From the sublime to the ridiculous.

If I had the time and a hammer, I would track down every copy of that program and smash it.

- George Lucas

My neighbour across the hall, whose name I still don't know after six years here, has a piano in her apartment. Normally she plays classical pieces, but today, since it is Christmas Day, she is playing Christmas carols - quietly, pensively, almost sadly. Perhaps she too is spending the day on her own.

However, it's important to make the best of these situations - the silver lining in today's cloud is that I have ample time for the research required for this year's seasonally appropriate posting. I spotted my opportunity for this posting several months ago on another blog: a download link for a VHS-to-digital transfer of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.

"Infamous" is really the only appropriate adjective. It's generally accepted that this 1978 spinoff program (read "attempt to cash in" for spinoff if you want to be completely accurate) is one of the worst pieces of entertainment in the history of the television, or perhaps just in history, period.

The plot - perhaps "excuse" is the word I'm looking for here - for the show is simple: Chewbacca is attempting to return to his family on Kashyyyk in order to celebrate Life Day with them, Life Day being a celebration of love and family which coincidentally involves a decorated tree. In practice, the plot is only a shaky framework for what's really just a one-hour variety special stretched out to two hours with the addition of clumsily over-dubbed stock footage from the movie, far too much unintelligible roared dialogue between the members of Chewbacca's family, and Art Carney acting as the improbable hero of the hour.

The program features unforgettable* moments such as Harvey Korman in alien drag as the four-armed female host of a cooking program, explaining how to cook bantha rump; Diahann Carroll as a singing interactive holographic soft-core sex symbol; Jefferson Starship as holographic musicians; Bea Arthur as the singing proprietor of the cantina on Tatooine (thankfully without any sexual connotations); and, of course, Princess Leia singing the Life Day hymn, which coincidentally has exactly the same tune as the Star Wars theme music.

(Just for the record, it looks as if Carrie Fisher is actually singing the hymn - I had no idea that she'd inherited her parents' pipes.)


The only part of the show which was well received was the short animated segment, created by Toronto's Nelvana animation studio, which marked the first appearance of bounty hunter Boba Fett. Fans of animation, Star Wars, or both will recognize in this eleven minute piece an early version of the artistic style used for the Droids animated series featuring C-3PO and R2D2, which ran for a single season in 1985.

The most horrifying thing that I discovered in the process of researching the various details of the special is that it was ranked at #3 in "The Five Goofiest Moments Of The Star Wars Mythos" by Star Wars Magazine. #3? I have to admit that I didn't look up the reference - I think that I will sleep better tonight not knowing the two things that were considered to be worse.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

- Sid

* It's generally accepted that all parties involved have tried to forget but failed miserably.

Postscript:  I'm adding this on February 25th, 2010 - for no good reason that I can figure out, this post and this post alone has become a magnet for spam comments!  Apparently Blogger is a little draconic when it comes to blogs with a heavy concentration of spam, so I've been trying to delete them as fast as they appear, but I have to wonder:  why this post? Is it because it uses the phrase "Star Wars" four times?

Damn...five, now.

Post-postscript:  okay, I give up, this is becoming disconcerting.  According to my e-mail, someone put a spam comment on here, but it's invisible.  The comment count has gone up by one, but I can't find the comment.  So I've disabled commenting for this post out of self-defense.

Extremely guilty pleasures.

It all started out innocently, honest it did. I was disposing of extra images in the Picasa picture album for the blog, and there they were, the pictures from last year's Major Matt Mason posting. Really, I was just curious to see just how ridiculously expensive the figures were now when I logged onto eBay and did a search.

And trust me, when I put a bid down on one of the figures, I never thought I'd win the damn auction! Good grief, it's for an original 1966 blue stripe version of the Major complete with original helmet and Cat Trac, it's got to be worth more than, oh, let's put a $50 cap on the bid, ha, that should be the top bid for about ten minutes.

Imagine my surprise (and mild embarrassment) when 6 days and $43.02 later, I found myself the proud owner of six ounces of rubber and wire from the 1960's, accessorized with 15 cents worth of molded plastic.

But it seemed that my unexpected opportunity to reclaim childhood memories was doomed - four long weeks went by without a sign of the parcel: no notes from the post office, nothing. The seller reassured me that the items had been shipped within three days, but someone could have walked here with the package in a month for heaven's sake, obviously something had gone amiss.

On Monday night I trotted down to the building laundry room to drop in a load of darks (having missed my usual Saturday morning laundry due to a weekend trip to Toronto) and to my mingled relief, curiousity and anger, there the Major was, dumped on a shelf beside the laundry sorting table. He and his helmet were in a Ziploc™ bag, his Cat Trac was loose but undamaged, and everything was exactly in the condition described in the eBay listing,

What happened, I wonder? Obviously the [expletive deleted] postie just left the package at my door rather than returning it to the post office to wait for my signature, and just as obviously someone nicked the package and opened it. And then...had an attack of conscience? Decided they didn’t really need a 6 inch rubber man? Got caught by their mother? But why leave it in the laundry room instead of returning it to my door?

Regardless, I’m pleased by the positive conclusion to the story, if somewhat baffled by the circumstances that led up to it.

The Major Matt Mason dolls were painted rubber moldings over wire armatures – think Gumby in a spacesuit, if that helps. The down side of this style of construction is that the wire involved has a relatively short life span in the hands of an imaginative and playful child, who will probably subject the joints to the kind of stress and extension normally associated with the Spanish Inquisition.

Once the wire is broken, the rubber expansion joints are left with nothing else for support and can easily tear. As a result, eBay listings for Major Matt Mason figures tend to cite number of broken joints, and in a few cases one-armed or one-legged astronauts are offered for sale.* As you can see in the photos, my Major is a little bit on the grimy side, and his paint has peeled off in a couple of spots. However, all of his limbs are there, his wire joints are good, and he still has his original helmet, which I gather is unusual.

I don’t remember to what extent my original Matt Mason figures had lost their paint – I did see one for sale on eBay with no paint at all on the black rubber, and to be honest I thought that the all-black spacesuit looked somewhat cool, sort of a ninja astronaut look. Not practical, though – NASA's spacesuits are white in order to reflect heat. I think that the multi-coloured space suits of the original line of figures were based around the idea of visibility on the Moon in case of accidents, an idea which shows up semi-regularly in science fiction.

I can see why the various collectors' websites advise soaking the figures in a dilute solution of cleanser for 20 minutes before attempting a gentle cleaning (very gentle - everyone agrees that the paint is a bit fragile). My first attempt at wiping away the stains with a dampened soft cloth was almost pointless: imagine almost 45 years of grimy little juvenile fingers rubbing filth into the rubber and acrylic. (Or don't if you have a weak stomach.)

I find myself wondering as to the exact circumstances that led to the Major ending up in the laundry room. I picture this sort of Toy Story scenario, wherein he finds himself held captive but plans a desperate escape. Choosing his moment, he grimly snaps down his visor and climbs onto his scarlet Cat Trac to make a courageous dash for freedom, but finally succumbs to lack of oxygen and tumbles unconscious from his seat...

You know it's a good toy when it can still inspire your imagination 43 years after it was made.

- Sid

 

* There's a 1949 short story by Ray Bradbury titled Kaleidoscope where an orbiting spaceship blows up and the spacesuited crew survives, but is scattered in all directions by the force of the explosion. Some fall into the atmosphere and burn up, and some are hurled into the depths of space. One unfortunate finds his vector to be opposite that of a meteor cloud, and as jagged hunks of iron amputate his extremities, a rather brutal safety feature in his spacesuit allows him to close an iris that stops the bleeding and seals the joint. First his left hand...SNICK...then his right foot...SNICK... Perhaps this is how damaged Major Matt Mason figures explain their, ah, shortcomings in bar conversations.

Adumbration, solecism, plangent, phthisic.

From: Sid
To: Chris
Subject: MIA
Received: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 7:45 PM
Just in case, I thought I should warn you that I won’t be at the Frog and Firkin tomorrow night, your sister has evinced a desire to purchase Chinese food for two.

From: Chris
To: Sid
Subject: Re: MIA
Received: Thursday, December 17, 2009 9:04 pm
Evinced - a word not commonly used.

How often are you able to cite the exact source from which you learned a word?

In this case, it's Jack Vance's Hugo and Nebula* award-winning 1966 short novel The Last Castle, which contains the following bit of narrative:

"After the council meeting I descended immediately to the storeroom where the Mek was confined. It lacked nutriment; I gave it syrup and a pail of water, which it sipped sparingly, then evinced a desire for minced clams. I summoned kitchen help and sent them for this commodity and the Mek ingested several pints."

I probably read The Last Castle for the first time in the early 70's (my copy certainly looks like I've owned it for that long, and I mentally associate it with about that point in my life) and I have no idea why the picture of a corduroy-faced alien worker expressing his longing for shredded shellfish stuck in my mind. But it did, and thus we increase our word power, as Reader's Digest used to say.

By the way, if you're looking for something a bit different in the fantasy and science fiction reading department, Jack Vance is a fabulous choice. As demonstrated above, his vocabulary is both recondite and pedantic - his writing style is formal and slightly archaic, and his sense of humour can be described in exactly the same terms.

Some science fiction authors invent bizarre and improbable technologies, some create strange and unusual aliens, others are planet builders. Vance's books tend to have a backdrop of convoluted and elaborate social structures: societies based around odd practises, peculiar rituals, and the observation of unique traditions. As an example, here's a description of the tribal group called Khors from Vance's The Dirdir, the third novel of the Tschai, Planet of Adventure series:

"Remember," Anacho warned, "the Khors are a sensitive people. Do not speak to them; pay them no heed except from necessity, in which case you must use the fewest possible words. They consider garrulity a crime against nature. Do not stand upwind of a Khor, nor if possible downwind; such acts are symbolic of antagonism. Never acknowledge the presence of a woman; do not look toward their children – they will suspect you of laying a curse; and above all ignore the sacred grove."

Sadly, sometimes Vance's fascination with the oddities of language and society take precedence over plot, and I have to admit that for me, some of his work falls a bit flat because of that problem. But nothing can diminish the brilliance with which Vance builds his dream palaces, and that brilliance has garnered him respect and praise from fans, critics and fellow authors for over 60 years.

In addition to The Last Castle and the Tschai series, Vance's best known works would be the Dying Earth stories, The Dragon Masters, and the Demon Princes series. I suspect a lot of it is out of print, Vance was born in 1916 and hasn't been very productive recently, but if you're willing to spend a little time in used book stores I have no doubt that you'll be able to find a suitable selection. I'll warn you in advance, though: you may find yourself evincing a desire for a copy of the Oxford Concise Dictionary in order to fully appreciate Jack Vance.

- Sid

* This is the equivalent of winning an Oscar and a Golden Globe in the real world.