorted an eight-ball, grabbed a dirty napkin, and feverishly scribbled down whatever fell out of his nostrils. How else can you explain the hodgepodge of ideas, limp half-jokes, and truly questionable stylistic choices?

Within the first 15 minutes, Donny and Marie sneak in a wordless cameo, Betty White bitches out Lynde, and Margaret Hamilton (the OG Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz) gets back into her Elphaba drag.

And that’s not even the weirdest part—we haven’t even gotten to the first of three Kiss performances. Fucking Kiss. The Knights in Satan’s Service sold out so hard in the ’70s.

Next thing you know, Lynde, as an earring-wearing “chic sheik,” is phoning in a “passionate kiss” with Mrs. Brady herself, Florence Henderson, who later really commits to a discofied version of “That Old Black Magic.” After all, it was the ’70s, and if we weren’t pandering to the disco set, then really, what were we doing at all?

By the time Happy Days’ Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly (as she’s billed in the opening credits) starts up a spirited rendition of “Disco Lady” featuring the entire cast—including Kiss hanging out in the balcony and wondering just why in Satan’s name they agreed to this—you’ll legitimately find yourself wondering how this hot mess ever made it on television in the first place.

However, I, personally, was riddled with glee that it did mince its way into the zeitgeist.

Paul Lynde was such a homo, and that was evident to me even as a kid watching him exaggerate the gay hell out of Elizabeth Montgomery’s character’s name on Bewitched: “Sa-maaaaa-aaaa-haaan-thaaaaaa.” And what prepubescent queer doesn’t dream of being visibly drunk on television, wearing an ascot, and shouting, “Circle gets the square!”?

What, just me?

Gays have always existed in Hollywood—between Lynde, Agnes Moorehead (who played the fabulous Endora), and Dick Saregent (who played the second Darrin), Bewitched accounted for like 90% of the gays on television for nearly a decade. But gays like Lynde, who were out in everything but the word, and who were able to find their own fame, deserve some credit for making the unspeakable a bit easier to say aloud.

Now go watch this special and see for yourself just how ridiculous the whole thing is.

The post Paul Lynde’s Absurdly Gay 1976 Halloween Special (Video, Too) first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Judges:
RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Santino Rice

Contestants:
Adore Delano, April Carrión, BenDeLaCreme, Bianca Del Rio, Courtney Act, Darienne Lake, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja, Joslyn Fox, Kelly Mantle, Magnolia Crawford, Milk, Trinity K. Bonet, Vivacious

Guest judges/special guests:
Adam Lambert, Alaska Thunderfuck, Bob Mackie, Bruce Vilanch, Chaz Bono, David Burtka, Eve, Georgia Holt, Gillian Jacobs, Heather McDonald, Ian Drew, Jamie Pressly, Jinkx Monsoon, Jujubee, Khloé Kardashian, Lainie Kazan, Latrice Royale, Leah Remini, Lena Headey, Linda Blair, Lucian Piane, Manila Luzon, Mike Ruiz, Neil Patrick Harris, Our Lady J, Paula Abdul, Raja, Raven, Shangela, Sharon Needles, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Trina

Fourteen more drag queens compete in a variety of challenges to become RuPaul’s next drag superstar and bring home a massive prize pool including $100,000.

I was really excited to dive into season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race because it is the season that features two queens I already adored — Courtney Act and Bianca Del Rio. Throughout watching the show, I thought that Bianca was marvellous, but (likely due to editing) Courtney spent most of her time in the background until the group had been thinned.

As the competition progressed, I found myself growing quite fond of the effervescent BenDeLaCreme and the quirky Milk. It was the season of the dairy queens! (I’m not even sorry.) But I found most of the rest of the queens to be obnoxious, grating or forgettable.

No spoilers, but I was thrilled when the winner was announced. I could not have agreed more. That’s all I’m saying, if you want to know then go watch the season. Or Google it. But mostly go watch RuPaul’s Drag Race seasons 2-4, All Stars season 1 then seasons 5-6. I’ll wait.

Once again, my personal favourite challenge throughout season six is Snatch Game. The celebrity impersonations ranged from brilliant to less than average, as they always do, but some of the stand out performances from this season should be required watching for any queens hoping to compete in future.

There was a good assortment of girls in season six and there is enough shade being thrown around to be entertaining, but only one queen’s shade really gets to be grating and stupid by the end of her run.

I love RuPaul’s Drag Race and season six has been one of my favourites so far. If you enjoy competition shows where the focus is artistic and don’t mind (or, like me, find entertaining) a smidge of clever cattiness, then I highly recommend bingeing all of RuPaul’s Drag Race in order before diving into its sixth season.

RuPaul’s Drag Race, Season 6
DVD

The post RuPaul’s Drag Race: Season Six 2018 – Guest Judges: Adam Lambert, Alaska Thunderfuck, Bob Mackie, Bruce Vilanch, Chaz Bono first appeared on We Got Bruce!.