Category Archives: Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: The Star Wars Holiday Special

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

As I wrote about “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, The Star Wars Holiday Special has been mocked so often it’s almost cliche. But unlike the Band Aid song, The Star Wars Holiday Special has never helped anyone. And it has hurt everyone who has watched it. It may, in fact, be one of the worst things ever done on television (or to television, if you prefer).

George Lucas once said he wished he could destroy all existing copies of the special with a sledgehammer. Considering this is the guy who thought The Phantom Menace was great, you know the special has to be really, really bad.

In case you’re not familiar with the story behind The Star Wars Holiday Special (and if you’re not, please hand in your Nerd Card immediately), here’s how it went down. In 1978, Lucas was already hard at work on The Empire Strikes Back, but was pressured by 20th Century Fox to have something Star Wars-related for the Christmas season that year.

As they say, failure is an orphan, so no one claims any responsibility for what followed. Lucas allowed a holiday special to be made, but has repeatedly stated he had virtually nothing to do with making it. He basically okayed or vetoed sketch ideas, most of them devised by a crew of 70s variety show scribes (including the omnipresent Bruce Vilanch). Predictably, this led to a bunch of very bad, very 1970s variety elements. If you took out all the Star Wars characters and replaced them with Paul Lynde and Donnie and Marie, you would not notice any difference.

Lucas’s biggest involvement came with a 10-minute cartoon segment, which marked the first ever appearance of Boba Fett, thus explaining why this special still inspires huge Nerd Boners. But even if Lucas washed his hands of the thing, all of the main Star Wars characters appeared in the special, played by the original actors. They were not spared the stain of this special, which soiled everyone it touched.

The premise of the special: Han Solo tries to avoid imperial ships so he can get Chewbacca back to his home planet in time for Life Day. We see Chewbacca’s family for the first time (and never again), including his son, Lumpy (!) and his father, Itchy (!). The writers must have thought everyone would be fluent in Wookie by Christmastime, because 75 percent of the show consists of Chewbacca’s relatives barking at each other, with no subtitles.

And this is possibly the least insane aspect of the special. It features Art Carney as a trader, who protects Chewie’s family while also delivering a weirdly erotic hologram to Itchy. Harvey Korman appears briefly for no good reason, as does Jefferson Starship (!). And Bea Arthur plays the owner of the infamous cantina, who sings a song about ejecting rowdy patrons from the premises.

If you can stand it, some sadist has posted the entire thing to the web here. I defy anyone to watch the entire thing in one sitting, or not feel like you’ve shaved years off your lifespan every time you view it. Though it’s become a pop culture whipping boy, it is thoroughly deserving of that mantle.

It is so awful that it out-sucks another Star Wars Christmas cash-in: Christmas in the Stars, a 1980 holiday album with tunes such as “What Do You Get a Wookie for Christmas (When He Already Has a Comb?)”. Just in case you thought George Lucas raping his own franchise began with the prequels, just know that he was perfectly willing to sell out Star Wars when he had only one movie under his belt.

Football, Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: The Giants Sing Holiday Halftime

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

When you think of sports teams recording songs, you no doubt think of the Golden Era of Athletic Musicianship: The 1980s. “The Superbowl Shuffle”. “Let’s Go Mets”. That Jamaican bobsled song. True classics that have stood the test of time.

But there were several earlier instances of a team lending their golden pipes to musical projects. In 1969, all 28 NFL teams recorded a collection of holiday favorites. If the cover of this version is any indication, the project was initiated by the players’ union, not the NFL itself. You’ll also notice that Santa loves good ol’ smash mouth football, as he tries to gouge out a running back’s eyes.

I have only heard one song from one of these collections: “Jingle Bells”, as sung by the New York Giants on The Giants Sing Holiday Halftime. In the early 70s, Jean Shepherd often used this song as bed music while be told a Christmas tale, and sometimes just played it straight up.

I will give the Giants this: They certainly sounded like they were into it. Though the spirit might have been willing, the throats were weak. Very weak. Especially since the arranger decided to modulate the song to higher and higher keys as it went along, a decision that stretched the Giants’ already limited singing skills past their breaking points. I would say they should’ve stuck to their day jobs, but they weren’t that great at that, either; the Giants went 6-8 in 1969.

You can hear the original tune at the Jean Shepherd fan site FlickLives.com by clicking here. They also have a clip of Shep explaining why he enjoyed playing it so much, which you can listen to here (although he misidentifies the offending team as the Jets).

Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: KRAMPUS!

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the American version of the Santa story has been sanitized a little bit. Most of the legends/backstory we think about when we think about Santa come from Germanic folktales. And like most things with Germanic origins, the earlier incarnations are pretty terrifying. Think the fairytales of The Brothers Grimm, or David Hasselhoff.

The Santa Claus of old folklore is similar to the one we know. He puts presents and treats in the stockings of good kids. But he is also trailed by a trickster demon who punishes the wicked kids. In most tellings, this twisted creature’s name is KRAMPUS.

krampus.jpgWhat does KRAMPUS look like? A lot like that handsome devil to your right. He’s a goat-like monster, with cloven hooves, curly horns, and a terrifyingly long tongue. He carries around a switch, which he uses to beat naughty children. Sometimes, he’s depicted wielding a chain instead (yikes). He also carries a basket, in which he deposits especially bad children, in order to carry them back to Hell (double yikes).

In the 19th century, Krampus was so popular that holiday greeting cards featuring him were sent all over Europe. Most of them had the ironic/ominous message Gruss vom Krampus (“Greetings from Krampus”).

Some of these cards showed Krampus as mischievous, like this one, which has him stealing oranges from little kids. Some showed him as being extremely violent. Some depicted him as a bawdy, satyr-like figure, as the lower-left card in this collage did. Some were just plain bizarre, like this one that shows Krampus all decked in leather, driving a motorcycle, while a passive St. Nicholas rides in the sidecar.

Lest you think this is a relic of simpler times, know that in parts of Europe, people still dress up as Krampus every December 5. They create elaborate demon-masks and roam the streets with chains and other noisy things. Their goals are two-fold: 1) to scare people; 2) to get shit faced. It’s sort of a holiday mashup of Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day. (The Morning News has an interesting description of Krampustage from an American’s perspective, which you can read here.)

For some reason, Krampus got airbrushed out of American Christmas traditions. My guess is because he’s terrifying. You won’t find too many references to the child tormentor in our Yuletide fare, although he was referenced on a recent Colbert Report, and seen in the Christmas mini-episode of The Venture Brothers.

So if you dread heading to your folks’ house and drinking too much egg nog, just know that it could be worse. You could have been brought up to know that on Christmas Eve, you might get presents, or you might get dragged to Hades by a fiendish goat-man.