That's the problem with this here digital age. Nothing is really ever destroyed. If it weren't for the internets, no one would ever have to be subjected to that crap, and the world would be a better place.

“The people of the Czech Republic don’t have to choose between being a friend of the United States or a friend with Russia,”
“You can be both. We don’t believe in a zero-sum world.”
words from your president on missile defense and stoking a feud with Russia. Oh yeah and all the other things that it seems this Administration says we have to do, to protect democracy everywhere else but here and keep everyone paranoid from one generation to the next for the rest of this planets lifespan.

If anyone going to give reason for a future arms race just like the good old cold war, it is going to be Bush , Putin, and that knucklehead from Iran.

Not to be shallow...

This was TWO HOURS when it originally aired?

Holy mother of god.

It was 5 minutes, plus about 20 seconds every 2.5 seconds for the buffering (I thought Comcast was quicker than DSL) anyhow the suffering was worth it to see Bea Arthur's horrible singing.

I actually watched it twice. Oh how I love guilty pleasure.

What the fuck is up with Mark Hammil's face? Why does he look like an Oompa-Loompa with too much eye makeup? Maybe he was forced to put his face through that car windshield just to carve all this pancake and mascara off his puss.

@6
Talking about a "guilty pleasure" used to be subversive, bordering on pure shame and told to just a few close friends. Nowadays people profess their love for something bad to a wide audience - it's not guilty anymore, it's an outright pleasure.

Example: I am staunchly anti-Iraq War, I know several vets who I respect greatly for their courage, I take the numbers of dead seriously- yet when I read the headline today endeing with volleyball court, I grinned for a second.

Art Carney dancing. Bea Arthur dancing AND singing. Good god somebody bribe whomever to resurrect this entirely entact.

@7--it might have been after Hamill's car accident that messed up his face (which is the reason Lucas wrote into Empire the face-scratching snowman scene)

@9 - No way this is Hamill pre-face-through-the-windshield, he's too pretty. Freakishly pretty. With those shiny veneers and mascara and orange glow, he's like a mildly radioactive window-display mannequin.

What I really want to know is what marketing genius thought that Bea Arthur, Art Carney and Jefferson Airplane were what the average American 7 year-old was dying to see in a Star Wars special. I mean, sure, Bea Arthur post Hot Pseudo Lesbian Kaffeklatsch Golden Girls Days, I can see that; what 7 year-old in the 80s didn't knock a batch out to that show, for heaven's sake! But Bea Arthur circa the Maude years? What could be less Star Wars Chic than that?

@10 --- wow, ding ding ding MANNEQUIN is my word of the month. A few weeks ago I was giving a brief lecture at UW on drawing techniques. I focused on some old 2002? Artist magazine article that emphasized the use mannequins, plaster casts etc. It involved tracing paper, lights/darks, economical savings, blah blah---

The weird point though, was that the author, from Port Angeles no less, went out of his way to put in parentheseis "(it can also be spelled mannekin, mannikin, and manikin)"- on top of that, he followed with, "the origin can be said to be traced to the Dutch word mannekijn, otherwise "little man".'

After telling this antidote at the lecture, I veered onto some further tangents, and was glad my 15 minutes came to end soon after.

I was 7 when this monstrocity was broadcast. My memory is hazy but I believe that I tried to watch it but couldn't. I wanted another Darth Vader light saber battle and it just wasn't going to happen.

For those too young to remember, the 70s was the decade of the "variety show" and there were lots of specials done in that format. So you had weak comedy, lame music and dance routines, and what not. It was probably considered "edgy" to have Jefferson Starship on.

OMG! The reason Lucas bought up all the original copies of this Holiday Special was because it's BETTER than those 3 crappy Pre-quel movies he made!
\ ;)
I remember being soooo excited to see this when I was a kid and how embarassing it was to watch it with my parents. We turned it off after 20 mins. My mom never did go see the actual Star Wars movie and I think it was because she was exposed to this Thing first.

on a side note, they do have the solution to the problem of what to call Christmas, Kwanza, Hannakka, the Holidays, etc.....
Let's just call it LIFE DAY!
They were being politically correct before it was even time to be politically correct. Yeah Star Wars.
By the way, the guy pouring the drink into his head?! I'm in heaven.... it's beyond bad..... the whole thing needs to be released as a midnight movie.....

I'm thrilled that someone dug this up. Lucas' attempts at rewriting history (Greedo shooting first? Puhleeze) are beyond irritating.

The guy pouring his drink into his headhole (when he apparently has a perfectly good mouth, I'd hate to see what else goes in that hole) has got nothing on the Virtual Wookieporn Art Carney's character inexplicably brings "Itchy" (poor Chewbacca; he has to come home to Itchy and Lumpy, the Syphillis Wookies). Apparently Wookies get wood over hot African American Human Women in wigs fashioned from the hair leftover when the Pink Ewok has her beaver shaved. This 5-minute clipshow mercifully leaves out the extended Wookiegasm that Itchy experiences once Diahann Carroll sweet-talks him into hairy, itchy, lumpy bliss.

@ 9-
DAMN YOU! I was going to use that for tomorrow's fun star wars fact!

On a side note about the Laos thing:

The accused allegedly conspired to buy hundreds of machine-guns, rockets and explosives from US federal agents who were working undercover as arms dealers.

Does this strike anyone else as dirty pool? I mean, 30 years ago the CIA walks up to these guys and goes, "Hey, we're gonna sell you some weapons-- but you didn't get them from us," and the U.S. government supports them and it's all very Kissingeresque. Then, decades later, the CIA walks up to them and goes, "Hey, we're gonna sell you some weapons-- but you didn't get them from us... and by the way, you're under arrest, beyotch!" I mean, I guess they should've realized that if the U.S. was going to bust Noriega then all Cold War bets were off, but it's still kind of like, okay, what's next? We start running undercover weapons stings on Cubans in Miami?

i love to make a wookie happy...

I bought a bootleg copy of the entire show off of ebay a few years back (pre-youtube). I had remembered watching it as a kid, and I wanted to see it again. The thing is, aside from about 8 seconds, this thing is not so-bad-it's-funny. It's really just incredibly boring. It's not worth wading through 2 hours of street jugglers in body paint, a Land of the Lost Chaka-style wookie kid playing with dolls, and pointless scenes from a cheap imitation cantina set, just to see Carrie Fisher say 2 lines while stoned out of her mind. It's just a waste of time.

I hadn't seen this since it's original, mercifully only network airing, but NWFF screened the entire two-hour train wreck, along with a bunch of other horrible (and a few memorable) TV Christmas specials at their holiday party a couple of years ago.

Even drunk on cheap wine it was painful to watch - the same way observing battlefield surgery in-progress for example can be vicariously, excruciatingly painful.

Well said Judah.
I think the current Administration wants that 60s political intrigue of the cold war back and for the next generation and next generation and next generation that their kids will just go thats the way of life for everyone. We'll all be so brainwashed that everyone has weapons because they want to be our enemy and not our Ally. So we keep on selling to the so called "enemies" in far off lands to purpetuate the War Machine.

I think I lost several IQ points watching that. And yet I still want to watch the whole thing. Hey, it's cheaper than a lobotomy!

I'm... well... it's just... Bea Arthur... I can't... Happy life day... But... wookiegasms... Art Carney?

I think I have to go get drunk at lunch.

Holy shit, a real US based coup attempt in Laos? That was a fucking King of the Hill episode. That show is too scarily accurate sometimes.

I actually watched the whole thing when a coworker brought it in years ago. I don't remember it being two hours, but it could'a been, I sorta tuned out after the Jefferson Starship part or so...

Holy Christ. I have a vague memory of actually enjoying that when I was a kid. I'm very, very ashamed.

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