Daps Magic
Tickets Now On Sale for ‘A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened’
Nov 10, 2023
By Mr. Daps

In 1978, George Lucas was talked into cashing in on the Star Wars craze by producing a holiday variety TV special.  What could possibly go wrong?

ANSWER: Everything…

From the filmmakers behind Napoleon Dynamite and Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made comes A Disturbance in the Force, the documentary about the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.

The Star Wars Holiday Special is infamous among Star Wars fans. Now, a documentary takes a deeper look at this special. It also will soon be in theaters on different dates in November. Tickets are now on sale for this documentary. A trailer for the film can also be seen below.

About A Disturbance in the Force

Travel back to a galaxy far, far away – the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.  This documentary dives into the mystery of how it happened and why 45 years later it has become, much to the chagrin of George Lucas, the ultimate cult classic among Star Wars fans.

Featuring interviews with Bruce Vilanch, Seth Green, Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt, Paul Scheer, Weird Al Yankovic, Donny Osmond, and many more.

Where To Buy Tickets

More details about this film, where it is screening, and tickets sales can all be found at HolidaySpecialDoc.com. What do you think of this documentary? Are you excited to see it? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!

To Buy Tickets, Check Out

The post Buy Tickets To A Disturbance In The Force Documentary first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Player FM
Audio: Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast – #220 Bruce Vilanch
By Earwolf and Gilbert Gottfried.
August 13, 2018

Gilbert and Frank welcome an old friend, legendary comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who looks back at the “golden age” of TV variety shows and specials, including “Donny & Marie,” “The Brady Bunch Hour,” “The Star Wars Holiday Special” and “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.” (all co-written by Bruce himself). Also, Margaret Hamilton makes her move, Robert Reed channels Carmen Miranda, Jack Benny does “The Match Bit” and Gilbert takes over “Hollywood Squares.” PLUS: Jack Palance! Bob Hope’s filing cabinet! “Wayne Newton at SeaWorld”! Bruce hangs with Tallulah Bankhead! And the Oscar joke that never made the air!

The post Podcast: Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast – #220 Bruce Vilanch first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

In the 1970s, blockbuster sequels were hard to come by. Studios used franchising to paper up holes in their release schedule, rushing follow-ups into production to cash in on valuable IP as soon as possible. Miniscule budgets and quick production turnarounds made movies like the James Bond series consistently popular, but big-budget franchises were nowhere to be found.

The release of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975 changed things, but only slightly. Universal gave its 1978 successor a relatively sizeable budget, more than four times that of the original Jaws. And it seemed to work: For a brief period, Jaws 2 was the most financially successful sequel of all time, making almost $200 million worldwide on a $30 million dollar budget.

The relative success of Jaws 2 didn’t assuage any of George Lucas’ concerns. A year after Star Wars became an American phenomenon, he was already waist-deep into production on The Empire Strikes Back, and the pressure was building. Lucas wasn’t just hoping to launch the first true blockbuster franchise with Empire; he was financially dependent on the film outperforming just about every sequel that preceded it. Determined to keep his company independent of the studio system, Lucas funded Empire with his own money, and it cost him a pretty penny. During production, the film’s budget ballooned to more than 150% of the original Star Wars‘ budget, leaving Lucas struggling to negotiate with 20th Century Fox and his own bank, which was threatening to call in his loan.

On top of these financial concerns was Lucas’ fear that the characters he had created would not maintain a grip on the cultural consciousness long enough for Empire to make any money at all. The studio perception of American audiences was that they were flighty and easily distracted; a phenomenon one summer could become a costly bomb the next. With this in mind, CBS pitched Lucas a concept that could “sustain interest” in the budding franchise, as well as potentially goosing toy sales: an old-fashioned comedy variety hour, to be broadcast just before Thanksgiving.

Famous control freak George Lucas wasn’t a huge fan of handing his baby over to CBS executives, but his work on Empire took top priority. He gave the group of veteran TV writers working on the special a simple concept, handed them a mythology “bible” that would keep them from violating franchise canon, and went on his way. At the time, writer Lenny Ripps told Vanity Fair, it seemed like a slam dunk: “My God, this is an annuity—Star Wars! How could it lose?”

The creative team would quickly find out that the Star Wars brand wasn’t an automatic ticket to greatness. Part of the issue was the concept Lucas presented, which sounded good on paper but collapsed in practice. The creator wanted the Holiday Special to center on Chewbacca’s Wookiee family, specifically his wife Malla, his father Itchy, and his son Lumpy (Lucas himself named the latter two characters, according to another writer on the project, Bruce Vilanch). It would revolve around the Wookiee holiday of “Life Day,” and Chewbacca’s struggles to return to his home planet of Kashyyyk in time for the festivities. The idea kept the special from being a time commitment for returning cast members, replacing them largely with faceless Imperial officers, masked Wookiees, and a guest cast of television comedy staples.

Unfortunately, it also removed everything that made the original Star Wars appealing to audiences, leaving them trapped watching a group of warbling monkey people doing menial tasks in preparation for a bizarre space holiday. What quickly becomes apparent while watching the Holiday Special is that Star Wars occupies a very specific cultural space, and if you tread just a little bit outside of that space, the entire endeavor collapses. It’s a space that’s difficult to explain and a tone that’s even more difficult to nail, but the Holiday Special manages to exist entirely separate from any kind of Star Wars tone whatsoever. It’s clear within the first ten minutes that the writers were hopelessly out of their depth, and it’s hard to blame them because while we know it feels wrong to watch a Wookiee baby take out the garbage, we can’t quite explain why it feels wrong.

From Chewie’s family’s very retro, spacious 1970s tree-apartment to Chewie’s wife’s human-sized apron, it’s all just a tiny bit too familiar to our eye, missing that slight otherworldly atmosphere that distinguishes Star Wars from something closer to our world. There’s a scene in 2002’s Attack of the Clones where we discover that luggage in the Star Wars universe consists of pretty standard suitcases, complete with wheels and extendable handles. It shares the Special‘s peculiar tonal inconsistency with the rest of the universe, an unconsidered detail that just barely skews the entire charade.

It doesn’t help that the Holiday Special is almost entirely plotless. It’s far more Holiday Special than Star Wars, an extended hang-out montage that cuts between shoddy Wookiee costumes and bizarre cameos from our favorite characters, all of whom look like they’re performing with a DL-44 blaster pistol pointed at them from just off-camera. The best thing one can say about the meat of The Star Wars Holiday Special is that it does really capture the feeling of sitting around your house on a holiday waiting for family to show up; the only problem is that watching a family of Sasquatches do that is even more interminably boring than doing it yourself. Lumpy watches a bizarre circus-act hologram; Malla struggles to master “Bantha rump” with the help of a Julia Child-esque cooking show.

Occasionally, a hilariously coked-up Star Wars cast member will phone in, with the highlight being an appearance by a wild-eyed Mark Hamill, apparently auditioning for Cathy Rigby’s Peter Pan stage role. In the time between Star Wars and the Holiday Special, Luke has apparently found time to meet Chewie’s entire family, because they’re all very familiar with him and his malfunctioning R2-D2 impersonator. Interspersed with these original trilogy cameos are bit parts for sketch comedians of the era. Carol Burnett Show star Harvey Korman appears in no less than three roles, including the aforementioned TV chef and a patron at the classic Mos Eisley Cantina who drinks through a hole in his scalp. Here, the cantina’s bartender is Maude‘s Bea Arthur, and she stars in an in-universe Mos Eisley soap opera that climaxes in a strangely emotional musical number.

But the real star of the Holiday Special is Saun Dann (Honeymooners star Art Carney), the man who runs the “general store” on Kashyyyk. Initially, Dann was an Empire Strikes Back concept that eventually evolved into Lando Calrissian, but here he’s just a vehicle that guides the Special through its lackadaisical Imperial invasion “plot.” He’s also the trader who delivers Chewie’s father Itchy the coveted–and infamous–gift that defines the Holiday Special, a “Mind Evaporator” that delivers him a vision of Mermeia (Diahann Carroll), a “holographic fantasy woman who existed within virtual reality as an erotic entertainer.” And then Chewbacca’s ratty-looking father watches a holographic adult film, on a primetime network television holiday special.

In the end, not even a bizarrely out-of-place Jefferson Starship performance could save the Holiday Special. By the time Chewie and his family finally don their long red robes and wander into a psychedelic starscape, the special has stretched on for almost two hours, and exhaustion has set in. The final bumper of the Wookiee family saying…grace (?) is just as bizarre as everything that’s preceded it. Lucas himself was astonished at the Special‘s poor quality, supposedly saying of it, “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.” Ratings cratered roughly halfway through the program, and it was never broadcast again. Lucas has refused to give up the home video rights.

But a peculiar thing has happened since then: The Star Wars Holiday Special, like many similarly shoddy elements of Star Wars history, has become oddly iconic. The most popular element of the Special, a ten-minute cartoon segment, introduced fan-favorite character, Boba Fett. On top of that, Star Wars authors keep sneaking characters into current canon. A story by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Matt Fraction in last year’s A Certain Point of View anthology canonized Bea Arthur’s bartender Ackmena, and Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy brought Malla and Lumpy (now called “Waroo”) into the Disney fold. And if books aren’t enough for you, April’s trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story seemed to imply the presence of Chewie’s wife.

So what is it driving this resurgence in Holiday Special nostalgia? For one thing, there’s something oddly charming about its low-rent, incredibly boring presentation of the universe we’ve come to love for its bombast and big budgets. It’s like a Star Wars home movie, and for die-hard fans of the series, it’s also a fascinating artifact that speaks to just how specific a hold these movies have over our culture. Yes, there’s something just so slightly off about all of it, and in trying to figure out what, we gain a new appreciation for the times this formula works so well. And besides, it’s fun to watch garbage sometimes. Carrie Fisher herself owned a bootleg copy of the Special, and she delighted in playing her scenes at parties when she wanted people to leave. How could you not love that?

The post THE TORTURED HISTORY OF THE ‘STAR WARS’ HOLIDAY SPECIAL first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

While Carrie Fisher is best known for her work in front of the camera, she was also a celebrated writer of books and films. The late Star Wars actress and icon, who died at age 60 on Dec. 27 after a heart attack, was even responsible for writing a few key funny one-liners for Oscar hosts and accidentally covering them in glitter.

According to veteran comedian and comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who hired Fisher to be a part of his Oscar writing teams, she had several great ideas that were too good to air, like Princess Leia singing a Joni Mitchell song in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special and Whoopi Goldberg getting a massage onstage at the Academy Awards. Vilanch recently shared with PEOPLE three of his favorite memories from working with Fisher, here they are in his own words:

“In 1978, I was one of the writers of the Star Wars Holiday Special, a show that would give FDR a challenge on his ‘day of infamy’ remark. Carrie, Harrison [Ford], Mark [Hamill] and several of the more presentable robots were ordered to sing a song about Life Day, the holiday we were ostensibly celebrating in the galaxy far, far away. Nobody wanted to do this and Carrie thought she would save them all the trouble by doing, as a solo, Joni Mitchell’s Christmas ditty, ‘River,’ [with the lyric] ‘I wish I had a river I could skate away on.’ It was 1978 and there were a whole lot of chemical additives being consumed by many of us, so we thought it was a great idea. Princess Leia on skates, kind of like what Disney on Ice is probably doing right about now, since they own her ass. Everybody loved it except Joni Mitchell. Carrie quickly lost interest and we moved on to the next shiny object.

“Along those lines, about 20 years later, I brought Carrie onto the Oscar show writing team. Whoopi [Goldberg] was hosting and we were trying to figure out funny things for her to do. Enya had written a song that was nominated, and it was a typical Enya song, the kind that someone noted you only hear when you’re getting a massage. So we thought it would be funny if, after about 16 bars, a little curtain was raised on one side of the stage and there would be Whoopi, getting a massage. There were some very funny people on the staff that year, Carol Leifer (Seinfeld), Jonathan Tolins (Grease Live!), Jon Macks (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno), Dave Boone (The Tony Awards) — but it was Carrie who ran with the idea, turning it into a kind of Rockettes massage-table number, huge and elaborate. Everybody loved it except Enya. You never saw it.

“A few years later, Carrie was back on the team. On the night of the show, she arrived in a black tux pantsuit, her hair and shoulders festooned with gold glitter. I had assigned her to the green room, where people wait before they go on the air, because everybody knew her and she was a reassuring presence to a lot of actors who didn’t have a character to play that night. Of course, she hugged them all. After we’d been on the air about 20 minutes, the director called me, shrieking, ‘Tell her to stop hugging people! This looks like the god—- Tinker Bell special! Everybody’s covered in glitter!’ “

The post Bruce Vilanch On Carrie Fisher first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Star Wars is a titan of the film industry. The first film was a massive success, and since then, the series has seen massive hits with movies, TV shows, books, video games and more. A new film is hitting theaters next month, one that is greatly anticipated by many.

However, one part of Star Wars that featured the original cast has never been officially released and is considered one of the most notorious television specials of all time—the Star Wars Holiday Special. It aired only once to this day, on CBS on November 17th, 1978.

The special featured Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill alongside 70s comedy staples like Bea Arthur and Harvey Korman. It was written by Pat Proft, Leonard Ripps, Bruce Vilanch, Rod Warren, and Mitzie Welch. Steve Binder was the director.

It featured a variety of loosely-connected segments and skits along with stock footage. Some examples of content in the special include the Bea Arthur character running the Cantina on Tattooine, an entire musical segment featuring Jefferson Starship, and Harvey Korman as a four-armed alien that sounds like Julia Child.

Notably, the popular character of the bounty hunter, Boba Fett, made his Star Wars debut in the special, before his appearances in later Star Wars films.

The special has never been officially released, but has gained a cult following as copies can be found online and in trading circuits.

The post This Day in Television History – November 17th, 1978 – Star Wars Holiday Special Airs first appeared on We Got Bruce!.