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The Star Wars Holiday Special: Boring fans for 31 years

Posted in holiday, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, TV shows with tags holiday, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, TV shows on November 17, 2009 by Paxton

The infamous Star Wars Holiday Special aired for the first time on CBS on November 17, 1978, 31 years ago today. The Holiday Special was created as a bridge between the original Star Wars in 1977 and The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. It was a way to keep Star Wars “on people’s radar”.

The Special was neither written nor directed by George Lucas. Lucas only allowed the use of his Star Wars characters and environments. The Special was produced by the same group that created the Brady Bunch Variety Hour (itself a famously bad variety program). Lucasfilm does not regularly comment on it and has never officially released it on home video nor has it ever been broadcast since the initial airing in 1978.

Lucas famously said that if he had the time and a sledgehammer, he’d track down every bootleg copy and destroy it. And trust me, there are TONS of bootleg copies of the special out there. If you can’t find a bootleg copy for yourself, then you just aren’t looking hard enough, my friend. You can probably watch the majority of the Special on YouTube.

Is the Special really that bad? Yes it is. The format is similar to variety specials that were popular in the ’70s. The main story involves Chewie and Han as they are racing back to Chewie’s homeworld for Life Day, a generic Star Wars version of Thanksgiving. The story goes back and forth following Chewie and Han and then following Chewie’s family (wife, son and father). Little to no action happens when the camera is with Chewie’s family. You may think I’m exaggerating but there is NO ACTION during Chewie’s family’s scenes. Periodically little vignettes are inserted into the non-action like Jefferson Starship or Dianne Carroll singing a song or Bea Arthur running the cantina (image above) or Art Carney mugging for the camera. You also get short visits with Leia and a Luke Skywalker with so much makeup on he looks like he’s about to perform Kabuki (see image below). To be fair, Mark Hammill had just been in a car accident a few weeks prior so they were covering up massive amounts of reconstructive surgery.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Star Wars and Zombies

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, Uncategorized, zombies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, Star Wars, zombies on October 30, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, one more day until Halloween. I’m going to break with the Frankenstein theme today because, honestly, I’ve done enough Frankenstein. I love the big, lumbering, green guy, but I’ve been up to my pooper in Frankenstein stuff for 2 months now and I’m ready to just put that whole thing on pause for a second. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to Frankenstein (and Boris Karloff) in mid November for the Boris Karloff Birthday Blogathon.

Right now, though, I want to talk about Star Wars…and zombies.

Star Wars and zombies go together like Lennon and McCartney. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Peanut Butter and laaaadies. One thing makes the other better. And for this Halloween season, there are a couple projects that bring Star Wars and zombies together like some awesome Halloween version of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial (where someone gets their chocolate in someone else’s peanut butter).

The first cool, Star Wars zombie item is the book Death Troopers

The book takes place just before Episode IV (A New Hope) and involves a derelict Star Destroyer and an unknown virus. I got the book from my friend, Dr Mike, and I am currently reading it. It’s pretty much as bad ass as you think it is. I’m not sure why Star Wars and horror (and more specifically, zombies) hasn’t been done before, but count me in. EXCEPT, Star Wars really needs to tread lightly here. A virus that makes characters zombie-like is awesome, but I’m not sure I want vampires or werewolves popping up. Actually, I KNOW I don’t want vampires popping up. I love this idea, but it has the potential to get very bad, very quickly.

Unlike every other Star Wars book that is published, this book is a one-shot. It’s not part of some multi-arc storyline in which you have to read 6 other books and 2 other comic books to fully get the story. It’s completely self-contained, like all Star Wars books USED to be in the ’90s. And I love it because of that. These ridiculous 19 book series with in a series are why I stopped reading Star Wars fiction to begin with.

Another cool zombie item? Star Wars zombie posters. There is some really cool zombie artwork on the Official Star Wars Blog Flickr Photostream. There are several zombie versions of the Star Wars posters, like Zombie Wars and Episode III: Revenge of the Zombies (click images to see them BIGGER).

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Welcome new readers to the Cavalcade

Posted in blogging, Time Magazine with tags blogging, Star Wars, Time Magazine on September 24, 2009 by Paxton

Well, my article yesterday about inappropriate Star Wars items hit WordPress’ news page as well as Neatorama’s page. I’m getting lots of positive reaction to it. Glad everyone liked it. I’ll tell you what, I haven’t seen this much traffic since I was linked by Time muthaf’n magazine almost a year ago. That’s right, I said TIME MUTHAF’N MAGAZINE.

Wow, now that I look at it, I was linked by Time Magazine a year ago tomorrow. Spooky. Click the earlier links or my Time Magazine cover to see how I was linked by Time muthaf’n Magazine.

Anyway, it’s funny because the Star Wars article yesterday was just supposed to be a filler article this week to get me through to the beginning of AWESOME-tober-fest next week. Now it’s all blowin’ up and stuff. It’s pretty awesome to get this kinda reaction to something I wrote. So thank you guys.

Oh, for those just joining us, AWESOME-tober-fest is my Halloween celebration and it’s happening the entire month of October. So you’ve picked a good time to join us here at the Cavalcade.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. AWESOME-tober-fest starts next week.

For some good reading check out my archives or my “Top Posts” to the right ==>

Or try these goodies:
Awesome McDonalds Commercials
Dork-topia: Cities constantly overrun by nerdy fans
Photoshop Gone Bad: Atrocious DVD Covers
7 Time Machines that would suck if they existed in the Real World

Hilariously Inappropriate Star Wars items

Posted in humor, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags movies, pop culture, Star Wars on September 23, 2009 by Paxton

Star Wars is iconic. Almost all kids love it. Floppy haired ’70s kids. Neon wearing ’80s kids. Baseball cap tilted 20 degrees to the right ’90s kids. All of them. They have heard and love Star Wars (well, they’ve at least heard of it). It’s ubiquitous. With the metric tons of crap that is produced within the Star Wars brand, there is going to be a few missteps. Maybe quality control got drunk and fell asleep on the job, maybe someone just got a little greedy, maybe the Lucasfilm execs are nothing but perverts. For whatever reason, questionable products are released all the time. Here are 5 of the most inappropriate Star Wars toys meant for children.

Topps Star Wars movie card #207 — This is probably the most well known of the “vaguely obscene” Star Wars items. Take a look at this image of C3PO. Take a goooooood look. Right around the “bathing suit area”. Hmmmm, what’s that? I can’t quite………holy crap. I guess this gives new meaning to the term “fully functional”. Am I right? Goldenrod, indeed! You can click the image to make it bigger, if you are into that sort of thing (and are gross).

C3PO tape dispenser — C3PO, dude, WTF?! Was the card above not inappropriate enough? Now kids are supposed to grab your “wheel” to get some tape? For once in your life, Threepio, show some dignity. I don’t think I can “unsee” any C3PO suppositories or “body massagers” that come about because you are a media whore.

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Dork-topia: Cities that are constantly overrun by nerdy fans

Posted in Americana, books, movies, pop culture, Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, Wizard of Oz with tags books, movies, pop culture, Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, Twilight, Wizard of Oz on August 19, 2009 by Paxton

Nerds. You gotta love ’em. When they love something, they don’t half ass it. They are ALL IN. They live and learn the minutia of whatever aspect of pop culture they relate to. Be it comics, costumes, card games, TV shows, movies…whatever. And whenever they get the chance, they will make the pilgrimage to whatever place on Earth is the focal point for their obsessions. A Geek Roatrip, if you will (and I will, thank you). “So, Pax, where are the nerdiest places on Earth?” Other than the San Diego Comic Con or DragonCon in Atlanta, here is a list of the nerdiest vacation destinations in the world. And this is only a few of them. There are more, trust me.

Forks, Washington – Home of Twilight — This one is the most recent addition to the list. Forks, Washington is the real life city where the fictional Twilight novels are based. Constantly inundated by Twilight nerds (called Twerds…no, I’m not kidding) this town has finally thrown it’s collective hands in the air and said, “FINE! You dorks win. We’ll sell you Team Edward shirts, let you eat at Bella Italia (OMFG…at the EXACT table Bella and Edward had their first date!!! You must order the Mushroom Ravioli!!) and even tailor entire tours of the city around a fictional book about vampires that sparkle in the sun. Hell, visit Forks High School and buy a t-shirt as if you actually attended there with Bella and Edward. It’s all nerdy fun. I’m sure my friend Marlene will be there. Tell her “Hi”, and that I think she’s a dork.