Gene Simmons of KISS was just whistling past the
graveyard when he said that the notoriously bad 1978 KISS TV movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park would
make a great double feature with cross-dressing director Ed Wood’s 1959 Plan 9 From Outer Space, a perennial top
entry in “Worst Movies Ever Made” lists. For one thing, if Phantom was such a success at being deliberately campy, as Simmons
implied, why did the KISS organization impose a ban on their employees even
mentioning the movie’s name out loud, on pain of summary termination?
And besides, the perfect double bill companion for Phantom wouldn’t be some old black and
white low budget schlocky horror show from Hollywood’s underbelly. The perfect
match would be something that was just as godawful, and for all the same
reasons. And that would be another notoriously bad made-for-TV movie from 1978:
The Star Wars Holiday Special.
Both films were televised within a month of each
other, and both had the same motive powering them: a ham-fisted money grab.
Take something that’s a huge success in one medium, drop it into another
medium, and see if you can wring some more money out of the thing. Do it quick,
and don’t bother with such trifles as having a script that makes any sense, or
making sure the people in charge have any clue what they’re doing.
In both cases, we get a finished product that was so
bad it was good, and then just kept going until it circled around to bad again,
and then stayed there.
The closer you look, the more similarities stack up
on top of one another. KISS had reached the point in 1978 where their success
as a recording and touring act seemed limiting. Becoming movie superheroes
appeared to be the logical next step. They were promised “Hard Day’s Night meets Star
Wars.” Who could say no to that?
George Lucas had a bona fide hit movie on his hands
with the original Star Wars in 1977.
But no one was clearly seeing the kind of franchise Star Wars was going to become -- the sequels, the licensed
merchandise, the books, the video games, the prequels. No one could see it
because it had never happened before, Star
Wars basically invented all that stuff. So Lucas was easily swayed. Turning
over his characters and visual universe to a bunch of smooth-talking TV guys
wanting to make a Holiday Special must have seemed rational at the time. Lucas
has since said he doesn’t even remember the production company he handed the
reins to (Smith-Dwight Hemion Productions), but in retrospect it “probably
wasn’t a good idea. But you learn from those things.” And learn he did. After
1978, the only person allowed to wreck George Lucas’ original vision of Star
Wars was George Lucas. See: Prequels; Star Wars.
KISS complained that KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was a huge embarrassment because
it made them look cartoonish. It’s hard to figure what other possible outcome
they imagined, though, since they signed on with Hanna Barbara to make the
thing. That’s right, Hanna Barbara -- the same studio that gave the world The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. In fact, Phantom
is basically just an episode of Scooby-Doo,
complete with a vengeful mad scientist building killer robots in a secret lab
deep beneath the surface of an amusement park. You know, that old story. And given the members of KISS’s complete and utter
lack of acting experience or talent, the result was flatter than any
performance Barney Rubble or Shaggy ever turned in. (Ace Frehley’s stuntman
shows up on the screen quite a lot. It’s kind of noticeable, too, since the
stuntman is African American, and Ace is not.)
There’s a reason why The Star Wars Holiday Special is the grand finale of the 2004 book What Were They Thinking: The 100 Dumbest
Events in Television History. Set mostly on Chewbacca’s home planet, the
bulk of the dialogue is turned over to Wookie grunts and roars. No subtitles,
either (probably just as well). There’s the delightful segment wherein
Chewbacca’s father settles in to enjoy some…well, what can only be described as
internet porn. That, plus the thing that sure looks like a laptop hooked up to
what sure looks like a big flatscreen on the wall, and you have to give them
credit – they did a pretty good job predicting the future. Otherwise it’s all
quite wrong. Being a TV Holiday Variety Special, of course you have to have
guest stars. And who says “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” better
than Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Diahann Carroll?
Besides KISS’s threat to put any member of their crew
who uttered the name of their movie on the unemployment line, George Lucas once
famously said of The Star Wars Holiday
Special that “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down
every copy of that show and smash it.” Since the special was shown only once
and never officially released thereafter, the only copies available were
homemade videos, tapes of the original network airing. Carrie Fisher, who
played Princess Leia, once cut a deal with Lucas: she’d do commentary voiceover
work for Star Wars Blu-ray discs in exchange for a copy of the Holiday Special. She claims she plays it
at parties when she wants people to go home.
The KISS project was, of course, meant to be the
launching pad for their fabulous new career as superheroes of the big screen.
That particular rocket is still on the pad.
Both of these fine features have attained solid Cult
Classic street-cred in the intervening years. Once the stuff of legend, those
homemade videos have since found their way online. Look no further than
YouTube, natch, but for a pristine version of The Star Wars Holiday Special, complete with vintage network TV
commercials of the day, check out Rifftrax. Of course, you get the Rifftrax
guys mocking the show throughout, which is very helpful. Still, you might want
to take some Dramamine first. And
prepare to ask yourself “What were they putting in the water in 1978?”
