For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

YULE TUBE: The ultimate holiday present!

They suffered, so you don't have to.

Herewith find 1978's entire execrable Star Wars Holiday Special boiled down to five minutes.

Now you can savor all its stupefying awfulness without killing two hours of your life.

Such a gift!

Now you know why George Lucas has been trying to bury this thing for 30 years.

Downloadable version here.

2 Comments

James Dolan said:

You must be kidding? Did Lucas actually create this drek? Thanks for being so in tune with the best and the drek.

December 26, 2009 1:35 AM

Brian Phillips said:

Oh, dear. I remember seeing this. Art Carney got kissed by a Wookie; that was his "Life Day" present. I enjoyed Bea Arthur's work but I had suppressed Bea Arthur's involvement.

As horrible as this is, there was another show that seems to be lost, but I recall something called "The Science Fiction Awards", hosted by Dick Van Dyke. Being a fan of Dick Van Dyke in an era when you had to wait to see if Disney would re-release "Mary Poppins" or hope "The Dick Van Dyke Show" would be rerun, I tuned in. It contained the most surreal moment of my TV-watching childhood.

This show, which featured Heatwave singing "Boogie Nights", which Van Dyke announced as "Boojee Nights" by THE Heatwave, also featured a dance tribute to Star Wars. A flying saucer-ish light display descended from the rafters. Four dancers, dressed up as Tusken Raiders or Stormtroopers (can't remember which) came out, armed and broke into...a soft shoe routine. At the end of this, they all dropped to one knee extended one arm and in came, to applause, R2D2. This started a short antiphonal section, in which the orchestra played the "Star Wars" theme, which R2D2 "sang" the last four notes.

That's all I can remember of this number, however that is NOT the most surreal moment. Kitschy, but not surreal.

Since I didn't produce this show, my guess is that someone didn't show up, or they mistimed the whole affair, but Dick Van Dyke came out after a few more awards were given out and said something along these lines:

"Folks, I hope you're having a good time tonight. The response has been tremendous and the phones have been ringin' off the hook, so we are going to show you the tribute to "Star Wars" again!"

Sure enough, that's what happened. They showed the same sequence AGAIN. I have never seen that done before or since.

December 31, 2009 12:55 PM

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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