Star Wars Holiday Special Turns 35 — A Celebration?

I've got a bad feeling about this.

By David Wharton | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

BeaAnd Now for a Song and a Happy Ending
One of the more baffling elements of the Holiday Special is that it takes the gritty universe of Star Wars and says, “Man, this thing needs some musical numbers to spice things up.” If you thought the extended musical sequence in Jabba’s palace during the Return of the Jedi special editions was bad, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve sat through Bea Arthur crooning “Good Night, But Not Goodbye” while posing as a Mos Eisley cantina bartender. Or Carrie Fisher singing a song about Life Day that just happens to be to the tune of the Star Wars main title theme. Or a holographic Jefferson Starship entertaining a bored Imperial guard. These aren’t quick clips, mind you, but full musical numbers that just stretch on and on and on.

But by far the most disturbing of the special’s many forays into variety-show antics is when Chewie’s dad, Itchy, settles in for what amounts to a trippy softcore erotic video featuring Diahann Carroll, who ensures our discomfort by delivering lines such as “Oh, we are excited, aren’t we?” and “Now we can have a good time” and “I am your pleasure.” All of this is interspersed with shots of Itchy twitching and grunting. We don’t actually see that he’s frantically masturbating below the frame, but he might as well be. And this sequence continues. For seven. Freaking. Minutes.

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