Greetings Holiday Film Fans, today marks a milestone of sorts in pop culture history. It was 40 years ago today that TheStar Wars Holiday Special aired on CBS for the 1st and only time! We "celebrated" this special on its 35th anniversary in 2013, you can read that review HERE.
In the five years since we reviewed it, the Star Wars franchise has been experiencing a renaissance of sorts. We've seen the release of three theatrical films, two animated series and a live-action series is in the works. Yet we still haven't seen an official release of The Star Wars Holiday Special!
We think it's way passed time for Disney and Lucas to get over it and release it on blu-ray or at least give us an "official" streaming edition. No, my views on the special haven't changed, but I still enjoy the animated segment that introduced Boba Fett. Doesn't that deserve to be remastered!
If nothing else, today the special feels like an interesting relic of TV's past. Variety specials that featured stand-up comedy, sketches and musical guests were all over television in the 1970s. The Star Wars Holiday Special is basically a variety special in outer space! Which makes it worth of preserving, beyond bootlegs and youtube videos. Its status as the first "sequel" to Star Wars makes it even more historically significant (even if it isn't very good!).
Also, it's really not much worse than Star Wars Episode I:The Phantom Menace, which is officially available in multiple formats.
While even at age 7 I knew it wasn't very good, I will always enjoy remembering how excited I was about watching it back then. And I still have some "sentimental attachment" to the first "new" Star Wars content that was released after the original movie.
So come on Disney! Please Release The Star Wars Holiday Special officially before its 45th anniversary rolls around in 2023!
It's Mother's Day and Dorothy (Bea Arthur), Rose (Betty White) and Blanche (Rue McClanahan) are waiting for calls from their children before they take Dorothy's mom, Sophia (Estelle Getty) out to brunch.
While they wait to hear from their children -- much to Sophia's dismay (she wants to get to the buffet before the good shrimp is all gone) -- the girls reminisce about Mother's Days past.
Dorothy recalls a time when she was still married to her ex-husband Stan. They chose a Mother's Day visit to ask Stan's mother (Alice Ghostley) if she could lend them money.
Rose remembers spending a Mother's Day in a bus station with someone else's mother, a woman named Anna (Geraldine Fitzgerald).
Blanche remembers the last time she spent the holiday with her own mother, in a nursing home, and Sophia chips in with a story about a visit from her own mother, Dorothy's Grandmother Petrillo in 1950s Brooklyn.
RigbyMel says:
This episode from season three of The Golden Girls is both funny and rather sweet.
Each of the women's stories about past celebrations of Mother's Day feel like little one-act plays. Every story plays on stereotypes a bit (the annoying mother in law, asking an elderly relative to move in or dealing with one in a nursing home, etc), but puts an interesting spin on each scenario.
Rose's story is probably the most touching, but also contains some very humorous repartee regarding the ... rustic simplicity of the residents of her hometown of St. Olaf. Anna, the lady Rose meets at the bus station is played by Oscar nominated actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, who appeared in films like Wuthering Heights,Dark Victoryand Arthur during the course of her career.
We learn that perhaps Dorothy's mother in law doesn't hate her quite as much as she thought.
In Sophia's story, we see a young Dorothy (played by Lynnie Greene -- best known now as the producer & writer of shows like Nip/Tuck) and meet Sophia's mom, who is played by Bea Arthur -- very meta!
My favorite line in the episode belongs to Blanche -- I don't want to spoil it, but it has to do with her unabashedly owning what people think of as her defining characteristic.
If you are a fan of The Golden Girls series, this Mother's Day episode is well worth revisiting. If you're not, you should check it out to see a classic and sassy sitcom featuring feisty older women.
RigbyMel's rating:
.5
3 and a half Mother's Day bouquets.
J.A. Morris says:
I'd never seen this Mother's Day episode until this year, but it's a great episode of The Golden Girls. I generally agree with my co-blogger, but I think I liked it even better. It's very sweet, but contains just enough of the series' trademark sarcasm to keep from ever feeling treacly.
Rue McClanahan gives a particularly great performance as Blanche here. The scene with Blanche's mom gives Mclanahan the opportunity to deliver a monologue about Blanche's attempt to get married at age 17. It's an Emmy-worthy moment.
Betty White is also very poignant in Rose's train station flashback sequence.
The flashbacks that focus on Dorothy and Sophia are played more for laughs, but that's okay. They help balance out the sentimental parts, keeping "Mother's Day" from ever getting corny.
It should be noted that when she portrayed Sophia, Estelle Getty was made up to look much older than she was in real life. Sophia's Brooklyn flashback gives us a chance to see how Getty looked when not wearing her "Sophia" makeup.
This episode streams on Amazon and it's also available on The Golden Girls: The Complete Third Season DVD set.
There aren't many Mother's Day episodes out there (this is the first we've reviewed) and this one contains the perfect combination of humor and sentimentality. "Mother's Day" is an excellent episode of The Golden Girls and gets my highest recommendation.
"This is going to be a fabulous party, the most fantastic party ever! I mean I guarantee you this is not going to be one of those typical New Year's Eve disasters, where all the guests sit around waiting for Guy Lombardo to come on while two drunks throw up in their paper hats." -Maude Findlay
Maude tells Mrs. Naugatuck about her party plans.
Dateline:December 31, 1974: Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur) is excitedly planning her New Year's Eve party. She hopes it will be the greatest party of all time. Maude says it will have what other parties don't: a scavenger hunt! She will hide "little gifties" all over the house, and whoever finds the most "gifties" wins a prize.
Mrs. Naugatuck says it feels more like Labor Day than New Year's Eve to her!
Mrs. Nugatuck (Hermione Baddeley), the housekeeper, is unimpressed with the plans.
Especially since the party means that she has to work on New Year's Eve.
Maude is undeterred, but her enthusiasm is dampened when her friends Vivian (Rue McClanahan) and Arthur (Conrad Bain) say they just attended a "scavenger hunt" party the night before. Maude is convinced her party is ruined. She gets angry when she learns that Vivian invited Estelle and Herman Ellinger, a couple who always have arguments and ruin everyone else's good time, to her party.
No one feels like celebrating 1974, Maude's friends and family are in a cranky mood. They all agree it was an all-around bad year. Maude's husband Walter (Bill Macy) has had a tough year running his business. Inflation has hurt his appliance shop and Walter doesn't see that improving in 1975.
In this atmosphere, Arthur suggests they celebrate their favorite years instead of the current one. Maude likes this idea and tells everyone to come to her party dressed as their "most nostalgic year".
Guests in nostalgic outfits of various eras
Vivian arrives dressed in a Shirley Temple outfit as if she was 5 years old (and her father's favorite child). Her husband Arthur is 1952, the year he attended the convention where Dwight Eisenhower was nominated.
Walter does a Groucho Marx impression in uniform
Walter puts on his old Army uniform. He says 1942 was a great year for him.
"That long-stemmed American beauty, Gypsy Rose Findlay!"
Maude tops them all. She reenacts her 1945 College Freshman Review performance, wearing what can best be described as lingerie and performs a burlesque dance for her guests!
The Ellingers arrive along with 90 something year old Aunt Polly (Judith Lowry). The couple immediately get into a fight with each other and depart, leaving Aunt Polly behind.
The bickering Ellingers with Aunt Polly caught in the middle
As it turns out, the nostalgia angle leads to more arguments. Maude and Arthur point out that Walter's favorite year was "great for Hitler, Moussolini, and Hirohito". Maude tells Arthur that '52 was a terrible year, with a recession and conflicts in the Middle East. Vivian says Maude was "the campus zit queen" during 1945.
Aunt Polly breaks up the argument by blowing a noisemaker to get everyone's attention
Aunt Polly puts things in perspective and proposes a toast to her favorite minute, saying, "Last year isn't important, it's what's happening now." This causes everyone at the party to rethink their bickering and have a more positive approach.
J.A. Morris says:
There are not that many "New Year's" themed episodes. And that's because there aren't many stories that can be told about Christmas' lesser sibling (plus, most series are on hiatus during the Christmas holidays). But this episode makes good use of the New Year's Eve setting. It's a typical episode of Maude, but that's not a bad thing. Everyone has some good one-liners. Maude gets in some zingers at Arthur, her political nemesis. Mrs. Naugatuck points out Maude's classism. Vivian says something slightly airheaded.
Vivian's childish behavior makes Maude want to throw up in a party hat!
Bea Arthur deserves kudos for dancing around in a showgirl outfit. It's something rarely done on tv (then or now) by a woman in her 50s, and she sells it!
I really like the idea of a party where guests dress as their favorite year. Of course it helps when you have a sitcom's costume department to help you. But the message here about living in the now and not romanticizing the past is a good one.
Arthur chants "I like Ike", the slogan for Eisenhower's 1952 campaign.
"Nostalgia Party" is a very good episode with plenty of laughs and some nice philosophy thrown in for good measure.
J.A. Morris' rating:
3 and a half champagne flutes.
RigbyMel says:
I really enjoyed this episode, which was new to me this past year. (I've been watching quite a few episodes of Maude on the Antenna TV network recently.)
Mrs. Naugatuck winking
The nostalgia party idea is a really fun one, and I like that this episode humorously points out that the "good old days" depend largely on point of view. I also like that Aunt Polly, a feisty older lady, puts all the bickering in perspective by suggesting that taking pleasure in "now" is a very important part of life. That's a good message to ponder most days (not just New Year's Eve/Day).
Premiered November 17, 1978.
Tonight is the 35th anniversary of the 1st and ONLY showing of The Star Wars Holiday Special on CBS. Unlike all the Star Wars movies, the holiday special didn't have an opening crawl...until now! Please watch the video below:
(EDIT:Linked video has been removed from starwars.com, sorry-J.A.)
Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) are trying to get back to Chewie's home planet, Kashyyyk. It's time for wookiees to celebrate Life Day, a festival that celebrates all the forms of life on their planet. Chewbacca's wife Malla (Mickey Morton), son Lumpy (Patty Maloney), and father Itchy (Paul Gale) are eagerly awaiting his arrival.
Mala & Lumpy.
Han and Chewie are delayed when Imperial Tie Fighters and Star Destroyers divert them from their course, causing Malla to worry that her husband won't make it home for the holiday. She contacts Chewbacca's friends, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker), but none of them has seen Chewie either.
Lumpy watches a holographic acrobat.
On Kashyyyk, the family is having problems of their own. The local Imperial troops pay a visit to their house and keep them under surveillance. Storm troopers and commanders ransack the wookiees' home, looking for ties to the Rebellion, wrecking Lumpy's toys in the process.
An imperial guard (Lev Mailer) visits Saun Dann's trading post.
Chewie's family receives help in the form of a local trader named Saun Dann (Art Carney), who helps them conceal contraband and distract the Imperials.
Plus, we get to see what television shows are like in the Star Wars universe!
J.A. Morris says:
In 1978, I was 7 and I was an absolute Star Wars fanatic! I had action figures, t-shirts, comic books, beach towels, you name it, I had it (or wanted it)! I remember how excited I was when I heard about this special and I recall watching it like it was yesterday. Think about it, Star Wars...on TV...in your house...for free! I went to my best friend's house to watch it. I should have known it was going to be disappointing when the opening credits introduced "R2-D2 as...R2-D2!"
After a cold opening that features Han and Chewbacca, we go to the wookiees' living room. Malla, Itchy and Lumpy engage in a conversation in their language of grunts, growls and mumbles...for a solid 5 minutes...without subtitles.
This is followed by a holographic program featuring acrobats that Lumpy watches ... which also seems to go on forever.
Art Carney, Bea Arthur and Harvey Korman are among my favorite comic actors. But they just don't belong in Star Wars. It feels weird to hear "Ed Norton" refer to himself as "a friend of the Rebellion and a member of the Alliance."
Bea Arthur is just a few months removed from the last episode of Maude. So her sketch basically feels like "Maude Findlay takes over the Mos Eisley Cantina." Watching "Maude" interact with the cantina aliens just feels wrong.
Ackmena (Bea Arthur) tends bar at the cantina, while Krelman (Harvey Korman) checks her out.
Korman deserves some kudos for playing 3 different characters. The 7 year old version of me laughed at his performance as Gormaanda, a 4-armed alien version of Julia Child, making a dish called "Bantha Surprise." In fact, my friends & I quoted this character ("Stir, stir...whip, whip,stir!") for months after the special.
But the worst parts of this show are the "serious" musical numbers. Diahann Carroll appears in what is essentially a soft core porn flick for Itchy's entertainment. Carroll, a very talented performer, gets to tell a wookiee that she's his "fantasy." Look at this quote from Caroll's character Mermeia, directed at Itchy:
"I am your fantasy. I am your experience. So experience me. I am your pleasure. So enjoy me."
Ugh, what were they thinking?! As a kid, this (fortunately) went over my head. I just found it boring, which is the word that best describes this special in general.
Diahann Carroll as Mermeia.
Jefferson Starship's performance isn't much better. I was never a huge fan, but their music was sort of omnipresent in the 70s/early 80s. Their appearance here is a low point for the group (until they morphed into Starship and recorded "We Built This City"), "Light The Sky On Fire" is a forgettable song. I've heard their performance described as "Spinal Tap-esque" and that's an accurate description.
Jefferson Starship performs "Light The Sky On Fire".
The "real" Star Wars actors don't bring much to the table either. Harrison Ford comes off better than the rest. We get some glimpses of Han's rogueish charm and humor. And Peter Mayhew emerges with most of his dignity intact. However, Mark Hamill barely looks like himself in the special. Rumor has it that his face was plastered with make-up to obscure the damage done in a car accident.
Sadly, Carrie Fisher fares the worst of all. I don't know if Fisher's (well-documented) use of drugs affected her performance, but she has a glazed-over, dazed look every time she's onscreen. Her singing voice isn't as bad as you might think, but the song "A Day To Celebrate" isn't good.
When I watched this back in '78, my friend's father came downstairs and asked us "how was it?" We looked at each other and rather sheepishly told him "it was good, really good." We knew we were lying, but if we said otherwise, our love for everything Star Wars would've been mocked incessantly from then on.
Han Solo tangles with a Storm Trooper.
But it's not all bad.
About halfway through, Lumpy watches a cartoon that features all the Star Wars characters voiced by their live-action counterparts. It features the first appearance of Boba Fett, and some cool caricatures of the actors. But,when the cartoon ends, you're back on Kashyyyk.
Wookiees celebrate Life Day.
And we also get to see some outtakes of Star Wars. The scenes of Tatooine and Darth Vader's brief appearance were taken from unused scenes from the movie, probably the first time SW outtakes were shown in public.
George Lucas has disowned this special, but this is not the only appearance of Chewbacca's family. A year later, they appeared in a book called The Star Wars Wookiee Storybook. That makes me think Lucas had other plans involving these wookiees, until the failure of this special.
Did you own this book when you were a kid? I still have my copy.
J.A. Morris' rating:
I don't know how to rate The Star Wars Holiday Special. The best thing I can say is that it's better than The Phantom Menace. If you consider yourself a fan of Star Wars, you should probably watch this at least once...and then forget it exists. This is normally where I'd post some sort of holiday ratings icon, but I think this image showing the destruction of Alderaan sums up my views on this special:
RigbyMel says:
I was not subjected to The Star Wars Holiday Special as a child. I only recently sat down to watch the whole thing and I think it is a shame that something that had so much potential to be cool (or at least amusing) fails on so many levels. I'd say that it should be buried in a sarlacc pit to be digested for 1000 years, but I fear it would give the sarlacc indigestion. I'd also like to say that it's so bad it's kind of good, but it just isn't.
As J.A. Morris says, there is some good talent on tap here but their skills are utterly wasted. The special is alternately boring and disturbing. The animated sequence with Boba Fett and the fun cartoony versions of our friends from the Rebellion is ok, but not enough to make this mess very worth while. I can only recommend this for hard-core Star Wars completeists with an hour and a half to waste.
If you're looking for Star Wars holiday fun, I recommend checking out Christmas In The Stars, a Star Wars Christmas record that was originally released in 1980 (and which my brothers and I enjoyed greatly as kids) and was re-released on CD in 1994.
Christmas In The Stars album cover
It is cheesy as all get out but, unlike The Star Wars Holiday Special is often amusing. Moreover, it contains vocal performances by a young Jon Bon Jovi (who appears as a backup singer credited as Jon Bongiovi), which has to be worth something (not necessarily something good, but something.)
It also contains the periennial holiday classic song "What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas When He Already Owns A Comb?" which is not to be missed. Check it out:
That being said, I agree with J.A. Morris's exploding Alderaan rating for The Star Wars Holiday Special on the grounds that it might make your head explode in a similar fashion.
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