Do Go On - 373 - The Star Wars Holiday Special

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

On Friday, November 17th, 1978, a special television event billed as “a dazzling lineup of stars, animation, adventure, music and visual effects” aired on CBS in America. That TV event was the Star Wars Holiday Special, it was a bit of a disaster - tune in to hear the story!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 6:50 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report). Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/  Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Check out our merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a30246129/the-star-wars-holiday-special-1978-stream-online-disney-plus/https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/72863/dark-side-oral-history-star-wars-holiday-specialhttps://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-star-wars-holiday-special-20181117-story.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Another episode of Dugawaan. My name is Dave Hornigy.

How are we feeling out there? Yeah. Hello. Hey, thank you so much for coming out to our Khrush Mish special for putting the festive season into the season. Would you please welcome to the stage Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins? Hello! Jess, I think you might be the most pumped up person here. Yeah.

That's going to last. That's going to last. Where is everybody? I'm tired. There's some empty seats out. Where are you? There's some people coming in now. Dad?

This is our big Christmas pageant, Dad. You promised. You'd be here. You saved him a special seat. Far back corner. Don't like looking at him. Don't like it. We've got an ugly dad.

We've got an ugly dad. Not his fault. But it is what it is. It's not a half fault. Is anyone blaming us to? We're in collectively have an ugly dad. I'll speak for yourselves. My dad's hot.

So hot. Dave, I was doing a bit where we all had the same dad. We all had the same dad. We clearly all had the same dad. Yeah, what I'm doing a bit where my dad is hot, which is the truth. That's not a bit. Martin's a very hot guy. He's a sexy, sexy man.

That's not funny when you just say, yeah, my objectively hot dad is hot. We all know that. We've all seen him that time on who wants to be a millionaire. Yeah, do you remember? Do you remember that time? He did not win any money. Well, you know, God doesn't always. give with both hands and

he took a big old scoop a hot he really chipped out on the brains for mum yeah when you see how hot he is it's fine yeah

we've gone silly very early how much of that's getting getting chopped um hello everybody how you doing are you good thank you so much for being here last Christmas show of course

we had an outbreak of COVID this year We've kindly done the show quite early in December, so you've got time to recover. That's right. You're welcome. You'll get over it. You'll get over it.

Or not. Fucking chill out. Who are we to say? I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. It's like one of those old chicken pock parties where... You go, you got chicken pox? We'll go play with Frank.

Yeah. And Darlene? I was a kid very long time ago. Frank Dahlie. Gertrude. Gertrude's there. I can't think of any more names. Michelangelo.

Michael Angelou? You're really going back. Jesus was there. How old are you? He's as old as the wind. I'm quite old. Dave, why don't you explain what the fuck this is? Well, this is our eighth,

can you believe it, eightth annual Christmas special? And what we do is... Name the other seven. Hydrogen, helium. Helium. Fuck, divino. Well, we've done everything from the

Santa Claus to last year I did the Santa Claus robberies, and what we do is we take it in turns, the report on a topic often suggested to us by one of our listeners. We go away and do a bit of research. Matt's done that this year. And the last time you did the live Christmas special, you did some very depressing

murders. Hey, let's not forget just the last live show in general where you just talked about somebody who fucked a dog, so. Was anyone there for that one? Did not go out on the main feed Yeah, didn't it? No

I don't think so Anyway, we always start with a question Yes To get us on topic My question this week is The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Have you seen it?

No I watched the other night A few people seen it I haven't watched it The reviews are in You've watched it Well I'm about to talk about it for an hour mate

So No I'm not What the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special was released last month What has directed James Gunn sided as its main inspiration. Was that a piece of shit?

Sound like it. Yeah, all right. Yeah, James Gunn. Shut and down. Love it when Dave's a bitch. Yeah, cop that gun. His main source of inspiration. For the Guardians of the Galaxy

Christmas special. Yeah, holiday special. Sure. Based on a classic of the genre. A Christmas Carol? No, it's not a Christmas carol. Miracle on 34th. No.

If you said a different street, it would have still been no. But I liked how you... You didn't pause there and make us all wait. I should have just jumped in and said, I'll stop you right there. No miracles involved in this one. It's almost a reverse miracle. Oh. It's just a bad thing.

Yeah, it's just a bit. Is it a Christmas movie? It is a Christmas. Well, it's a holiday special. It's the something holiday special. Oh, I don't know if there's anyone in the room in my own. Is it Star Wars? Muppets.

Put it all together, Bob, for the point. Muppet, Star Wars. It's the Star Wars holiday special. Okay, well... I get the point. All right. This has been suggested just by two people. Evan Waterman from Denver, Colorado,

and Pete Holburton from Melbourne. You're in tonight Pete? Yes. Yes! Yeah, we should check, was that Pete or Evan? But not Pete Evans, please. for the love of God. Imagine me to see someone slicking down in their chair.

Oh, sorry, Pete. Oh, Pete, this never happens. That's the best. That's so good. We ask that a lot. Does that ever happen before? I don't have a great memory, but... All right, are we ready to begin?

No. Oh. I'll take your time. I need a few minutes. Okay. Can we just have small talk? Yeah. Still getting over the Pete buzz?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm all jittery. Anyway, yeah, no, absolutely. Let's kick this off. On Friday, November the 17th, 1978, a special television event builders, a dazzling lineup of stars, animation, adventure, music,

and visual effects aired on CBS in America. That TV event was the Star Wars Holiday Special. I said that like you wouldn't have already known that. Wow. I kind of gave that way earlier. You were building drama for no reason. It was two hours long, including ad breaks. His font is so big he's already onto page two.

I'm not even kidding. Funny words of page you get. Well, the first half of the page is all my resources. Different to yours, mine isn't just Wikipedia. I've got quite a few there, so. Hey, the sass bitch is back. Hey, that's my thing. Sorry.

Have either of you seen it? No. No, but it sounds great. From that little sentence there, that sounds fantastic. It's got a bit of everything. It's got stars. It's got visual effects. It's got...

A puppets. A cartoon. Yeah. What a recipe for success. Yep. So for context, Star Wars, the original film was released the year before. It was a massive smash hit. Was it?

Yeah, it was huge. It was like at some point the biggest grossing film ever. Really? Until E.T. Until Avatar. Yeah. That's true. And until Avatar 2, which...

we're all so pumped up for. Yeah. You know, countdown the day still Avatar 2 comes out? Yeah, come on. We're excited. It goes for like three hours. Oh my God. I know.

Jim, stop it. Stop. Stop it. So, at the same time that Star was a big hit, so were variety shows. Everyone seemed to have one. Sonny and Shared, Donnie and Marie, you know, all the big names.

The Muppets had one. So why not Han Solo and Chewbucker? It's a question that a few people asked. And the answer was, well, there's a lot of answers why, but... It wasn't unprecedented. Established variety shows had done sketches with Star Wars characters over the previous few months. According to Frank Deer Giacomo, writing for Vanity Fair,

in the fall of 1977, with the original film still in theatres, segments featuring the Cantina Aliens on variety shows hosted by Donnie and Marie Osmond and Richard Pryor helped revive their box office. So part of the success of Star Wars was that they had aliens on... Variety shows? Sometimes, yeah.

Have you two have watched Star Wars? Because I'm worried that there's things in here, like if I say canteen or aliens, does that mean anything to you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Has that song go?

Everyone now. Yeah, there's a lot of do-do-do-do in there. Yeah. The do-do-do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- that kind of thing. And that's a lot. And that's better. And it's better. One of the motivations for the special was to keep the Star Wars universe in the public consciousness as the sequel.

You're doing so well today. As the sequel. I think that's, that's, I speak. a little French, so sometimes I slip into that, sorry. I think you Australian say sequel. Yeah, yeah. I sound cultured swine. The sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was still two years away.

Another possible motivator was to sell toys. Sex toys. Yes. From the canteener. That's got a sound effect. And that's what you want in a sex toy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Noisy.

I'm coming with rhythm. Look me in the eye for that. Di Giacomo wrote Lucas had been sold on the idea that a Star Wars holiday television special would sustain interest in the franchise, move more toys off the shelves, and maybe even pick up some new fans

who hadn't seen the movie. It's so funny to think of what it turned out to be that he thought it might have brought in new fans. So you have this show that we don't have. I just watched it in the bath this afternoon. And it was, oh man, it was, yeah. Even without the bath, it felt like water torture, but... Wild.

No, it was... Has anyone seen it? Yeah. Pretty... Bad, okay. Did you watch it in the bath? No. That could have been your mistake.

Okay, exactly. Report back to us. According to Jessica Roy, for the LA Times. Lucas was very busy in 1978. Expectations were high for the sequel, and he was moving his production company to Northern California.

So he didn't have time to get very involved with the special. That's always good. He came up with a general concept, though, and I don't know, have you heard anything about it? No. So he came up with a general concept,

which was to expand on the Wookies and to introduce Chewbacker's family. Sure. So it was going to be very wookie, heavy. Great. He was like, at one point he just wanted it to be a whole movie about Wookies. Yeah, great.

The people, who can't talk. What do they sound like, though? Ooh. It was like the Mrs. Delfier Cross over. Ooh! Yeah, no, I can't remember. What do they sound like?

Yeah. There's got to be someone in here who can do a... There it is. Gargling. It's a gargling. It's in the back of the throat. According to Charles Lippincott, who worked with Lucas at the time. Lippincott.

What did I say? No, they heard Lippin'cock. But that's on them, Matt. That's not on you. That's not on you. I was with you. I was with you. I heard Lippincock.

Lippin cock, yeah. I can see why that might get a little reaction. And what would that sound like? So according to Lippencock, who worked with Lucas at the time. The special was always intended to be a variety type show, but he explains, we wanted something that was going to make us different

to other variety shows. We didn't want the same old, same old. Variety shows. There's not a variety in these shows. Yeah, yeah. All these variety shows, they're all the same. None of them have wookies. So that's why they brought in David Acomba.

They thought he's the right. Rock got a direct. He was like a rock and roll bad boy director. Love that. He wore sunglasses. I imagine like cigarette up the, you know, shirt sleeve, maybe a leather jacket, rode a set on a Harley. Oh man, that guy's combing his hair all the time. Yeah. It's the Fons. So that's the guy they wanted in there because Lucas and that didn't have time to be there. They're like, at least we've got a director. The TV studio, they're from a different world to us. But we've got our guy in there who's looking after it.

But Accombe said he increasingly sensed that there was not only a gaping generational divide between him and the producers. But also a cultural impasse between the get it right Lucas Film Camp and the I Need It Yesterday TV people. So in the Lucas side, they were, they were autos, they were artistic, they had a vision, they wanted to get it right. Whereas the TV people were like, just do it, who cares, aliens, who gives a shit. Yeah. I think I'm a TV person. It was a mix that never mixed, says Lenny Rips, one of the writers. You can tell he's a writer.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Well, I mean, you haven't even got to the end of this quote. I can't wait. If you like the first half of this quote, he said, and everyone was good, but I'm sure there wasn't a bad welder on the Titanic either. Now that makes you think. Yeah.

There probably wasn't. No. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think I do. Also, welding's one of those things that I've sort of, I've never done it, but I reckon I'd be great at it. You know? I can see that.

How hard could it be? Just keep going until it's all stuck together. Our ex-prime minister, Scott Morrison, thought that during the... Remember that? Yeah. I'll just have a closer look. What a fucking idiot. Wipped up the mask.

Yeah. What a truly stupid man. I'll take no prisoners tonight, Bob. Yeah. I had a seven-minute bike ride from work to here, and I'm all jazzed up. First Chris Evans, now Scott Morrison. Who's next? What I say?

Which one did I fuck up? Pete Evans. Peter. I was last to what you were talking about. Sorry. Who's Chris Evans? Captain America. Captain America.

A kid at the back has headphones on, yep. Kid at the back? Yep. He's got headphones, all right? He's having a good time. I just wanted to double check. The headphones were still on. We're good.

It's good to know now there's a kid in there. I also did not know. I assume he's listening to one of our other quality podcasts. Possibly a book cheat episode in those headphones. So by the time the camera's rolled, Lucas had moved on. And Accomba, the director, the bad boy. Yeah, fond. He realized he was in over his head, saying,

for me, there was no centre. I couldn't seem to grasp. but I'm the director, I'm supposed to know. I'm supposed to draw on something that makes it all work. And so in those first few days of shooting, everything came home to roost, and it was hell. He's just like, what the, what is this? It doesn't make any sense. What am I doing?

That's like it was panicking. It's good when the director's having a crisis. That filters down in a beautiful way. This sounds like a real bad point. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

He only ended up shooting a handful of segments before he left the project. one of them being the scene featuring golden girl star B Arthur singing in the alien canteen. Perfect, yeah, that makes sense. Sources Sayakumba seemed overwhelmed by the demands of television production such as shooting a scene with multiple cameras to cover various angles. That was a bit overwhelming. Yeah.

He's like, I'm used to just shooting with one camera. He's used to it taking way longer. Now that they're doing it with multiple cameras, He's like, oh, what's going on? So instead of directing the scenes via monitors from a control booth, as most TV directors do, he worked a floor like a movie director, which greatly annoyed the tight-knit staff of TV veterans.

L. Purits, an ass prod on the series, said, he was a loose cannon. So, because usually you sit in the studio and they say, camera one, now go to two, but he's in the studio yelling that out. Camera one, two. Go to four Take three

And it's like You can hear that Over the whole segment Yeah It's still in the final cut Yeah A nightmare B Arthur's singing

You can go on He got He got so overwhelmed That he quit via telegram That's the sign of a flustered man Yeah He didn't even tell his age And he's like

I'm sending up a telegram Stop I quit stop Make it stop Stop Yeah So with a combo on, the show had to go on and Steve Binder was brought in to take over.

Binder was an experienced director of TV specials, most notably for Elvis's 1968 comeback special. So his CV has got Elvis's comeback special and the Star Wars holiday special. It's not a bad CV. Not a bad CV. I think the fact that he has experience with TV specials bodes a little better, do you think?

Yes. Because that's what they're filming. That's what they're filming. Yeah, yeah. So that helps. And apparently he was good in, like, stressful situations. Apparently, before the Elvis, special Elvis, like, I'm not going out. And he talked him into doing it.

Yeah, right. He said, you fucking go out there. You have a contractual obligation. You get the fuck. I don't give a fuck that you're Elvis. You're some fucking guy to me. Get out there. Or your head will be in a bucket.

Hey, Elvis. And there was a beautiful show. Ironically, ended up dying on a bucket of sorts. It's been said that if it wasn't for Binder, the special wouldn't have been able to be completed at all. It was already in a lot of trouble. And when he got there, he told everybody, you fucking go out there.

Producers were like, oh man, if you weren't here, this would be done. They were still already way of a budget. No one really knew what was going on. It was a big mess. He's threatening Yoda. You fucking get out there. Go out there.

Get out there. Fuck. Or whatever you, however you speak. Get out there fucking. You know how he speaks. You know what I'm going for there. Fill in the blanks yourself, people. We don't have to do all the work for you, do we?

It seems like part of the problem was the writers and George Lucas were not on the same page. So you had the Lucas camp and then you had these TV writers. They were used to writing jokes and do an old slapstick sort of, what do you have, Voldervort. What do you call it? Borderville. Borderville. Volderville. Yeah.

Volderville. Vorderville. Borderville. Yes. Very different. Yeah. Voldemort no nose. Wants to kill a child.

Yes. So what's the difference? Borderville. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, they weren't on the same page to writers

One of those writers was Bruce Valanche Bit of a character. Valanche? Valanche. Valanche. Violanche. Ooh, I don't know. So he was a veteran comedy writer

who was since written material for 16 Oscar telecasts and had just finished working on Bet Midler's 1977 TV special which was called All Red Hair is Back The jarthal was fantastic. Have you already submitted a title for next year's comedy festival? Oh no. That is awesome.

That is fantastic. I'd be changing it. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Big time. Send an email. Lenny Rips, who we talked about before.

Lenny Rips? Yeah, he's the guy who talked about the Titanic. This guy... Ah. I was lost in his words before. I didn't realize his last name was Rips. Yeah, Lenny Rips. That's a lot of great names.

Oh, that's so good. He had a bunch of variety TV writing experience as well. He went on to write and produce a classic show, Full House. Ah, I've never heard of it. So you can sort of see the caliber of some of these people. Pat Profft was also involved, who worked on Police Academy, Naked Gun and Hot Shots. You know, sort of spoofy. Never heard of them.

Dave? What is that? Yeah. Oh yeah. That's some good stuff. You've never heard of any of it, have you? Have you ever seen a movie? What are they?

I don't know. Never seen a television special. Dejicomo wrote, this was a comedy variety dream team, but that expertise was an odd fit with Star Wars. Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz. said, we should have realized that there was no way that we could fit the characters into this kind of format.

Should have known. I don't know what. No one thought. Nobody thought of that. No one thought. This is a bit dumb. At first, for Lanch, Rips and the team were excited to be involved. Rips later said, Rips.

Yeah, that's great. Rips later said, we were really excited because, my God, this is an annuity. I'll get a check every year from Star Wars. How can I lose? He thought it was a sure thing Yeah It was honestly he's like This will be played every Christmas

Yeah Checks in the mail for me This is going down in history Yeah I'll be honest All I'm thinking about Is changing my name To Little Jesse Rips

It's so good Have you named your comedy festival show yet Yeah And I actually called it Little Jesse Rips Wow I know can you believe it Dear Giacomio

Different every time Dijicomo Dijacamole Dijacamol Dijachamor rights But when Valanche heard Lucas's storyline at a development meeting, he quickly realized that a big challenge lay ahead. Lucas was intent on building the Star Wars holiday special, as it would be called, around

Wookieies, specifically the family of Chewbucker, as they outwitted Imperial forces to come together on Life Day, the wookie equivalent of Christmas or Thanksgiving. It's pretty, I love how they've gone, like, really creative with it. And they've come up with something that, you know, I think everyone can get involved in that. Don't you think? No, Life Day makes me want to be dead.

Life Day. Life Day. But Valanche, when he heard this idea, he started thinking the special was in danger of looking like one long episode of Lassie. Sure, because we're all lookies. Just big dogs. What's that chewy?

Hans, fallen down a well. I'll get him a lights over. I thought you said you hadn't seen it. This thing rides itself. And they were struggling to write this. Bloody hell. So Valanche was like, I can't believe. These guys don't, they don't speak English.

Yeah. This is what you're going to base the show around? Apparently, in his own words, Valanche said, Lucas met these comments with a glacial look. Slow. Is that what that means? George cannot keep up.

What's this guy talking about? This was his vision, he said, and he could not be moved. And of course, Star Wars was so gigantic, and he had been validated 100 times over. So he had what a director needs to have, which is this insane belief in their personal vision, and he somehow was going to make it work. That's what Valanche was thinking anyway.

There was a big gap between the visions of Lucas and his crew, and then the CBS producers and TV. crew, the writing crew, but as Dear Jackomor writes, the deal had been struck, and Lucas and the writers got down to the business of roughing out a script.

Valanche remembers, we would ask him questions like, would a wookie slap his knee? Do they laugh the way humans laugh or is there some other way? Is there an answer? No, they wouldn't suffer any. And they laugh like a wookie.

Which sort of sounds like these. Woo-hoo. But Valancho's like, we didn't want to piss on his Bible. He's very precious about this stuff. We didn't want to mess with it. His words were piss on the Bible. That wasn't one of my phrases. We all knew that he had rules,

and we didn't know what the rules were. Mostly, though, he was just passing judgment. He had constructed the framework for the show. We were basically just throwing things onto it and seeing what stuck. But really, Lucas didn't have. a lot to do with a special outside of insisting that the Wookiee storyline was included.

He basically, at that point, he got busy. As did DG... Got busy. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Okay. Dave, not here, please. Digiomo...

It's getting closer. Continues. In 1978, there were a lot of other people in projects competing for Lille. Lucas's time. With his attention elsewhere during most of the production, the Star Wars holiday special morphed into a monster.

Two directors and much turmoil later, the finished special didn't so much resemble its namesake as it did another science fiction film. The Thing with Two Heads. Okay. He's been a bit poetic here. Right. He's saying it's got two heads.

Yeah, literally two heads. Right, yeah. On to the body of Lucas's sentimental an irony-free, wookie plotline that producers and writers grafted a campy 70s variety show that makes suspension of disbelief impossible. The show was nearly universally panned.

De Gioio... He's losing it again. He tried to interview Lucas about it, saying he declined to be interviewed for the article, although in a chance meeting that I had with in prior to that decision, the filmmaker known for obsessive control of his projects, called the special a travesty

and said he regretted not exercising a tighter grip over its production. Well, he got busy. He was busy, what's it, you know? He's busy, we can't be everywhere. He's not a man with two heads. George, you're not a man with two heads. I don't know what that mean. According to an article in Esquire by Simon Abrams,

Lucasfilm has never released the Star Wars Holiday Special in any format since 1978, except for a personal copy that Lucas gave to star Carrie Fisher. You know, Carrie Fisher? Yeah. Plays Princess Leia. Yeah. One of the main characters. Yep.

Said I knew her. Thank you. I didn't know any of that. So apparently the only copy he's ever given away was one to Carrie Fisher, who used the misconceived TV special to horrify and entertain her party guest. Carrie Fisher was the best. Oh, you've got to check out this piece of shit. You're going to hate this.

Everybody got a fresh show. Drink, all right. Strap in. Here we go. Speaking later to the New York Times, Fisher said, I did the voiceover for some of the Star Wars discs,

but I made it a condition that he would have to give me the Star Wars Christmas special so that I could, you know, have something for parties when I wanted everyone to leave. That's good. I put on a do-go-on.

Same effect. Yeah. It's like, that would make people live. Hey, anyone want to hear a podcast I'm on? Yeah, I think that'd do the trick. Anyone want to sit down and learn? That's what we're doing you tonight.

So it's never been released officially, but luckily the VHS format was introduced two years prior to the specials airing and many fans recorded it on their VCRs. So today, grainy bootleg DVD copies of the special are available at comic conventions, but you can also stream it's on YouTube. I watched it there today.

Where were you, though? Oh, I was in the bar. So I thought, I'm going to... It was quite hot today. Was it a cold bath? No, I fucked up. Honestly, I fucked up.

You could have called out. It could be in a little pool. A pool for one. It was, yeah, I'm in there going, well, you know, it's happening. There's no way I could cool it down. But I was, yeah, I was burning up. You make great choices. Thank you.

Thanks so much. So, yeah, let's get into why this special is so special. I'm going to briefly take you through the plot. So I've watched it so you don't have to, to borrow a phrase from one of my good friends. Who? Stephen Spielberg. That is a good friend.

Tubaka and Han Solo are in the Millennium Falcon. This is how it all starts. Flying to Chewbacca's home planet of Keishu. Kesee. Kishi. Kesee. Bless you. Kishik, was it?

Kishik, sorry, that's awful stuff. So he's trying to get to Kishik to celebrate Life Day with his family. They are being chased by Star Destroyers. Han offers reassuring words to Chui. Like, what's his name? Harrison Ford didn't really want to be in it. And he sort of kind of phoning it in a bit.

I don't think he's wanted to be in anything he's ever been in. He is 80 years old and still work. Yeah. begrudgingly. Yeah. So one of the first things he says is, that's the spirit. You'll be celebrating life day before you know it. And we're off and away.

No. Oh, that's the worst. That's the worst. That's the spirit. Then we go to Kashik and meet Chewbuckers' family who are preparing for his return. The family include his father itchy. His... His wife Marla and his son Lumpy.

Get fucked. Lumpy. So good they got those comedy riders on board. Well, that's shotgun Marla. One of you has to be itchy. One of his Lumpy. I, um, yeah, which one do you pick, dad? I think I'm going to be Lumpy.

Yeah. If you didn't choose Lumpy, Lumpy was going to be forced upon you anyway. Yeah, that's right. But now I can own Lumpy. Exactly right. Happy to be here. Itchy is kind of the senile old wookie, so...

Perfect. Marla's a woman. So that's nailed it. But it seems like George Lucas actually came up with the names. Lumpy. So, and some people point out that it's weird that an alien

with a really alien-sounding name like Chubacker would have family members with names like Itchy and Lumpy. but they forget Chewbacca is often referred to as Chewy, right? So true. And much the same, Itchy's full name is Adichickuck. And Lumpies is Lumpa Wur-War-Ump. And Marla is also short for Muller to Buck.

That all makes sense then. I'm glad they provided that extra context. Hey, don't worry, they're not silly names. Wookies don't speak English, as we've mentioned. And according to Roy, this first scene with the Wookieie, family is quote 10 minutes of wookies and there's no captions so it was 10 full minutes of grunting and miming and roy says which is a lot and i tell you it really felt like longer than 10 minutes 10 minutes is such a long time de jacomo said the minutes long stretches of guttural

untranslated wookie dialogue could almost pass for average Vontgard cinema. That's nice. And I've just, I've taken a little trimming of some of this sound, about 10 seconds worth. Tim,

do you want to play that track? I think that was actually quite easy to follow. Do they have a pet dog? There's a song going, right, right, rah, rah,

rah. I did, I read that they got the sounds from like one of them from a baby bear and some of them from tigers and stuff, I think.

So anyway, they're getting ready to celebrate life day. There's about 10 minutes. You don't really know what's going, I remember they're having conversations. They're moving around their tree house where they live.

Of course. If you don't know what Life Day is, Star Wars.com, the official Star Wars website explains it in, you know, relatively vague ways, but this is what they say. Life Day began as a wookie holiday centered around the Kashik tree of life, but can be celebrated by any species in any location. It's a time to share the hopes of celebrating freedom and peace, no matter how different we all may be.

People enjoying Life Day traditionally mark this holiday, and this is where it gets pretty specific, with festive decor, music, activities, and the serving of unique and special food items. Okay. Okay. So they do food items. They've really created a world.

They've really fleshed it out, haven't they? Yeah. Oh, it's gorgeous. So I can picture it now. Yeah, activity. Yeah, there's music over there. Daycore. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they do have daycore there for sure. Yeah. What are you picturing, Dave? Oh, my mind's running wild with imagination. Yeah. Yeah. He wasn't listening. Life day, I love it.

So this is a TV show as well. This isn't a movie. This is something that people can just push their remote and it's over. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think something. people did that. And it's not live, so they've edited this. They've chosen to make that 10 minutes.

Yes. Oh my God. They've watched it back and gone. Perfect. That's it. Just right. From there, it's a bunch of set pieces loosely linked to the plot. Chewy's wife Marla video calls Luke Skywalker to tell him Chewy and Hahn haven't arrived yet.

She's worried. And luckily Luke's starting to go, hang what's, so he's just trying to like, yes. She doesn't call Chewy or Hahn. No. She calls Luke. She can't get onto them. Does she try first though? Do you see her try and like call declined?

Until Luke speaks? Yeah. You don't know what's happening. That's true. That's true. But Luke's sort of going, oh, where's, oh, where's Chewy? I love to speak to Chewy. And she's like, you know, sort of just sort of like flapping around.

And he's like, wait, Chewy's not there yet. Yeah, so it is Lassie. Yes. There are some real Lassie-like moments. But then he figures out that they haven't made it back yet And Luke's like, oh, don't worry, they'll be on their way Anyway, give us a smile, Marla I thought that was a bit of fun

Hey, what? Hey, your husband might be dead or missing. Give us a smile, would you? Turn that frown upside down. Luke looks a bit different in this scene. I'm watching, I'm like, he looks quite, you know, just very different. And it turns out, according to IMD,

This is because his face was heavily made up as he was recovering from reconstructive surgery after a near fatal car accident. So I think he gets a pass on sort of phoning. A few other things on the mind. I don't even think he seemed to want to be there. I think he was in. Hey, Marla. It was basically a sketch. Him and the little robot are two.

they're working on an ex plane and they're going but it starts it's smoking and Luke's like oh Artu what have you done and he's like oh I think I've got it now and they turn around and then it smokes again

oh my God that's a bit of fun what are they like that's a roller coaster life day anything can happen so somehow Luke's saying, hey, they'll, they'll be fine.

Chill the fuck out. Why are you stressing? It didn't put her mind at ease. So she then video calls Shopkeeper Friend, played by Art Carney from the honeymooners. And Carney has one of those black helmet guys. Not Darth Vader, but another guy with this huge

black helmet. From like, I don't I can't remember, I don't know what any of them are called, but you know, one of the bad guys from Star Wars. Mini, Minnie Darth. Yeah. Yeah, he's some sort of Darth guy. But he's not But anyway, he's got a huge, he's just this guy, and he goes, oh, you're here to inspect my shop or something? And the guy goes, no, I'm off duty, just browsing.

What is happening? And then I... Who is she video called? She's video called the shopkeeper. And the shopkeeper's there, as is a bad guy. A bad guy. Who's browsing? Browsing, yeah.

But still wearing the hat. Yeah, he's still wearing the hat. He's still wearing the hat. He doesn't have the face thing on. I don't know if they normally wear the face, but he's just like a guy with a mustache. What the fuck is happening? Sorry.

You're absolutely right. It's life day. Oh, I feel silly. Yeah, you're right. It's life day. So, yeah, so he's, and then, so there's a few minutes of Art Carney trying to sell this,

not Storm Trooper, but like, the black helmet guy. Why hasn't anyone helped me here? What's this going? Great. Okay. You see him? He's a death star trooper. Death Star Trooper.

A Death Star Trooper. Great. So this Death Star Trooper's like going, oh, you know, yeah, that's... Oh, he showed him this mini aquarium. It's a tiny aquarium, but you can take it around in your pocket. And the Death Star Trooper goes,

I hate fish. And then Hardin goes, yeah, I was only joking. This is just some walkie rubbish. I didn't think you'd like that anyway. Check out this thing. It's a brush. And then he says,

So the brush did anything. It did all these things. And the guy goes, I'll take it. And he said, how'd you like to pay? And he said, I said, I'll take it. And he just leaves. He thieves. He thieves.

Yeah. Right to his face. On Life Day. Yeah. It just sounds like you forgot to pay. But that could just be one of the activities. Yeah. Thief.

Stealing, yeah. It's a Life Day activity. It's life day. It's life day. You can thief. So because that guy's there, Art Carney, has to speak in. code when Marla calls.

Oh, great. In code to someone who doesn't speak any English. Yeah. Which, it seems like the wookies can understand English but can't speak in. Yeah. So, and no one's bothered to learn their language in reverse, though. That sounds about right. So, he reassures her by saying something like, I didn't write the quote down because

my hands were wet, but in the bar. He does his best work in the bar. Did you just think, all right, I'll remember this. Yeah, yeah. But it was something like, so Art Carney says something like, oh, that shag pile rug? Is that what you're wondering about?

Yeah, it's on the way to you. The woman who was delivering it didn't need help. She said she'd handle it solo. If you know what I mean. Something like that. That's good. And he's like, you know what I mean? And Miles like, yeah.

So then... I'm so glad I'm. got that out of the way. I mean, thinking about I'm going to have to do it at some point. And I was stressed that I'd fuck it. So people listening at home, what are you talking about there? The noise I just made. Yeah. So then, so I guess Marla's relatively reassured by this weird cryptic message that somehow she cracked.

And then she starts cooking a meal. A festive meal. Yeah, with help from an instructional video. So this is just the setup to the next stupid sketch, right? And this one is like, it's like an alien spoof of Julian Child. Only... Julia Child. But I understand you don't know who that is.

It's all right. What's their name? Julia. Julia Child, yeah. But... So it's like Julia Child only with four arms. And so Marla's going, all right, following step by step. Mix.

It was like a meat dish with a... a big stir line, but then for some reason all the instructions were about stirring and whisking. It was very, anyway. Was there any crunch? Oh. They did. I'm pretty sure she said it was succulent. So basically the joke of this five-minute sketch or whatever it was,

was that Marla couldn't keep up with the forearmed alien. The alien's using forearm to do multiple things, and Marla was like, oh, I'm struggling. Yeah, she's only got... But only she sounds like... Mm-mm. Yeah, that's not bad. It's a bit of better before, though. That's the sound of a wiki panicking.

Then the next bit was basically Chewy's dad, itchy, being a bit of a perv. That's Dad's on Life Day. So the shopkeeper, played by Art Kahn, he arrives with gifts to cheer up the family, saying, this is good stuff. You're going to realize, oh, comedy writers are involved in this.

Yep. He comes in, he says, Why all the long, hairy faces? Eight second pause. I think that's good stuff. One of his gifts is a fantasy virtual reality machine for Itchy. Itchy then watches his fantasy, which is singer Diane Carroll,

telling him he's adorable over and over and saying stuff like, quote, I am your pleasure, experience me. Then she sings a song. one of the show producers Mitsy Welch That's incredible Mitsy Welch Mitsy Welch

Fuck me dead We don't name people like we used to Mitzie Wouch Mitzie said the scene was intended to be quote Softcore porno that would pass the censors In the Star Wars holiday special Yeah

Something for everyone You gotta include the perves Yeah Zump for dad Stop looking me in the eye when you say stuff like that Look at Dave I'm loving this distance

According to Di Giacamio I know I mean I know it sounds like I'm probably doing that on purpose I'm having a genuine crackage done And I've got Italian blood Yeah In a vial somewhere And still

And still Still non-parlo Italian At best it's cosy-cozy So according to Digi Camio When Carol tells Itchy Oh oh We are excited, aren't we?

Itchy releases the first and last orgasmic shutter ever to be seen in a Star Wars vehicle Yeah, it's alluded to he comes At this point, some storm troopers and other empire type people like maybe a starship trooper. Just giving him that, just say yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. Damn it. Spaceship? Death Star. Death Star troopers. And one of the guys who just looks like an army guy so just got like a hat and he just looks sort of like a kind of normal. Generic army guy.

Yeah, but he's the boss. Right. And they call that in. before the Death Star. This is after the Death Star. Oh, sorry, I should say this is happening between the first and second films. I thought this is nominative determinism.

Can you believe that? Can you believe that? Yeah, I'm a Death Star trooper. Oh, you want me to work on the Death Star? Okay. Perfect. Sure. No worries. So this...

Perfect. Great. So this crew of empire people, you know, all the different ones. He's like the Star Wars Village people. They rock up to the tree house, the wiki tree house, and start interrogating the family and ransacking the house. Yeah, brutal. It's almost like they were some Qantas package handlers.

Topical today, not when it comes out. No, that's still good. One of them sits down for a break and watches, one of the bad guys sits down for a break and watches a hologram Jefferson Starship play a song about UFOs on a music machine. I didn't get a single word of that. Can you read that again?

He sits down. So he sits down for a break and he starts watching a hologram version of Jefferson Starship, a band, play a song about UFOs on a music machine. So nearly all the scenes are like, oh, here's a device. You can watch a sketch on, or a performance.

According to Di Giacchio, even today, former Jefferson Starship lead guitarist and songwriter Craig Chiquiakou can't quite get over the result Chiquiko said It was such It was such a strange

iteration of the original big screen movie concept and your regular variety show. I was like tripping on it myself man Yeah dude We're all tripping on it Next up we have one of the Empire guys telling Marla to keep her kid lumpy out of the way

He's getting in the way, get the lumpy out of the way Maybe with some sort of sketch you can watch or something So she sits him down and shows him a cartoon And this is possibly the most famous part of the whole special As it introduces famous Star Wars character Boba Fett Who's a bounty hunter It's also probably the most Star Warsy bit All the gang are involved

It's basically a five-minute adventure where Luke meets Bobba. Bobba double-crosses Luke. They figure it out and Bobba said something like, catch you later in one of the next sequels or something like that. And then they come back to the Wookieies. Wow. And that went for five minutes.

Yeah. Okay. And it was, yeah, that bits, I think the only bit that's been officially re-released is an Easter egg on one of the DVD box sets or something. Apparently the ratings took a nose dive. after this segment. People were hanging out for it.

I'm surprised people held on this long, to be honest. Well, not everyone, but... Yeah. Lumpy comes up with a plan from here. We're getting at the pointy end now. Lumpy comes up with a plan to fake an imperial broadcast instructing the Storm Troopers and others to leave and head back to base.

But to do this, he needs to set up a new machine. So then we get Lumpy in his bedroom, watching a video guide to set up. setting up the device. Only the humanoid robot who is instructing him in the video is glitching and malfunctioning. Okay. So it's a bit of fun. He's going, hey, then you push this button. And I goes for about five minutes. There for some reason this bit, like none of us made much sense, but this bit to me doesn't make much sense at all. For some reason there's a video transmission coming through back in the living room downstairs in the tree house.

And it's from the Moss Iceley canteen on tattooing. This is like that one with the do-do-do-do-do-do-do-d-go-d-go. He's got a brain for music. Yeah, my God. I never forget a song. Can I pitch something to you? Sorry, because they are in a tree house. Yeah.

He said downstairs in the tree house. Would it be down branch, do you reckon? Oh. It's just a thought. Mull it over. Discuss that on the way home. Down trunk? Down trunk?

That's nice. Anyway, I do go on. I think because of the stairs, they just still use stairs, but, you know. Yeah, no, that's a great point. But I wonder if had a ladder.

Would you still say downstairs or would you say down ladder? Oh. Think about that on the way home. Right. I'm giving them so much to talk about the way home. Everyone's Christmas days

are going to be sitting around. Yeah, hey, grandma. No awkward combos there. That's right. Grandma, what do you think about this? Grandma, let me pitch you something. So there's this video coming through. It's of Moss Iceley, and in it we see B. Arthur running the bar.

She's the bar owner at this point. Sure. She was then... Wasn't she singing earlier? No, is that coming? This is it. Oh, that's exciting. So at this point, it was pre-Golden Girls.

At this point, she was famous for being in a show called Maud. Mm-hmm. I think she was the titular Mord. Uh-huh. Oh. Yeah. In this scene, the bar is full of all sorts of aliens in costumes of varying quality.

Arthur is being sleezed onto by a guy who drinks threw a hole in his head. Where? Because our mouth is a hole in your head, isn't it? Right up top. So he orders a drink and then he just pours it in and goes, hey, come back, golden girl. His head's just open?

Yeah, it looks like a... sort of like a, you know, a school kids volcano project. Probably was, actually. Probably was, probably was. So, yeah, so she's like, hey, you've got the wrong idea. I'm really into that. I mean, not that, you, I'm not into you. Then there's an announcement.

So for some reason, all of that was being shown. I don't know if the other sort of boozehounds in the canteener were feeling weird about the camera crew in there. Like, because obviously the... Empire was filming this for broadcast if I'm understanding it right and I'm very possible I wasn't and then there's an announcement that Tatouine is under curfew

and then she's like everyone out and everyone's like we're not going we want more drinks and she's like everyone's got to go and they're like no we're not going and then she's like all right one more round and it's free okay okay and then during that yeah usually when I want people to leave my bar I put on the Star Wars Christmas special yeah I get out of

They're so quick. I don't give them free drinks. All right, stick around, right. For free. Your scamps. And while they're drinking these last drinks, she sings a song called Good Night, but not Goodbye. How's that go?

I love that song. It's emotional, isn't it? Oh, it's beautiful. Good night, but not goodbye. Not goodbye. Because I'll see you tomorrow. Your booze hounds. Of the experience,

B. Arthur told the Portland, Mercury quote, I didn't know what that was all about. I was... I was asked to be in it by the composer of the song I sang. It was a wonderful time, but I had no idea it was even a part of the whole Star Wars thing. She's standing in a bar full of aliens? She said, I just remember singing to a bunch of people with funny heads. She didn't realize it was Star Wars.

She's not asking any questions. So this is one of the scenes that original director David Accombe was in charge of. Writer Pat Proft brought his son, a Star Wars fan, to watch the scene being shot. The shoot dragged on, leaving some of the actors with funny heads in heavy costumes struggling. Proff later remembered saying, Some of them were passing out because they forgot to pump oxygen into the masks. And there's my son watching these creatures he loves die in front of him. They forgot.

A little oversight. While everyone's watching this weird scene, Lumpy acts on his plan, making the fake call for the Imperial people to return to base. And it works. What? Lumpy saves the day. I'm not calling you Lumpy.

Now that you like it, it's ruined. Yeah, I love it. I love being called Lumpy. Please, keep it up. So it works apart from one Storm Trooper who figures out what's going on. He catches Lumpy. in the act of doing this thing.

You know what? How old's lucky? Unlucky for this storm trooper though, this is exactly when Han and Chui arrive home and Han pretty much straight away grabs him and throws him off the balcony to his death. Merry happy life day. As he falls, we get the Wilhelm scream as well.

Yes. Great. From there, Yeah, a room full of people just went, yes. About a scream sound effect. I love our audience. Packer nerds. Yes.

From there, the wookies get into their laugh day red robes, head to the tree of life. And Princess Leia sings a song for some reason. How's it go? But we actually do know the reason why she sang a song. According to Valanche, Fisher was willing to appear in the special

under the condition that she got to sing. She was going through her Joni Mitchell period, he said. I've all been there. And she came into the office and played a couple of ballads on a piano. She was singing about heartbreak

and all the Joni Mitchell things. You know, women's stuff. I could go on, but... I won't. Heartbreak and not. another Joni Mitchell shit. She very much wanted to show this side of her talent and there was

general dismay because this is not what we wanted Princess Lear to be doing. All right. We want her in a gold bikini and that is it. But in the end obviously she did get to sing but she didn't like the song so no one was really happy in the end. Okay. Sure. But according to

Di Jicombe, well I really want to get this right. Can you say it one more time? Di Jachamo. According to... How do you say that first word? D? According. According to...

Dejacamo. According to Dejacamo, though. It's a life day miracle. And we can fix it in post where every time you say it, we'll cut you saying it. And then it applause after every time. 80 times in the show. People at home like, what's with that crowd?

It'll love that Di Jocamo guy. Yeah, according to him, the guys The actors did not seem to be happy With much of anything that was going on at the studio Though Binder, the second director said Hamill, Ford and Fisher were a pleasure to direct Kurt says there was a moment though When the actors confronted him while he was visiting the set

Saying, they all came up to me And one of them said, how do we get into this mess? That's nice to hear, isn't it? Kurtz, whose task was to convince the actors to make the effort, says begging was involved. Though film actors cross over into television much more frequently these days, back in 78, it was considered a big step down. Ford was especially reluctant to appear.

As Kurtz points out, though, the actor was loath to cooperate with any kind of Star Wars project. Yeah. It wasn't. He has hated every day of his life. life. Every movie's like, fuck, God, here we go. Yeah, he's talked about this one.

He's like, it's in my contract. I don't want to do it. And then apparently he was like on the scene saying, how long is this going to take, guys? Are we done yet? I think we got it. And that was the same for the cartoon. His voiceover was in that.

He just went in and went bang, bang. And then apparently the Luke Skywalker actor. Mark Hamill was like, hey, can we try some different things? I want to have a few goes. this and then obviously he went on to be one of the great cartoon voice guys anyway the special ends with chewy remembering some bits from the original film he's sort of looking to the middle distance oh no and then I just play a few

and then and who could forget and then his family sits around a table bowing their heads and the credits roll It's over. Yeah, it's over. That's right. Honestly, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Okay. But I'd heard it was so bad.

It sounds so bad. I think when you hear something's the worst thing you've ever seen, and I've watched some pretty ordinary movies in recent times because of our Fracing the Bar podcast. And I always go into those with the wrong expectations. I think everyone's going to be great. You think every month you're like, this is the one. This is the one.

Here we go. According to Roy, the costumes were so thick and bulky that the actors sometimes passed out. By the end, the whole thing had run out of money. The Wookieies in the life tree scene at the end, that big finale scene that Princess Leia sings at, they were shot with all the Wookieies wearing store-bought Chewbacca masks. Beautiful.

And that was on a set that they couldn't afford either, that scene. There was no money left for a set. So Binder, the director, instructed the art director to go to the shops and buy as many candles as they could. And that's what they did. The big finale scene is shot on an empty stage with a bunch of candles. That's beautiful. Very romantic. Yeah.

It was kind of a surreal scene. I wouldn't have picked it. I thought it was on purpose like that. Yeah. It was just on budget. Yeah, exactly. On purpose. That was pretty good use of not a lot of money.

the rest of it was a very poor use of a lot of money. So we know it wasn't particularly well received, but how did it rate? Well, according to Simon Abrams writing for Esquire, the special attracted about 13 million viewers nationwide in America. It was shown in Australia on Channel 7, apparently. It was shown in New Zealand and Canada and a bunch of other places as well. On what channels?

It's funny. Coming in, I'm like, I know there's going to be nerds you go. I can't believe you didn't have this certain detail. That's not the detail I was expecting it. So you got 13 million viewers, which might sound impressive, but means it didn't even crack the Nilsons top 10 for the evening. It was also beaten in its own time slot by Pearl, a show about the Pearl Harbor bombing.

And the love boat. Yeah. That one makes sense. In a scathing review, the Milwaukee... No, I nailed it. It felt like that, you know, it felt like that word just blew away. I lost control of it. Gust of wind got under my mouth and the Milwaukee Sentinels Greg Moody wrote that,

quote, Suddenly the entire mystique of Star Wars is gone. He's like it's ruined all of Star Wars. All of one movie? Yeah, yeah, that's right. All of one movie is ruined. It's dead to him. Wow.

The Detroit Free Presses. Betelieu Peterson was only relatively kind when she said The Force, it is said, a report, is not quite with them. That's good stuff. Listed in the book, What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History. It made the number one spot. No!

It did it. Well done. Brutal. And the author wrote, This was the worst two hours of television ever. Wow. Rotten tomatoes gave it a splat as you'd probably expect on the tomato tomato. Tomato meat, the spotometer. I'm done helping you.

But it's not as bad as I was expecting. It's got a 25% score from critics. You know, there's definitely worse ones out there. Yeah, probably about 25% people watching it high. I imagine it's very entertaining. Here are a few more review snippets. Shane Munro writes, the Star Wars Holiday Special is a work of such baffling insanity

that every Star Wars fan deserves to watch it once but probably only once. Tim Bratton said calling the Star Wars Holiday Special a uniquely repulsive failure of the filmmaker's art is an unearned compliment. Alan French wrote you will curse God for this show's mere existence. And Nathan Rabin wrote

I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine. If it has a single virtue, it's that it does eventually end. On that point, according to USA Today, writer Bruce Valanche, he has since admitted that he was heavily into cocaine while working on the project. Just so this isn't quite as fun, but I'll tell you just a few of the key players and how they ended up watching the show. this is back to Dejacoimo Dejacoimo

So yeah Here's something from Dejacoimo About how the key players of the show Saw it The night of the broadcast Writer Lenny Rips through a party Saying I had lots of people over And lots of food and lots of anticipation

He recalled And when we sat in front of the TV After the first commercial I turned it off and said Let's eat Gary Kurtz, one of the Lucas producer guys remembers watching the special with George but he says he cannot remember the Star Wars creator's reaction to it

saying the determination was that it was a bit too late to do much about it we couldn't pull the show and I guess there was a determination that well it wasn't really that bad compared to other Christmas specials so what the hell Kurtz has said that the experience with the holiday special

certainly added to the idea that the only way to make sure it turns out the way you want it is to be in control so he reckons this is one of the reasons why George Lucas is quite a control freak with stuff so you reckon

what he took away from that is if you walk into a project and go here's a vague idea see ya it might not turn out exactly how you want it to That's what he's taken away from that. Yeah. Okay, that's interesting.

Yeah, but sometimes George Lucas, you know, is all involved with it. It still doesn't turn out very well anyway. Take that. Yeah, come to that. Me, yeah, Dave. Yeah, okay. I just know that Star Wars fans hate it. Hate everything.

There's never a film that comes out that people have said, that's it, that's killed the franchise. Even this special. David Accomba, the first director has never seen it. After he left the project, though, he said that George Lucas sent him a letter, letting him know there were no heart feelings. Oh, that's nice. That's nice.

I don't know which one of these two I should finish on. Either the positive or negative. What's fine? The negative ones may be funnier. All right, go for that. I mean, actually, it's not funny. Yeah, but if that's not good, then do the positive one. Oh, I was going to do the positive one and then the negative one.

No, I'd go, well, I mean, why are we discussing, like... Well, I'm asking which order to put him in is what I'm saying. Yeah, and I told you, I gave my opinion, and you said, but I was going to do it the other way. So do it however you want to do it. So you're saying, do the negative one, and if that does go, okay, just don't do the positive one. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, oh, it would be nice to do them both. Then do them both.

I don't know what's going on. I'll do it your way, Bob. Let's watch this absolutely crush. Here we go. And then we say, good night and Merry Christmas? Yeah. Okay. And we get the fuck out of here.

Mickey Herman, a Lucas film consultant, is quoted to end a mental floss article saying, The interesting thing is, the day after the special aired was the day of the Jonestown massacre. Previous episode. So he says, it was just a bad time for everyone. It puts it in context, doesn't it? Yeah. Really. paints a picture of that time.

That's beautiful. I really thought he was drawing correlation, though. Yeah, and then the other one was Mark Hamill's saying, you know, it's... He said, I did say it was a positive one. What he said was, I don't think we should be ashamed of it. That's the end of my report. Life Day, everybody. Yeah, happy Life Day.

Life Day seems to be celebrated on November 17th, so we miss it this year. But hopefully we can all catch up next year. put on our red robes and watch Princess Leia sing for some. She's not even a wookie. No, so why was she, anyway, whatever? Then we'll throw a man off a balcony. Yeah, all the classic life day things.

So much fun. Just lovely. Thank you so much for coming out, everybody. Give yourselves a round of applause. Yeah, you did it. You did it. Over there, hi. Round of applause for Tim on the sound desk.

And Rebecca from the absolute best. Booted Home Day. Thank you so much for coming out. We hope you have a Merry Christian. smish one and all. But until next time, we'll say, and life day.

And life day. Life day. But until next time, we'll say thank you so much and goodbye everybody. Bye. What a fantastic live event that was. Oh my goodness.

That was certainly a live event. That was live. In the room. In the room, it was live. I mean, when you just listened to it then, it was less likely live.

But unless you were there in the room. Yeah. And you're listening back to hear yourself being live. Live. Yeah. Then it was live. Okay.

Hope we got that. That's right. Dave and I are sitting in the corner of a hotel room in Sydney because we're up here this week to do a trivia. What are we doing actually? We're on a bit of a, what is it? A trivia. A tour.

A tour. It's a one-stop tour. I was thinking more of... Oh no, we got two this week. We got two trivia nights this week. Sydney and then Country Victoria. That's right. The two big places on the map.

We're kind of... Yeah. I'm trying to a junket. We're on trivia junker. Oh, a junket. Getting out, we've fallen in to a trivia business somehow. We're in the biz. We're in the biz of asking a quiz.

Should I open with that tomorrow? Yeah. When the biz of asking a quiz? What are we doing today? We're asking a quiz. I went and yeah, Saturday we're doing Pyramid Hill. Pyramid Hill. A place I don't think I'd heard of before, but it's near bought.

When I was a kid, I lived. near Bort in Charlton and it's um it's in that neighborhood we've both got local roots there because my grandmother was in the nursing home at Pyramid Hill oh right there you go can't wait to get back to the area get back to the community beautiful spot so basically you're asked to just a quick fun fact oh here we go my dad one of his proud achievements uh one of his many of course is that he was the first to bring VB to Charlton Everyone drank Melbourne there and he'd grown up in Melbourne and he's like, you've got to have VB. So he shipped up a slab up the Hume Highway or whatever, not the Hume, whatever the highway is.

The cold. Whatever that middle highway is. We better find out for Saturday. And yeah, he got a slab brought up and it went off like wildfire. Only if people like drinking wildfire. Yeah, so I wonder if I ask around if people would be like, Stuart's your surname, you're not Paul Stewart's son, the man who brought VB to Charlton?

Or is that a story that isn't really true? Or more likely, he's the only one remembers that happening. Yeah, I love it. What a claim. Whatever it is, I think it's fantastic. So VB for people that don't know, that stands with Victoria Bitter. and he brought that to Victoria. Yeah. What a guy.

Yeah, well, the funny thing was that the Melbourne bidder was big in country, Victoria, while Victoria bidder was big in the city. Makes you think. It's backwards down there in Melbourne. But now we're up here in city. So basically, you've just been asked to do a couple of trivia nights. You just got a couple, two different people ask you. We're doing one for Apple, one of the biggest businesses in the world tomorrow.

That's right. Which is very exciting. We're up in Sydney. We're very thankful to be up here. And then you said, I'll get my mate, Dave. involved and now we've written this quiz we put this whole thing together and basically it's become a thing so we're trivia guns for hire now so if you're out there you want us to come do your Christmas do you want us to raise money for your kinder we'll turn up for a fee for a yes

okay we should put that bit out of and you do them online as I did an online one for a do go on listener for his bucks party yeah that's the best few months ago was a lot of fun uh what they're all dressed up. It was a great time. Yeah, well, get in contact with us. You know, our content details are on the do go on website. Doogelonpod.com. And before you know it, you can live to Triv. Live to Triv. Our biz is quiz. Is that better? Slightly. Oh, we shouldn't be workshopping on Mike, but I love it all anyway. Yeah, great. So, but enough of that. That's just what we're doing here. And that's possibly why the sound isn't so good because we're huddled around a single USB mic right now.

But don't let that distract you from what we're really here for, which is to thank some of the most beautiful people in the world. And these are our Patreon supporters. We love them. They're the people who keep this show afloat. And they do so by signing up at patreon.com slash do go on pod. And there's a bunch of different levels. You can get all sorts of different things.

We do three bonus episodes per month. We also have a Facebook group, which is called the nicest corner of the internet often. People vote on topics like this topic about Star Wars that was voted on by the Patreon's and a bunch of other different things. But one of those things we're here to do right now is the fact quote or question section,

which has a jingle. I think goes something like this. Fact quote or question. Ding. He always remembers the ding he always remembers the sing as well jeez he remembers Dave the brain warnerkey remember and how this one works is if you sign up on the Sydney Scheinberg level you get to give us a factor quote a question or a bra or a

suggestion you also get to give yourself a title and I've got four to read out this week our first one comes from Nick Fidion who's given himself the title of the good old saint of Christmas. Very appropriate fact quote or question this week. In fact, it's a fact. I could have just waited a moment longer and looked, you know, slightly further across the screen. Anyway, Nick Fidion's fact is,

Rudolph was almost named Rollo or Reginald. We cover that. You just told this fact in a bonus episode. Our Patreon bonus episode that's just come out is our Christmas special where I went through the history of about seven or eight famous Christmas songs. We talked about Roll. I love this. I love that story.

I never heard it. It was really interesting. I'm glad that it's true because Nick Fidion also agrees. Yes. But Nick says if it was Roll or Reginald wouldn't have fit the classic song so well. But his crew also had a lot of other names. They've also been called Flossy, Glossy, Racer, Pacer, Scratcher, Feclis, Ready, Steady and Firewall. Not Cook.

so sorry my throat's a bit scratch i've just been to a music festival weekend and um yeah i think i might have been talking too much over the music over the music i guess that's what's happened here maybe a bit of singing along i didn't stop talking that whole weekend i did i met a couple of listeners and i hopefully didn't talk their ears off too much I met her a couple of really cool people and if you're listening thank you for your time and your patience

Nick continues he says also a fine extra fact I once had a teacher called Mr Christmas who genuinely had a wife called Mary oh God Merry Christmas she must have considered

yeah keeping their mate name. Surely. Or maybe she just, she loved there's a Christmas lover. She went out of her way. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that was why she found him. Hopefully this doesn't come through at the wrong time of year, but a Merry Christmas to all. Merry Christmas. Hey, Nick, you've nailed the timing there. I've got to tell you. Now, thank you so much for that fact. This next one comes from Jessica English, aka executive assistant for the trio. Can I get your coffee, tea, pie? pie.

Yes, please. I love a tea. Thank you so much. Jessica's in here, but she'd love a coffee. She'd take a coffee. And Jessica's asking a question writing, congratulations on a successful and best block ever. That's high praise.

That's very nice. The end of block always leaves a bit of a holiday hangover. But then I realized golden shiny Gary's are just around the corner. Coming up, but a little bit over a month away, maybe. That's right. So if you don't know, they're our annual Patreon voted awards. Awards. We're talking favorite episode of the year.

Best presenter, best guest report, best book cheat, primates, who knew it, all these sort of categories. They're the do-go honours and they're our night of nights. The most self-indoliant event of the year, but we love it. It's good fun. And Jessica says it really is the most wonderful time of the year. Thank you, Jessica. My question is, what are your favorite romantic comedy tropes? For example, love triangles, fake dating, etc.

Oh, I wish Jess was here because she knows them so. Oh, no. She goes through them point by point. I watch one this week, a Christmas one. Because I don't think I ever got into the really corny ones, but I've started getting into the particularly corny ones. And I watch one this week with blanking on both of their names. Carrie Ewells.

I don't know how to say his name, but he's the guy from Princess Bride. Okay. And Robin Hood, Men in Tights. You familiar with his work? I think I can imagine the face. And Brooke Shields. Okay, so you do know the name, this is good.

And Brooke Shields is a, she's a famous author, but the movie opens with her supporters, her fans have turned on her, because she killed off the main love interest in her book series. Oh, fictional. I think she's killed someone. So there, and it's making it look like she's done something really bad in her book.

Because there's protests outside and stuff. But it turns out she's just killed off a character. You know, a bit of, a bit of fun. And, yeah, then she sort of on a whim goes on a trip to Scotland where Kerry is. How do I not know his name? I love those multiple films of his I love. But then he, yeah, he's grumpy. well, he becomes grumpy.

There's a misunderstanding. That's one of the big tropes of all romantic comedies, I think. Right. A bit of a misunderstanding. Oh, this could be solved by you just saying a full sentence here. Say it. Why are you saying a fragment of what you're thinking about right now? I'm thinking of ones where there's a lady in a relationship with a man.

Usually, he's a real piece of shit. Yeah. Meets a nice person, but she's like, can't be with him. Sorry, I've got to go back to a piece of shit here. Yeah, yeah. a nice person watches on like, oh, only they're there with me. Guess what? They're going to be with you.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's, uh, I think that's, I think that's a fun original take. Yeah. Uh, Jessica says, I'll watch any garbage that includes enemies to lovers who have to share a bed or get stuck somewhere together right as they start to appreciate each other. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's fun.

Yeah, a bit of fun. Um, I was watching plane trains and automobiles recently. And it's not a romantic comedy, but, you know, it's a odd couple sort of thing. You got Sean, Steve Martin, who's the uptight businessman wants to get home. And then John Candy, the lovable guy, loves laugh, but he's a bit of a, he's a bit annoying and whatnot. And I have to share a bit at one point. But that's not at the point where Steve Martin is ready to open.

Yeah. That comes much later. Right. Like right at the end, maybe. You know, there's little bits of, anyway. Yeah, I, Jessica, I'm going to have to take that question on notice. Remind me to ask Jess next time we are in the room with her, which will be, you know, on next week's episode, which we've already recorded. So forget that.

Sorry. In a few weeks, I'll remember. But, yeah. I'm absolutely loving Christmas movies. this year, including the, it's open up a whole new world because I was into good Christmas movies and there's not that many of them. But when you can, when you can get through like, whatever Christmas movies, you can enjoy them on good and bad levels. And it's just for the fun of it. So the pool's much bigger now. Yeah, it's open a ride up. Um, thank Jessica. Sof Waldron,

okay, that one person in the office that ruins every secret Santa by figuring out who's buying for who. Another Christmas-related one. Love that. Run a roll here. And Sof has a question writing, do you do Secret Santa with work, friends, and or family? And do you think that the fun is in keeping it secret or trying to figure it all out? There's 22 people in my office and I'm pretty confident I've figured out who everyone is buying for, but I keep getting told that defeats the purpose of Secret Santa. I haven't told anyone my wrong. results because it would be a dick move to spoil up for it.

Wow. And you're getting sofas figuring it out. I assume a bit of like hardcore interrogation. Yeah, maybe hacking their mainframes. Right. I was saying, maybe the server. Right, that's good digital. I was seeing like waterboarding.

Yeah, which might be doing that too. Because sometimes. You're going for Kevin or Chris. You know, I think ideally you'd go, go about it without having a resort to those levels. Yeah. If it comes to it. That's so there's 22. Me, you've cracked, you know, 19, you know, the last

three is a combination. That's right. You got to work it out. You got to figure it out. Do I don't really do any secret standards. I was talking about doing it possibly with my family next year. I used to do with my family. Every year we talk about next year we'll do that because it sort of gets out of hand.

Yes. With partners and nephews and nieces and stuff like that. Yeah, but we've gone through. I'm, I've gone through that stage. So we went through the hectic too many presents, the extent of family. you know, it was on both sides of the family. One of the small size was like 20-odd people and the biggest side's, you know, like 50, 60 people or whatever.

And it used to be just everyone bought presents for everyone. So you used to be about 60 presents. Oh, my parents would have when I was a kid. That's so many. Probably, that can't be right. But they, you know, it was a lot of presents, whatever it was. Maybe by I was not going to 60, they pulled the pin. And then it changed to a, it was a Chris Kringle, KK, or Secret Santa.

You had to make them. So I was just for one person in the family, you had to make them. And that ended up being stressful. Making a gift. I remember one year I put, I was like 16 or something. And I made a backpack. Like I, well, you know, mom helped or quite a bit, but we're sewed together a backpack, right? And I got given a $2 shop thing.

It was like a nut that opens up and there's like a bug in it. not homemade so not homemade and shit yeah it's like if you open it up and it's like you know back of the day a discument or somebody I'll forgive that because I'll use it yeah yeah

I was like I I've always I've always sort of love Christmas and I didn't worry me at all but I think maybe other people were like that's not that's not on to my like the army or whoever organized it. Because that is fine until someone so Fultron style points out and says, you know who did that for you?

That was Uncle. Yeah. That was Uncle Andy. Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. They wouldn't have a secret though. So, KK said the name was on it. You knew who gave it to you.

What are they doing? Yeah. You've got the anonymity. You go, whatever. But yeah, so I think, I mean, I don't think that was the thing that brought it all down. Just like, everyone told her. Did you see what Matt got? In time, eventually they're like, let's just catch up and we don't have to do presents.

And then maybe if there were like little grandchildren, you know, people like get the little kids something. But anyone who was, you know, teenagers or older, you know, just didn't really. You don't need a nut. Don't need. No one need. You know, whatever. That's going on the same. Immediate family was the same.

We used to buy for it because I've got three siblings. So I've got five presents. Then we did a family. We did an Irish cringle. which was everyone would just buy a thing worth whatever the price was, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever. And then it was sort of like a, you could unwrap it. If your name gets picked out, you unwrap it,

and then you can steal off other people and stuff. Right. So everyone has three names in a hat. So everybody has their name picked out very last. They get to pick whatever they like. Right, okay. Have you seen the episode of the office where they have that? It's very controversial.

I think people call it nasty Christmas. Oh, right. Because. Yeah, I don't know why it's called Irish Christmas. Michael Steve Crowe's character does not stick to the limit. Everyone's put $10 and he buys a $300 iPod. And of course everyone wants that. Yeah, that's funny.

So it just ruins it. But yeah, we ended up just going, well, like, we don't. Let's just catch up. Yeah, yeah. I think also an answer to the other question. I think it's fun to not know the magic, but it's also fun to work it out for you. Yeah, if you're a Poirot time. Yeah, that's right.

And you like to get to the bottom. Like to waterboard your colleagues. You know, I like Poirot-O, yeah. That's right. I forgot what the question was about. I went way off pace. Nothing, but there was two questions. It was do you do it, which you no longer do because of the nut incident.

It wasn't because of the nut. That was so long ago. But I find it very funny. Like, just thinking of it, because I didn't really care. I didn't really even understand how it was like a, you know, like a kind of an unfortunate scenario. I was just having a good day. But the, it's just funny thinking back to like.

a kid who's just like tried so hard to make a thing. He made a backpack. And then you get this little. It's very, it's a funny thing to think about. That's a life lesson for the Matt Stewart. Yeah. Great questions. So, but yeah, no, I, you know, I think it's all, it's all fun.

I do love Chris Cundle. I think it's a fun thing to do. It's mainly, I think my brother and sisters were like, we don't need to do this anymore. I'm like, yeah, sure. I like doing, I like buying presents, but if people don't want to do it, I also don't want to. Yeah. You know, Christmas can be a weird time where someone might be like, no, this is how we do it.

And really sort of stick too hard to a tradition and making everyone else sort of hate that tradition sometimes. Last one comes from Jacob Curry, aka first time, a listener, long time caller. And Jacob has a time listening. This episode, one of the chances. Yeah, but this is not their first fact quote of question. But they've been calling a lot. Yeah. Never heard the show.

Uh, Jacob's question reads, you must become any one animal for a month. Okay. You fully retain a human intelligence and awareness, but can't communicate beyond the reasonable capabilities of your chosen animal. The moment you regret your choice, you die in a fiery explosion. What?

presumably inflicting massive damage on nearby property and confusing forensic scientists in the process. What animal do you choose? Wow. Unfortunately, Jacob has a first-time listener, he wouldn't know that we normally suggest if you write a question, please give us an answer because Jacob hasn't done that. But Jacob would know that as he's never listened to the show before. And he's not probably listening to this right now. Right, the exposure thing really changes your mind. Yes, because you can't feel regret, right?

Yeah. I was thinking a bird. Okay. Oh, how good would be to fly? I'd be sick. I'm a bit of a night owl. Okay. Maybe a tawny frog mouth.

Oh, yeah. Turn the neck around. That'd be fun. A beautiful bird. Lovely bird. Because they're stupid, but imagine if you had a Dave Warnocky brain inside one of those heads. They could take over the world.

The other thing is you want to double check that they can live for a month. Yeah, like a dragonfly or something. Yeah. You don't want it to be a, have a life expectancy of three and a half weeks because you will feel regret as you die. So you would both die and explode. I guess either way you're going to die when you explode. But what's an animal that has a good time?

Yeah. I think a sloth could be fun. Well, that might be a bit frustrating. You'd probably regret it. If your mind's moving a mile in a minute, you can't keep up. Oh, you know, I'd love to be a wombat. Oh, yes, you do love a wombat. Favorite animal, not just Australian.

That's right. That might be a future episode. um wombat yeah i think bombats have a good time and not many people i mean people mess with them a bit

with cars and things but not really you don't want something that's a predator takes out but i think you're right yeah that's right i think uh the bird is great and maybe like a bird of prey like a big bird yeah

so you'd have to worry about other birds yeah an eagle or yeah flying like an eagle would be sweet or like just also something that's so bad ass at no messes with you like a tiger oh yeah yeah i wonder if um wonder if i'd regret it as i had to tear up like an antelope to shreds that's a line probably not a tiger yeah right you want something less violent all right

but that's the problem with an eagle i'd probably be regretting it and exploding as soon as i was eating a mouse yeah like i want to why not choose eagle i don't want to eat a mouse yeah tricky my favorite animal is a panda oh they do have they're so dumb but they have fun and they tumble along yeah it is so helpless yeah but if you put your brain yeah that's right because i don't think they realize how stupid they are but if you realize hmm yeah i'm gonna go to regret yeah i think ow's great um i'm thinking maybe i'm gonna go orang tang okay because they're basically vegetarian i don't have to eat um nothing gross anything gross like i mean they would just be eating like raw leaves and stuff

Yeah, it's better than a raw mouse, isn't it? Yeah, I don't know, maybe it'd be fun to chase down and eat an antelope or a mouse. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if Jacob needs to let us know if we would also have the taste buds of the animal. We got the brain of us, but if we have the taste bun, like, we enjoy a hearty, mousy meal. Yeah, yeah, great. Then no regrets. Yeah.

Yeah. I need to, I need a bit more information, Jacob. I love the question. I love that twist mid-question. So thank you very much to Jacob Sof, Jessica and Nick for their facts, quotes and questions. The next thing we'd like to do is shout out to a few of our other great mates and supporters.

And Jess normally comes up with a game for this section. Dave, do you have any thoughts on this? Something based on the show, we can give them you know so it's a crystal it was a star wars thing maybe we could give them all a star wars name okay yeah not a real one though like on who knew it in uh this week's episodes of huge who knew it but one question was what was george lucas's character's name and we all had a bit of fun coming up to give away but that was so funny uh so yeah maybe on a similar so we're making up a name yeah do you think we could do nine of those

Or we could just do real ones. We could give them all a real person. Because there'd be thousands in the years within there. Oh, well, how about you can do it real or not real? And the listeners at home can figure out whether it's real or not. If I could kick us off, I might do the first. Or should we go one for one? Oh, let's go one for one.

I'll go a name. You give us a character. I'm going on first up from Marietta in Pennsylvania in the United States. It's QJK. QJK, well, why don't I give you the only Q character I can find on this list of Star Wars characters? Quarry. Quarry. What do you know about Quarry?

Quarry, voiced by Corey Burton, is a Mon Calamari engineer. Living on the planet, Chantapole. Oh, yeah. Say no more. There you go. He's named after Star Wars concept artist, Ralph. Macquarie. Oh, that's nice, but a nice tribute for Ralph.

So he's one of those amphibian. Oh, right. Quarry. Quarry. Quarry. Quarry. You want to go up next there, Dave? Coming up next.

I'd like to thank from Teddington in the greatest of Britain's. Big shout out to Mark Sumner. Okay. Mark Sumner, aka Tedgonforth. Ted gone fourth. Dead gone fourth Wow That one I will admit

I did make up No Yes I did And what did I What was his name Ted gone forth Ted gone forth Is one of those

Fighter pilot guys In the rebellion And yeah He's got like You know like wings coming on his head So his head can fly Yeah his head can fly

But he's also flying In a plane That's good So double threat So the ejection The ejector seat. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, he loves the ejector seat.

He can find space. So that's pretty good. All right, I'll give you. Back to you. I'll give you another name. Thank you very much to Mark. I'd love to also think from address unknown can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles. It's Marlon Collin.

Oh, that sounds like a star was character. Yeah, Marlon Call. What about Bishop Buzzard? Bishop Buzzard. And you're reading that off your list again? No, that's me. freestyle off the dome. Bishop Buzzard.

Bishop Buzzard. Bishop Buzzard. Marlon, Bishop Buzzard. Marlon, Bishop Buzzard. Marlon, Colin. Bishop Buzzard is a bounty hunter.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mates with Bobba. Yeah, but Bishop Buzzard's only weapon is a coin that he throws really hard. Wow. If it hits you in the head, it will knock you out.

He's got a great coin control. But if he misses, he's got to run after it. He's and they've got one. Bloody hell. That's a fantastic one. Bishop Buzzard. Bishop Buzzard. How about you want to think one now, Dave?

Next up, I would like to thank from location. Griffith, New South Wales. Known, it's known. So I'm looking at a distance here. Jeremy Gleeson. Jeremy Gleeson from Griffin, Griffith. Jeremy Gleason, of course. is distant relative of Yoda, it's yabba-dab-dada-doda.

Yab-dab-d-d-a-d-d-a. Yab-dada. Love it. And, yeah, he's sort of like a quarry worker. Oh, like quarry. Yeah, similar to quarry, yeah. I don't know how I come up with my ideas. Yeah, but he's a great character.

rock solid sort of, oh God, that's not what I meant, but he's, you know, he's just a solid, he's a nuggety, one of those, he looks like what he does. He looks like a rock. I've seen, I swear to God, I've seen Star Wars. Yeah, you sound like you love it. I'd also love to thank, if I may, from Carlingford in New South Wales, Frank Draper. Frank Draper, aka Commander CC-2237, aka Oddball. Oddball? That's a character. That's a real one.

What's oddball story? Clone commander and pilot participates in several battles throughout the clone wars under the command of Obi-1 Canobi. Ah. Oddball. Oddball. That's a great one. Oddball. Love it.

And he's sort of some sort of a ball man. Yeah, he rolls around. I love that. His own filth. Yeah, no kidding. C3PO style. No, C-C-C-B-B-B. You know, the ball one.

B-B-B-B-A. B-B-A, thank you. I'm the Star Wars fan of the group too I've watched them all I enjoy them all I think maybe you've I just never go out of I've never seen the

holiday special yes and I don't go out on a limb and say I'm a Star Wars fan because I just can't compete with people who love that no that's true I just enjoy it I enjoy it too

I've watched all the all the Disney plus ones too okay all right even the ones that people have hated I thought they were fine and the ones that were really good were great

but yeah the one that people shout on the most I'm like... The movie? Oh, no, the series about Boba Fett. Oh, right. I thought, you know, it was a bit of fun. It was obviously not great, but it was fine.

But people hated it. They were offended by its existence. All right, we're back to the list here. I would like to thank from... Are we up to... Yeah, I reckon we are. From Wangery in New Zealand, I would like to thank

Richard. Pete. Oh, Richard Peake. Richard Peake. Dickie Peake, who's Star Wars character is, of course, Mount Gungu. Mount Gungu. Yeah, he's like a mountain man, literally. I don't know if I'm, do they have people like this and there? Yeah. I mean, they can have anything. It's like, it's like, you know, it's a full galaxy. Yeah. So it's sort of like looks like, basically looks like grug, but instead of being the top of a tree, it's up in the top of a mountain. It's the top of a Mountain. The King of the Mountain.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why his name is the name I said before. Yeah. Mount. Gongu. Yeah. Now Gongu.

Gungu definitely sounds like a Star Wars. Yeah. It does. I don't know if you saw where I was going. The peak took me to Mountain. I didn't get that. But a bang. Here we go.

All of a sudden, I'm Australia's George Lucas. I can't keep out with your one with that for that small beard. Yeah. And I'd next like to think. From Richard Mond in Melbourne in Australia, it's Meg. Meg, okay, Professor Pooh. Professor Pooh. Meg's been patiently waiting for a shout-out, and you've given a Professor Pooh.

You could see it, though, can you? Can you see it? Yeah. Professor Pooh, people go see Professor. Big goggles. Big goggles, and people go see Professor, like, in a junkyard. Yes. But Professor Pooh fixes, like, weird skin condition. Yes.

You know? Sol's problems. Yeah, but like... But also very wise. Yes. But speaks in riddles. Yes, and has six arms. You six arms.

And one of them makes creams. Yeah. Really well. While fixing you. Yeah. Wait, are we talking like edible creams or bombs? Both actually. There's one arm on each side.

Oh, yeah. But Professor Poo, it stands with something. Right. But we just can't pronounce it. Oh, people speaking that can't pronounce those words. Gotcha. So it's shortened to Professor Poo. Right.

I see. Oh, that makes sense. That's actually quite a nice. nice name to Meg then. I think Meg would actually love that. Yeah, Meg A, Professor Pooh. Now that you've said all that, yeah, sure.

I would like to thank from Hanover in Pennsylvania. It is Shannon Whitesell. Shannon Whitesell. Shannon Whitesell, obviously in our world, is Shannon Whitesell. Fantastic person. Up and go, get it, get it and gotcha sort of person. You know what I mean?

I get it. Up and about. You want a thing done? Get Shannon White's all on the job. But in the Star Wars universe, a real no-hopper, a real down and outer. You know, that junkyard you were talking about, that's where you find Shannon sleeping under corrugated iron. But you know what Shannon does with that corrugated iron. What?

Saves the galaxy. Oh, wow. Yes. And do you know the name? Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for. It is. It is rain on a tin roofer. Oh, rain on a tin roofer.

Rain on a tin roofer. Oh, great. Yeah. And it's... That's good stuff. I'm wondering how thin these hotel walls are. People could hear, rain on a tin roof. People could hear that we're recording this at midnight in a very cheap hotel.

And they're finding out. that Shannon is also the savior of the galaxy, a Rainer on a tin roof? That's funny. Not funny, that's inspiring. Thank you, Shannon. And finally, Dave, you ready to bring this home? With another address unknown,

can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles, it's Connor Byrne. Connor Byrne, aka Zuckus. Zuckus, now is this a real, This would be a fun game. Real or fake? Real or fake. Zuckus?

Zuckus can't be real. Confirmed real. What? A ganned bounty hunter among those who answered Darth Vader's call to capture the Millennium Falcon, Zuckus. Zuckus, causing a ruckus. Thank you so much to Connor. That's actually a real badass one to get.

As well as Shannon Meg, sorry Meg, Richard, Frank, Jeremy. Oh, Professor Poo, come on. Marlon Mark and QJ. A, the last thing we need to do is welcome a few people into the Triptitch Club. Now, Dave, can you explain this? Because my throat is killing me. Okay, so whilst you're off there dying, we'll tell you that the Triptage Club, it's a place where we shout out people who have been supporting the show.

Sorry, we what? We shout out. Okay. Not shout out. No, no, no, no, no, no, Professor Poo in this section. These are the people that have been supporting the show for three consecutive years. on the shoutout level. And as a way to thank them again for their ongoing support,

we induct them into our Hall of Fame, aka a war, like a bar, it's a venue, it's whatever you want it to be. There's music in there. There's cocktails. There's canopays. You get to mingle with all the other guests. It gets bigger and better every single week.

So, yeah, these are the people that have been supporting the show for three years as of this week. And I think there's a couple on the list this week to welcome in. Oh, this is going to be fun as well because this is going to be the first. time in a while that Dave hasn't got to see the names before he's worked on his little puns. I know what? They're all freestyle off the top of my don't. He's normally got a pen and paper out. He's been researching him, but he doesn't have his computer here. So he's not going to be able to do this. How many we got? We've just got the two. Okay, okay. Have you talked about the band you've booked? No, I haven't talked about the band. So Jess is normally behind the bar, but I guess

you're doing double shift tonight as both the MC and the bartender. What cocktail of what Christmas we've got the the Darth Paul okay because the person who's working the bar tonight the name is Paul yes and a Darth Paul is cranberry yeah vodka and a different type of cranberry wow double cranberry so it goes cranberry vodka cranberry Paul loves cranberry yeah Paul loves something you got to remember about yeah we all know Paul he loves great guy oh fantastic it's his first night where he's in charge because obviously Jess is usually shaking him up, but he's stepped up.

And it's called the Darth Paul. I love it. And the band you've booked for the after party? We've booked the monkeys. Oh, original lineup? Original lineup. Wow. So we've got a few back from the dead.

Yeah, that's right. That's fantastic. In this place we can do that. Yeah, it's a magical place. It's beautiful. And what sort of songs are playing? A bit of everything? Yeah, everything.

They dream believer. Yeah, they're doing a request. Or a request. Or wherever at Clarksville. I don't know if they go to Knoxville. Yeah, but they will if you want them to. Yeah, sometimes I like to see the Whigsphere. That's where that was.

It is Knoxville, Tennessee. So there's only two names coming in tonight, Dave. So you're on the stage. You're ready to hype them up. That's right. I'm on the mic. All the other inductees in the club are already standing around chanting the name of these two inductees. And Dave's hyphen them up.

So are you ready? Absolutely. Here we go. The two inductees this week. week. Firstly, from Oakland in California in the United States, it's Colony Strongbeck. Oh, this is a strong start tonight. Because it's strong.

Strong. Strong. Strong. Yeah. Did you say Strong Beck? Strong Beck. Ah, close enough. Pretty good.

Strong and strong. Killing me softly with his song. Killing me softly. Stroming my pain with his fingers. Strong. Strong. And that's a positive. Strong.

That's a real hype up for Connolly. And secondly, from. Canterbury in England it's Charlie Cleary. Oh, I can see Cleary now. Charlie is here. Welcome to the club, Charlie and Connolly. Please make yourselves at home. That's a duo, Charlie and Connolly. Please grab yourself with Darth Paul. Kick back and enjoy. Anything else we need to tell before we go, Dave? They can get in contact with us through our website. Do go onpod.com. That's where you can suggest topic. And then we'll shout out to you when we inevitably get to it. We've committed to all 10,000 suggestions that are in there,

you can email us, do go on pod at gmr.com, or contact us via following us on social media at do go on pod. But I think that's about it. Yeah, please, Dave, but this baby home. Hey, we'll be back next week

with another fantastic episode. But until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening and Merry Cush, Mish, and goodbye. Later. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you

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