Sometimes some kind of thought goes into these posts, and sometimes it's all random weirdness pulled out of the ether. Like today: I was musing on the fact that for the last three days, I've essentially been writing about death. So today, I wanted to write about life.
Unfortunately, the first thought that popped into my head was Life Day, the Wookie holiday celebrated in that notorious 1978 cheesefest The Star Wars Holiday Special. While there are any number of things to say about that monstrosity (though they all boil down to one thought: What were they thinking?), the most interesting thing about it, from my point of view is that it was co-produced and featured songs by that quintessential team of seventies hacks, Ken and Mitzie Welch.
They had a hand in a pretty fair number of things that I can't believe I actually saw, from the smutty sitcom Husbands, Wives and Lovers (my brother and I used to watch this every week, although we'd only get about ten minutes into it before we gave up) to The Hal Linden Special (featuring Hal wandering through NYC and breaking into song at a moment's notice) to Linda Lavin's variety extravaganza Linda In Wonderland (the highlight of which was Ron Liebman recalling his courtship of Linda while accompanying himself on drums).
This led me--or could have led me--to wander through the shadow history of TV, the shows no one remembers but that someone, somewhere, watched. Networks were more willing then to fill their schedules with time-killer shows, programs with no pretensions towards quality whatsoever, which may explain how things like Cade's County ever got on the air.
All fine and dandy, and a worthwhile topic for discussion, but what does that have to do with celebrating life? Nothing at all. So I'll just quote Saundan (who was played by Art Carney, who really, really should have known better) from The Star Wars Holiday Special: Happy Life Day, and I do mean happy Life Day.
