Pod Stallions 58: The Star Wars Holiday Special

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We're back with a look at a much maligned (and let's face it, it's not great) chunk of our childhood, the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.

Look, we're not going to take such low hanging fruit, the truth is, it's not any worse than most of what was called "entertainment" in 1978. In fact, it's kind of status quo, so forgive it, love and like us, talk about what we do enjoy. We both seriously want action figures of those cartoon characters and if you're listening, so do you.

As always, the conversation strays to the Ice Pirates, action figures, style guides, Brian's parents taking him to inappropriate movies and a spirited debate about the amazing effects of nostalgia.

Also, Brian wants to apologize for what he said about the Goonies, please don't kill him. He has kids.

So happy life day and give us spirited debate on our facebook wall.

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[Ranger 3]

This is a great early Christmas present! Thank you Pod-Stallion Claus!

[Hedji]

Yes! I am a unashamed fan!

[Falstaff13]

Another great episode--I like this special in my mind with both the Legends of the Superheroes specials (for which I have a soft spot; they also connect because Mickey Morton, who played Solomon Grundy in the two superhero shows, was also one of Chewbacca's family) and the Special Sesame Street Christmas (the "other" 1978 Sesame Street Christmas program, which also comes of out of that variety show tradition you contextualize so well here). I have the vaguest of memories of watching this when it aired, and I saw it in the late 1990s when I got a bootleg for a friend who was a huge Star Wars fan (only to discover he was a purist who agreed with Lucas and thus didn't want anything to do with it). Personally, I'm all for keeping it all in, so the SW Universe encompasses all the films, plus the Droids & Ewoks cartoons, plus this, and plus the Muppet Show episode.

I think I tried watching Ice Pirates with the same broadcast you all were talking about. I can see where they were trying very hard to create their world of adventure, but most of it does just feel like a misstep, but I suppose that could be said about several SF films from that era.

Next year, you'll have to work through the Star Wars album Christmas in the Stars.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Oooh, I have a new computer, so I've been fighting that off all morning, and just saw this! What a great way to end the work week!

Chris

[Earth 2 Chris]

Fun discussion. I agree that in context, the Holiday Special isn't worse than a lot of 70s TV. But it's such a headscratcher that it kind of exists beyond all of those 70s variety shows. I've had a bootleg copy for years, but the first time I saw it was in college while we were helping a friend move who was a HUGE Star Wars fan. He regaled us with stories of it, then while we took a break and ate some pizza, we watched it. It was a total MST3K experience, so in that regards, I have really fond memories of it!

Chris

[Bravestarr]

Thank you great podcast your not wrong about goonies and James Cameron