One day while driving along I heard an add on the radio with R2-D2 beeping and booping.

What could this be?

“The Star Wars Holiday Special!”

This was my face when I heard that. The Star Wars Holiday Special was playing at the fancy old theater downtown; the Fargo Theater. Awesome!

This event was being put on to support the charity Toys for Tots. You got a ticket if you donated a toy, or just $5.

I rounded up some friends and off we went.

We knew what was in store for us, two of us had seen it before, but I thought, maybe, just maybe this time will be different. Maybe I can get through it this time without thinking about killing myself or vomiting uncontrollably.

Just maybe it’ll be a Life Day miracle.

I’m not going to review the special or anything. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a short five minute video that sums it up pretty well.

Bear in mind that video was FIVE MINUTES. The whole thing is closer to two hours.

So we got our tickets and took our seats ready for the worst.

Once we sat down we noticed some guy walking around in some weird green onesie morph suit thing with lots of feathers and a big long tail and a horn.

This was thoroughly confusing. The presence of stormtroopers from the 501st Legion made sense. This guy in a reaaaly weird feathery morph suit was something else.

It wasn’t until the special started that it all made sense.

He was cosplaying one of the dancer’s that appear in Lumpy’s hologram gymnast bullshit thing.

Yep.

That dude had some dedication. His costume was actually pretty spot on too. Props to him. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Before the “movie” actually started, there was Star Wars trivia. Basically just a showdown. Two people went up and were given a category. First person unable to name something in that category was out.

I won in the “Planets from the Original Trivia” category. There was also “Species in the Mos Eisely Cantina”, “Rebel Starfighters”, and “Tie Fighter Variants.” That last category was painful.

The one guy knew Tie Bomber, and the other guy said Bow Tie Fighter. The guy running trivia was a bit dumfounded. He let him try again and he said BOA CONSTRICTOR TIE FIGHTER. WHAT THE HELL.

Anyway he lost.

At this point we were all ready to just get on with the pain of the show. But first they had a compilation of old Christmas shorts from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s which was actually really funny and also really creepy.

Lastly, before it finally started, we were in for a real treat. A procession of costumed folk, including the aforementioned 501st troopers went to the front of the theater with the guy in charge of the event.

He explained that after he first saw the Holiday Special he became obsessed with “Inflicting this on as many people as possible.”

He puts it on every year in Minneapolis, and interestingly enough, one of the actors in the Special, Lev Mailer, lives there and they reached out to him.

He played this guy:

The interview, while unfortunately not online (as far as I can tell), was really funny, especially when he called the Special “charming.”

Lastly he told us how he reached out to one of the writers of the Special, who also happens to live in Minneapolis. After years of trying to contact him he finally responded with a letter which was read out loud to us all.

It was essentially a profound apology letter for the fact that the Special exists. It was incredibly awesome.

Before he finished up the guy in charge called the special “A test of will.”

“Try to have a good time. Good luck.”

Finally time for the special.

Lights go down.

Everyone prepares for the worst.

And then it starts.

There’s just too much going on in that “movie” to describe it all, from Itchy’s porn thing, to an Imperial really getting into Jefferson Starship, to this delightful musical number that the Imperials were required to watch for some reason, and more, oh so much more… But thankfully, it wasn’t as unbearable as it was the first time I watched it.

Seeing it in a packed theater was a real treat. Everyone laughing and groaning and cringing together was a lot of fun.

Near the end when Chewie’s family is raising their life day globes, two people popped up at the front of the theater raising their own glowing orbs. It was truly magical.

Though I think everyone’s favorite was Lumpy, Chewie’s son.

Lumpy is awesome and don’t you dare say otherwise.

Oh Lumpy, you rascal…

Eventually, mercifully, it ended. We had made it through. Some people had gotten up and left during the show, but we survived.

We did it.

On the way out everyone was given one of these, which, ignoring the grammatical error, are pretty awesome.

Happy Life Day everyone!