[MUSIC PLAYING]
Told you he is, folks.
It's so time.
People pay good money to see this movie.
When they go out to a theater, they
want to hold so this a hot hot plot in no monsters
in the projection booth.
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Let it off.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In 1978, Lucasville made a huge mistake.
They prefer we all forget the Star Wars holidays special.
Lucasville is still saying Maru's favorite talk about it.
I know that he has a lot to mention.
No, you don't really know.
He is so bad.
It's not good.
You have to see the Star Wars holiday special to believe it.
The emperor said we can't show the special in this trailer.
But rest assured, you see all the picture
can handle in the documentary film,
it disturbance in the force.
The Star Wars holiday special sort of like the Holy Grail
I wanted to see this more than I wanted to live.
We're starving, as fans, for anything Star Wars
is so funny and so stupid at the same time.
We have seen something that we weren't supposed to see.
How did this happen?
To find answers, we travel back and experience the insanity
of 1970's variety television.
When 70's TV was paid, they were no description for it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Star Wars holiday specials in the world
is George Lucas allowing this to happen.
You're intergalactic proof.
Didn't you know about the Star Wars holiday special?
You don't.
At the store, these people are fast.
A story 45 years in the making.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, folks.
Welcome to a special episode of The Project Shabu Family
House Mike White.
On this episode, I'm talking to Jeremy Koon
and Steve Kozak all about their new documentary
A Disturbance in the Force.
It's all about the infamous Star Wars holiday special.
Their film just had its premiere itself by Southwest.
Be sure to visit their website, holiday special,
doc.com to find out where it's playing near you.
Thanks for listening and enjoy this interview.
Steve and Jeremy, thank you so much for joining me today.
I'm so excited to talk to you guys
about the disturbance in the Force.
Jeremy, it's been a few years since we've talked.
And I have to ask, when did you actually
start on this project?
Because it seems like it was huge.
The last time we talked, just 2015, we
had the Raiders and the Met Steve in 2019.
And the first things we shot was in June of 2019.
How did you even manage to make the documentary during COVID?
Did you do promote shooting?
Or how was that?
Or did everything just go on pause?
At any large, what on pause?
Steve was brave enough to go to a bunch of interviews
for people that were well-ained.
But a lot of this was just peace meal
where it's like new and energy relations
go to do it now.
Or we tack things on to other shoots.
Let's tack this on and see if we can ask them some questions
about it.
So a lot of them, it was that.
But there's no grand plan.
It was just as we went along.
We knew what we wanted to get.
There was one or two people that wanted to be interviewed
outside when COVID hit, it was like,
these people had been inside for so long.
They really wanted to talk.
They were so grateful for just company.
Finally, so did I want to talk anyway.
This is not hard to get these people to talk surprisingly.
I think they've seen these older TV guys have just been
kind of tossed aside.
But there's amazing stories there.
Steve, what's your history with the Star Wars
Holiday Specialist Well?
I'm the complete opposite of Jeremy.
He comes from film, he's educated, he's technically
knowledgeable.
I come from television.
I work at legal licensing.
It was a producer of who line is it anyway?
I did the green screen bit for longer seasons,
where I just my whole job was just to find weird bizarre
footage.
I'd find a lot of before they were famous stuff for the last 20
years in late night back to police shows and world
scary, be as broad as or whatever.
These crazy lip shows pretty bad.
The clip master.
And now I got all this was actually doing a trade show.
I have a trade association and I was looking for an event to do.
And I was thinking about doing an event around the Star Wars
Holiday Special, a live event.
And then I realized it was maybe more than that.
I was going to ruin.
I'm not being able to really interview these people again.
I'd blow that one opportunity.
And actually, I called Jeremy initially because we have a mutual
friend John Heater.
And he said, oh, call John, because I was thinking of doing a screening.
And I don't think if you remember that, Jeremy, that's what I called
you.
Then I mentioned this documentary.
I was trying to push and man.
I mean, there were a couple of people that were interested earlier.
But while Jeremy within a day had a whole map of IDDAs and jumped
all over it.
That really is what pushed us.
Because there were a lot of older people that were starting to the
projector was losing his eyesight.
And there was a lot of people that were starting to get older.
I was worried about.
So we were able to get a lot of those interviews down, like pretty quickly.
After you got a board.
Did you see it originally when it aired?
Yeah, I did.
And I guess that identifies the age gap between Jeremy and I.
Jeremy thought, it's like, what did I?
I didn't see it.
So I was there's two thousand two.
So I was twenty, eighty three.
I thought aired.
It's very sophisticated to hear that.
But yeah, it's up.
Now, one of the things we have in this is that television back in those days,
which is you had low expectations, the kibbyed up the audiences and the
demographics for these shows, you have to say them out of time of
Han Solo, and you get a Jefferson Starship or Diane Carol, which,
but I was still happy.
I got my five ten minutes of Harrison Ford.
But yeah, I think it was that bad.
I think it's well-explicated.
If it makes you feel better Steve, I also saw it when I aired originally.
And you brought a bridge in bed.
Do you like it?
I really liked the animated segment.
That was probably my favorite bit, especially seeing Boba Fett.
And I was just like, oh, who is this guy?
And when they advertised sending your proof to purchase and get a figure, I had, I don't
know, why I kept all these backs of the card.
So I had the guy ended up with four bulb of Fets.
So I was just thrilled.
Nice.
So Jeremy, what did you think of it when you're seeing it in 2000, whenever?
I made it like 25 minutes in.
And I was like, this is terrible.
This is either not real.
My first thing was like, I thought it was a bootleg DVD that my friend had gotten me.
And yeah, I just like, I can't finish this.
And I wasn't convinced that it was real.
All that's what I'm going to maybe put it together somehow.
Did you just didn't make sense to me at 23, 2002, why this existed?
We're in a big variety show fan at that time.
I was aware of variety, just not Star Wars being mixed into it.
Paul Shire, we did, they were all Shire explained it as being like mixing gasoline with peanut
butters of those luck, chocolate and peanut butters, just two things that were never meant to go together.
It feels like you guys might have some stories to tell as far as the behind the scenes of this
because there's certain things where like all of the tape interviews, like how did the tape interviews
actual cassette tapes or that's how you represent them anyway, how did those come to be
and how did they get into the documentary?
This guy Ross, Steve actually tracked me down, but he did a 20th anniversary article on the holiday
special, so in '98, I care what, magazine was for, but he in the process of doing that.
He filmed facts, don't facts.
So he went through any interview to all these people over the phone and he just said hours and hours
of like the welches was just a gold mine because I don't know when they passed away, but there's
no way we're getting anything from them and it was great to hear their voice.
So it just a matter of going through all that and trying to pull stuff out that's useful, but
I think it was probably at a 30, 40 hours of stuff.
Wow, that's amazing.
And it feels like there's something going on there with the director, the original director,
I should say, of the special just the way that his tone changes between the original taped interview
and then the second one that you play, where he just wants nothing to do with it.
Well, I guess the difference is that when he started, the one he was mad, he bought he
started talking to me.
So he was talking to this other guy when he five years ago and had a very good conversation with the guy
doing the magazine.
He reveals a lot of stuff in that, that's the where he reveals this story where he had tried
to pass Robin Williams and there's all these great nuggets in there and his frustrations he was having.
Then once I started getting involved, I mean obviously a combat is the best story if you could get
anyone on tape.
So I would call him up every now and then and he was, you know, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
And then like the last one I happened to take and then he just was, I'm done.
This is it.
My name's that on it.
You could go do this and I haven't called him.
So you understand his frustration where he's had a whole career and this is all you want to
remember.
Right.
The two weeks he spent on this.
And it was three days of shooting.
That was nothing that he did and we make shot like almost a whole budget in those three days
just insane.
So how did you approach this?
Did you guys just make this master list of here's all the people that we want to talk to
and start hunting them down or what was your approach to even.
Coming to this material.
I'm first started going through the whole cast what I didn't really mention my father used
to produce those Bob Hope specials.
And it's like one of the initial things that made me think about doing this because I thought
it's such a great story.
There's so many Star Wars docs but I've never heard anything on the most fascinating portion
of it which I think is this special.
And I started looking at the IMVB list.
And I started noticing, oh my gosh, this person's practically like what are the camera
and it's practically related to me.
It's such a small world.
I grew up with a lot of these camera command and directors and so forth because they did the Bob
Hope specials.
And then they went and did Donnie Marie and then they did their independence stuff that worked
that Hemian would ever in.
So it was a very small world.
So I went after those guys and just tried to get as much lined up.
And then when Jeremy came on board, he didn't really have a question a lot of the ideas I had.
And then he finished it and started.
He definitely is the one who wanted to have the comedians.
And I think that's the biggest response we've got is people just raving a setth
green and tearing kill and it.
We had to get like our meet of the meal with the people who actually worked on it.
So he wanted like first person accounts and like Steve said a lot of him could pass away
at any moment.
We wanted to get a bunch of those and then once we had a cut it was kind of like a, all right,
let's go talk to these celebrities and get some comedy in there.
We wanted to be like once it's like taught like it was Seth Green or Kevin Smith like watching
this and the goes the best people because they're connected to Star Wars.
They're hugely knowledgeable and their famous and they're great on camera.
So like all those people who used to basically cut them loose and let them go wherever they
wanted.
Because initially I was like, looks like a such a jerk.
Why does he make such a big deal out of this?
And through the whole process of this, I kind of have more empathy for him.
Or I'm like, I can understand his position.
I don't know what I would do if I would probably do something similar for me.
Yeah, I remember back in 1997 when that definitive box set of the discs came out, the
laser discs came out and I thought for sure that the Star Wars holiday special was going
to be on that for whenever reason and when it didn't, that was so angry about that for
no good reason.
Look at said in like 87 that he expected it to come out on something in some form.
So that's never happened.
I love the mixture that you do have more contemporary people with the older people, the original
the OG, the folks that are actually working on it.
Plus Steve, I've tried to interview with Donnie Asman was fantastic in hearing his reminiscences
of working on that, that Donnie Marisha with all the Star Wars characters was fantastic.
A lot of it is just coincidence.
The fact that Doddy Asman was a relevant part of this story only came after I started working
on it.
I actually know Donnie Asman very well.
I've helped represent his library.
I remember it was a producer on his, his Vegas show with all the over 500 clips and videos
and licensed that for him.
The coincidence that he was this had a major part in this down the road.
It was just mind blowing.
He's so self deprecating and he's such a nice guy and he just opened up and we had a really
cut down on his interview.
He had a lot to say.
There were a lot of great little nuggets in there that we just didn't have time for.
But yeah, he definitely was a highlight.
The coincidence that we have the Bob Hulp stuff too.
I wasn't raised with a lot of celebrities.
I did represent Bob Hulp, but I knew so few celebrities when it was all done.
My life was done when my dad baths away.
It's just bizarre coincidence that I happen to know a few of these.
In the Bob Hulp thing helped because we didn't touted as exclusive.
But that is not available on YouTube.
The song and dance bit.
No.
I think that's funnier than the parody that they did.
Yeah, that was the first time I had ever seen it.
The one thing that you said that had to cut out a lot because it feels like this documentary
could easily be five hours just going through each scene and each character and each one
of those times that we've got.
Beerther or when her requirement comes on, I'm surprised that it doesn't go through every
single beat of the special because it's such a rich vein of bizarre material.
We want people to enjoy the film.
Have you ever want to make her own holiday special?
We've tried to walk this fine line of hardcore star warspan and people who don't have nothing.
I'm sure there's some people who are hard-core.
They're coming to this like, I already knew that.
And I knew this.
The thing that we did is basically try to get our arms around everything that we thought we could
find and try to pack as much of it.
We could have been like, it's like, it's like, it's like 86 minutes.
But initially, we're going through and being like, all right, we're just going to be
seen by seeing, but that seems not very engaging.
But once we got it into the variety stuff, we're like, oh, this is going to blow some people.
Like, I do variety of notches agree with the Wayne Newton at sea world.
The Lawrence Wellb clip that we have in there with the dancing that landed a thousand
dances is probably my favorite because first time Steve showed it.
I thought it was Sarah and I live skit with Wolf Arrow.
I was just like, why are you showing me this?
And then I look closely and I was like, oh, that's some better air gun TV for real without
been being ironic.
Yeah, we used to get to see that every Sunday night.
Yeah.
As old as we are Mike, you and I didn't watch that show admit, no, that's true.
That's true.
If I saw it on, I'd change the channel.
Yeah.
And this is our yes.
Yeah, grandparents stuff.
I love to that you take so many different turns in this film.
And one of those areas that you concentrate on is just the idea of the marketing and just what
a wild west show was when it came to movie marketing back in 7778 and just all those different
things that were tried in order to get people to sea star wars and remember star wars.
And I just love that whole section of here's what the attempts were just going to the Star Trek
conventions and basically try to steal the fans away. That was wonderful.
I will actually say that Charlie Lippencott, I mean, he was really hard when I first reached
out to him.
He was very, a little personality of noxious with me.
He was only responding to me in Facebook posts really weird just to everyone on his channel.
He just would respond to me.
But sooner or later, I understood completely his resentment and he was really a through line that
we use to take you through the Donnie and Marie show.
The Warner Brothers big meeting that's a real big reveal that showed despite that Lucas had
about it.
And he takes his right into the special.
It's a great through line.
It's heartbreaking because he could write a whole book just on Charlie Lippencott.
This guy was amazing when he came up with and these original ideas that are now or just
commonplace.
What we're doing right now is basically Lippencott 101.
This says what he was, this is what he was going to preaching.
And Jeremy, I'm so curious as far as how much of the story of this new new that know your
fan, not having seen the special were you aware of all of the stuff that had been going
on behind the scenes of the Star Wars Empire at that time.
Seeing articles and bits and pieces and stuff from there, I felt there's a resurgence of
this around like 2010.
It seemed to be pretty if you were to Star Wars, you at least had heard of the holiday.
Like when I saw 2002, I didn't hear anything about it.
But as people were making like reference to it, the joke was it so bad, the articles
periodically.
So before we started, I had done it, but I didn't, I also felt there was conflicting, there's
room of the words about what had happened that we kind of dug into and realized that didn't
happen.
One of the ones that I would have liked to dig into it more, but maybe get some more interviews
is actually don't think George Lugus ever said he was going to smash every copy of it.
Yeah, I actually don't.
There's no attributes of him at a comic con in Australia, but he's never been to a comic
con in Australia.
And there's never, there's never a reference for it.
I think he's been a tribute to him through someone else, but that's one of the things I'm
just like, he gets a bad rap for stuff that he didn't do.
I know one thing I've been guilty of in the past was repeating that rumor about Mark Hamill
in the whole Wampa attack and that's why he was an accident and blah blah blah.
I'm so glad that you guys cleared that up.
And just sources again, just coming at this one little bit of trivia that you complete the
settled that, which I am very thankful for.
And hopefully Mark said that thankful as well.
Well, really cruel.
We found, I don't want to say what is, but someone said, someone made a, was asking him about
his mascara that he was wearing.
And he was really embarrassed about that whole thing.
And so it was nice when I think was Bonnie Burton that is the one who came up with a
perfect, the way she described it was so perfectly when she just said, this has been produced
by Tony and Emmy people.
Of course, this is their lot, and of course, they make everything larger than the so sense.
That means more sense than anything.
Yeah.
I also think that echoing Jeremy's feeling about that comment.
And I'm not participating on you because I would say the same thing.
Very well, it could have even been in one of our first write ups that line about the
wanting to break everything.
It does kind of show like there's, it's just so amazing Jeremy.
Like when you think about how many times we heard the thing being referenced with that phrase,
it's just ridiculous.
It's, it's almost like it's like a subtitle for the special.
It's so common if people just keep spouting it like it's, and again, we did it too.
So, you know, nothing on you, Mike.
So I don't imagine that the original cast was just out there wanting to talk with you.
You show, you kind of start off the documentary with that amazing clip of Harrison Ford
on Conan O'Brien.
I love that.
Who wouldn't participate for this?
I don't really get on after any of them hardcore.
Ever from the maybe as a last phase.
Basically make the film, get people into it and maybe you're hard for a press after this.
But we're holding out hope that we'd love to have more camel or you know, people like that.
Like I, maybe one of the really interesting to pick.
I feel like he references a lot in his tweets and he has a sense of humor about it.
Obviously like Harrison Ford, Lucas, we would always sit down.
But I don't see that happening.
But maybe you ever know, but yeah, I would be.
I was so glad to hear all of those original voices to have Kiryu Fisher and take
here what her opinions were on this just to go back to where you're time up before.
See the clips are amazing.
And stuff I had never seen before stuff like the Harvey Corman interview, the Arthur and
her view and just getting these people actually to having the availability of those clips of
those interviews just to hear those original voices was terrific.
We definitely did try to make up for the fact that we weren't going to get.
We probably knew the January fishery pass away.
And sometimes I think like maybe she might have been the best interview if we could have had
anyone because she just had such a great funny attitude about the whole thing.
We did, I did, we did, we were just about finishing.
We still had a couple interviews before we finished for South by Southwest.
For that cut in his Jeremy saying there is some room for maybe a couple more inserts.
One of which is we in I spoke on a phone to with Carrie to Fisher's brother who was very
interesting.
He bit on the set and he had this really great attitude about her singing.
She said he said you know what?
She was fine.
She sang great people who trash her singing ridiculous.
She doesn't sing badly.
She's just not Barbara Streisand.
That's all.
He said being the son of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, he said everyone doesn't have to
be Eddie Fisher.
They're the consing a song and it's okay and it doesn't change your life and he's one
of those interviews.
I mean I really felt her spirit through his discussion.
So maybe you might squeeze a line into it and if we cut it again.
How many kinds have there been here in me?
I have no idea.
I have to watch the film five at our time.
I've been initially I was like we're going to hire an editor because I started as an editor
on the polling dynamite and I did one of the film and then I had retired or I'm like oh,
editing's too hard.
I'm going to go be producer.
It's more fun.
Then I just came to my audience to do a bunch of things that I need to step up into.
So I started probably maybe last year or maybe last year.
This was just like a beast coming into.
So you have to just take a piece by piece and just keep layering it in and then it just
you found a groove with people watching to get in feedback.
But there's been I basically to count every day I usually watch it.
So I edit and that's my process.
I usually edit it, watch it in the day and I do that day after day.
Wow.
It's like a surface.
Yeah.
Which I love more fun than that.
It's some variety stuff.
It was amusing.
Yeah, it's just I feel like every film in front of mind is trying to best for like eating an elephant
and like it's daunting to look at it.
But you just basically to start a bit by bit and eventually get enough momentum where it
carries you to the end.
I'd love the thing that you're doing with the titles for people and using the graphics from
the old Star Wars training cards that was a really super clever.
That's a damn diddy who's my companies are a graphics guy and like a post production supervisor.
So he did all the graphics for this because we had no money and he did an awesome job.
But yeah, he I was like, I want something that feels Star Wars and 70s.
He said, oh, I could do this.
And yeah, I love that too.
He just has a nice texture to it.
I had a little bit that great was the was the showing of the staff coming and going to
work with that too because this cast and crew, this crew just completely just moves around
like amazing.
And to be able to see the references, I think, do it entertaining.
And I thought that they probably helps people follow it along.
I didn't have a question about that.
You keep showing the collector's card for Pat Proft, but he's not in the documentary was
he not willing to go in front of the camera.
His memory is not great.
And the one story that he had, I did speak to him on the phone.
He just had just been around.
And it's like, he told the story about his, he bringing his son to the set and that he came
to the set whenever he was passing out.
And all of his heroes are being dragged out of the studio and being treated by EMTs.
He was, he was three sentences.
He's very talented guy, but he just doesn't remember much from the special.
He's also in Minnesota.
That was hard to justify a trip up to there just for the one interview given a bunch of
we had.
Mr. Land, the guy from the other special, the other guy who lived right like five minutes
from him was the guy who is in the tunnel.
The mailers and it lived mainly.
Yes, sick.
That we know this name.
He lived five minutes away, but he passed away.
So then, yeah, became just choosing our battles, which would we could afford to interview.
And the ladies and Bruce Valange are amazing interviews.
There's two guys were just, they remembered so much stuff.
And that was a mirror.
Yeah, I mean, Bruce is such a raccoon tour.
And then at Lenny, I had never heard him talk about it before.
It was great to hear his stories.
Especially Lenny's like a lovely Parsley.
I had spent like all day with them.
He was just the nicest guy.
Is self-biased with this premiere?
The first time you're actually seeing it with an audience?
Or a lot premiere and first time with, yeah, it's actually the first time you're seeing
with the audience because all the feedbacks have been just sending links to people.
So I've never seen this with more than actually, I don't know if I've seen it with any more
than my wife to be honest.
She must be so sick of it by now.
She's like, "Watch the ones."
She was like, "What's the guy in the South by Southwest?"
She's like, "You want to watch this?
I don't know if it's for you."
And she enjoyed it.
She's not the bigger star or was the fan, but she liked it.
Or they still, she liked it.
And hopefully that's an audience that we can get with this.
I think the Star Wars fans, if they know where it is, they see it there, they'll watch it
out of curiosity.
I think the real victory would be to get non-Star Wars fans to being treated by the general
story.
It's crossing over in a way that I didn't expect.
I have someone I want to own, I want to bear some.
But he loved the movie and literally in my mind, these older, not Star Wars fan, Hayden Star
Wars.
He loved the movie and in my mind, I was at he and I was like, "Well, this guy will not
like this movie."
So the fact we won him over as a huge go-ah.
So, that's fantastic.
What's after South by Southwest, you guys know?
Oh, for distribution deals.
We're doing say on those out of South by Southwest.
I think the film's going to pretty healthy film festival live.
So if some of those can't announce them, you know, they're the worst.
We'll see what comes our way from the coming months.
Ideally, I think this film should come out to the holidays, life day later this year.
We have some run way until we get there.
But whatever distributor wants to do, we're out for.
It's fantastic.
What are you working on now, Jeremy?
My company September Club, we focus on documentaries.
We have a documentary feature on the comedian Gallagher.
Oh, what?
We're open to finish, which the director on that's been followed him for four years.
It's another weird crazy, just interesting.
It knows much about him as a pilot.
As I've now found out.
Now, the next part of the Hollywood special Gallagher, like all these things.
But about other projects going on, but that's the one that's probably going to come out next.
And how about you Steve?
What are you working on now?
I'd have yet to jettison myself into the full-time film making like Jeremy.
That would be amazing.
I work full-time for Jimmy Kimmel Live as a film researcher, Clarence Purston, Licensing.
But why did sell a book to applause books about the same subject?
Still on the second draft of that.
And that'll come out around life day.
Fantastic.
I'm hoping there's going to be a physical release of this movie with a lot of extras on it as well.
Pingers crossed.
Yeah.
We hope so, so people still buy DVDs from Proppers in Apocalypse, Stight People.
They want to make sure they have their physical media on the world and go south.
So where's the best place for people to keep up on the movie and it's festival run?
So I mean, other socials around Facebook and Twitter.
But the easiest is probably a holiday special.com.
So DOC, that's our website, we'll update as things happen.
And they're actually selling advanced tickets to the two of our shows at South Nice, Southwest
Children.
He was an Austin, so our Tuesday, Wednesday, Screens.
You can buy tickets for $25.
And they'll think, "Surrah on the site."
So you don't buy the $1,000 badge, you can get tickets and just see our film.
Jeremy, Steve, thank you so much for your time, guys.
This was fantastic.
Thanks, please.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(upbeat music)