The STAR WARS Holiday Special Gets Dissected Live

Last night, I went to the Parkside Lounge where the podcasters behind THE STAR WARS MINUTE, Alex Robinson and Pete The Retailer, took on the bastard stepchild of the SW franchise; the infamous STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL. Their 2-hour live podcast took apart the "special" which was essentially a variety program that aired on CBS just before Thanksgiving in 1978 (pre-empting THE HULK and WONDER WOMAN!) and was considered a critical disaster even though it got a respectable audience of about 13 million people...which is not too shabby for a Saturday night in the pre-cable era.

If you haven't seen it, you can watch the entire special online at Daily Motion. But be warned... it is extremely slow going and very bizarre. During the live podcast last night, Alex Robinson referred to the opening 20 minutes as a sort of "weird performance art piece" where only Wookie is spoken. The episode centers around Chewbacca's family on their home planet as they wait for Chewie to return for something called Life Day. When humanoids appear, it's in the form of short cameos by the SW gang; Luke (looking heavily made up post-car accident), Leia, Han, and even Darth Vader (in a clip swiped from the first movie and repurposed for the show).

But the true strangeness is the special guest stars--Harvey Korman in multiple "comic" roles, Art Carney as a local trader and Bea Arthur as a sassy barkeep at the alien cantina from STAR WARS. But wait there's more--Diahann Carroll and Jefferson Starship do a couple strange songs too. The one element the bloggers agreed was actually good was an animated short about halfway through that introduces Boba Fett. And it is pretty cool looking filled with trippy, 70s style animation of the familiar characters and some snappy dialogue as well. The rest, however, is pretty embarrassing and had little involvement by George Lucas, who basically licensed the characters for this one time outing which never aired again and still remains commercially unavailable. But thanks to the Internets, it lives on to baffle and amuse people to this day. Merry Christmas!

All I Want For Xmas Is A Non-Gender Specific EZ Bake Oven

This is one of the cutest holiday stories I've heard this year. A 13 year-old girl in New Jersey, Mackenna Pope, was shopping for an EZ Bake Oven for her brother Gavyn (real name!) who had it on his list. However, Mackenna noticed they only came in puple and pink which are pretty girly colors. Why was there no butch oven, she wondered....though I'm guessing she probably didn't use the word "butch."

So Mackenna got industrious and started a petition for Hasbro to make a non-gender specific oven that  received over 40,000 signatures online at Change.org. And guess what? Hasbro invited her to their headquarters and they will come out with a silver and black version of its iconic toy next year. (Turns out, it had been in the works for a little over a year but this certainly gave them some great press on it.) The new version of the EZ Bake will be in stores available for the 2013 Christmas season.

I love this story for two reasons: first their is the big sister angle which is just too adorable. But also there's a personal side too. When I was an aspiring young baker, I wanted an EZ Bake Oven for Christmas as well and put it on my list even. Needless to say, Santa did not bring me a pink plastic toy with which to bake cakes. Undeterred, my mom did allow me to use the adult oven and I baked up a storm in my youth; cookies, cakes, brownies and even fudge.

Anyway, this is just a lovely story in a season that could use it, with the tragedy in Connecticut dominating the news. Below is a cute report on these two kids from CBS News.

Merry Christmas From New York's Central Park

No, you're not dreaming.  It's not a white Christmas this year.  This photo is from January 12, 2011, of one of this year's many winter snowstorms.  However, despite the freak snow of October 29th, there hasn't been a flake since.  So I thought I'd make this my "online" Christmas post in hope of some of the white stuff this weekend.  Wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

25,000 Christmas Lights Synchronized to "Firework"

OK--I know that Katy Perry's "Firework" is not a Christmas song. But the listentoourlights.com guys in Austin, Texas have done a spectacular job synchronizing their 25,000 exterior holiday lights display to the song's incessantly catchy and triumphant beat.  I have to stay that, at this point in the season, I'm pretty played out on all the Xmas standards but this really put a smile on my face. Truly a joy of the season.

So, these guys have to be gay, right?  I mean seriously....Katy Perry? "Firework"?!  Well, they do live in Austin.  ;)  You can check out their Facebook page here and maybe more will be revealed....

A Few Of My Favorite Christmas Things

I've been working on my iMovie skills lately so I put together a little video of a few of my favorite Christmas things.  It's a compilation of some of the pics I've taken over the past few holidays with my family.  Hope you enjoy it and have a great Christmas weekend! :)


A Few Of My Favorite Christmas Things from Brian Sloan on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas Video

Today's special Christmas clip is from the website EverythingIsTerrible, connoisseurs of the worst video of the 70's, 80's and 90's. They did a fun holiday compilation which even includes clips from the infamous and rarely seen Star Wars Holiday Special. Here's wishing you a great Christmas!

Krampus And The Evil Side of Christmas

In some parts of Europe, namely Austria and Bavaria, Christmas is not all jolly present giving.  There's Krampus to contend with a.k.a. the evil side of Christmas.  Krampus is a mythical, incubus-esque creature with horns who drags some rusty chains around and scares the crap out of all the bad kids.  If they're really bad, legend has it, he will even drag them to the gates of Hell and drop them into the fiery eternal furnace.  Merry Christmas!  Leave it to the Germans to turn Christmas into horror story.

Anyway, here in the US, the tradition of bad children getting coal seems to have fallen by the wayside.  It seems that today's kids get tons of gifts no matter what.  So Krampus has now landed on US soil, with his own website and everything, to get today's lazy, shiftless toddlers in line.  

A couple weeks ago, he made an appearance on the Colbert Report where her terrorized the host and smashed a plate of cookies with his chains.  Personally, I found it a little hard to be scared of the beast, knowing that underneath all that fake fur was my friend Mark Sam, who got the gig due to his fluency in Germanic cursing.  Still, I think Krampus would be a fine addition to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, scaring all the European tourists in midtown.  Oh what a joyous holiday scene that would be! 

The Other New York City Tree Lighting

Last night, a beautiful Douglas Fir standing about 30 feet tall was lit up in Washington Square Park. This tree lighting ceremony is a Greenwich Village tradition that actually pre-dates the hubub up in Rockefeller Center by five years (the first tree went up in 1926). And though the tree doesn't have a billion lights on it or an ice skating ring under it, the Washington Square Arch and the Park itself make a beautiful backdrop for the tree. Frankly, it's a little nicer than being surrounded by skyscrapers and tourists that's for sure.

Anyway, the tree is lit from 4pm to 1am every day from now until Christmas so go check it out. And, if you're feeling very vocal about the holidays, you can join in the annual caroling in the Park, another 83rd old tradition that happens at 5pm on Christmas Eve. Happy Holidaze!