#323 Napoleon Dynamite 20th Anniversary and A Disturbance in the Force with Jeremy Coon

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:28

All right, Carrie, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 323 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back. For what's sure to be an out of this world episode, we are diving deep into the documentary or disturbance in the Force. How the Star Wars Holiday Special God made with none other than its creator, Jeremy Coon. He was one of the directors and producers of this amazing documentary, we're diving deep into that you may also recognize Jeremy's name as an executive producer of Napoleon Dynamite. 2004 is Napoleon Dynamite celebrating 20 years huge celebration, two decades of Napoleon Dynamite, and we're talking that we're talking to His servants in the forest. And that's coming up in just a few seconds. And in the last few seconds, Amy Dolan's was here last week talking about all her classic TV and film roles from the 80s. She was out of control. Check that out. But right now check out my conversation with Jeremy Coon. We're celebrating 20 years in Napoleon Dynamite. We're diving deep into the amazing documentary, a disturbance in force. And that's coming up right now. All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce my next guest, producer, director, such amazing classics as writers, the story of the greatest fan film ever made, Napoleon Dynamite. And most recently, my new favorite documentary, a disturbance in the Force, the making of the Star Wars Holiday Special. Welcome to the show, Jeremy Coon. Hey,

Jeremy Coon 2:15

thanks for having me.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:16

I know I, I've been stalking you. So I appreciate you. Finding time.

Jeremy Coon 2:22

I appreciate the persistence,

Jeff Dwoskin 2:23

a lot of work. You know, there's certain things like recently I talked to, and Moses and she was the editor of Tiger Beat in the late early 70s. And that was cool. Because I every time I talked to like a teen idol, I'd always look up Tiger Beat headlines. And you know, so when I finally got to talk to someone who worked at Tiger Beat that was pretty awesome. So I've had Bruce Vilanch on the show, and Lenny ribs. And of course, in both of those interviews, we talked about Star Wars Holiday Special, which they were writers on and prominently featured in your documentary. So when I saw you made a documentary, that's why I've been like, Oh, I gotta talk to Jeremy. I've got to talk to Jeremy, though. Yeah.

Jeremy Coon 3:03

And Bruce and money are great. Like, there's the type of people where you just put the camera on them and just let them talk. Like, you don't even have to try very hard.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:10

Yeah, they both have kind of their own little humorous style. Yeah, they're super fun to talk to never a shortage of stories with either of those folks. And you splice them in to the holidays special really well, because they each had like a very different role in it. And I think even at different times. Yeah,

Jeremy Coon 3:29

I think there was a little bit of overlap, but it was kind of like, yeah, like Lenny, I mean, Lenny was done, more or less like you've never visited. And Bruce was on set the whole time, more or less.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:39

So what is your fascination with creating and making? Classics? Right? I mean, 20 years now for Napoleon Dynamite. And so the must be celebrating that. Yeah.

Jeremy Coon 3:51

So Sundance is fortunate enough to go there and do a couple of 20th anniversary screenings. One of them we're bringing some people from the US to help make it a little bit of cast members and just doing Yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's actually for those that are in our cities to 4k restoration of the movie, so I'm kind of curious to see how much better it looks. I'm not sure it will look that much better because of this. The film stopped for us was so grainy, because that's kind of all we could afford at the time. But yeah, it's just it's crazy that it's been that it's been that long. 20 years long time.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:19

Do you have any idea when you were making this movie that it was going to become they would resonate like I have among a million other people vote for Paige Oh shirt, crazy wig? You know, when is Napoleon Dynamite? For Halloween? One of my years you know, I mean, it's, I think everyone does that.

Jeremy Coon 4:36

That's the age you but how old were you? When you saw it when it came out? Or when you first saw

Jeff Dwoskin 4:40

it? You know, I don't think I saw it. It's interesting. My relationship with Napoleon Dynamite is interesting. Like, I didn't see it till I think much later. And the first time I watched it, everyone was like, this is the funniest, greatest movie ever. I can't believe you haven't seen him like I haven't seen. So we sat down my wife and I sat down and watched it. And I remember saying to the people who told us to watch it. I'm like how don't get it. I don't get it. And, and they're like, no, no, no, no. That's why it's so amazing. And then we rewatched it. And I was like, oh my god, this is this is I just hit you know, I mean, the first time I watched it so funny,

Jeremy Coon 5:12

that's typically what we hear is a lot of people were like, Man, I saw it, and I did not get it. I hated it. And then somehow someone taught me to watch it again that I love to watch. I've always thought I don't think I've ever revisited a movie that I have not like, ever really had then liked it. That doesn't happen very often.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:28

What is it then it becomes one of those movies where just start watching it from wherever you happen to stumble upon it if you stumble upon it.

Jeremy Coon 5:35

Yeah, like we made it. We had, we had no clue like, I felt we were like I was 24 at the time. And so it was like Jared, and people were making a wealth. We're all kind of like early, mid 20s. First thing we've done, and I felt we were making a movie for us that we knew that like our demographic would like, I remember during that first Sundance, they're doing high school screenings in the movie. And I was totally worried. It's just like, there's no way a high school crowd is going to find this funny. It's like too close to like, it's the absence perspective on high school. I don't know if this is funny when you're in high school. And we did like a screening for like 1000 high school students and like the room just like blew up. And it kind of opened this whole new thing where it's like, oh, there's a movie that appeals are broader than just us. I mean, it's crazy. We do screenings, and like, we have people who are now eight years old, you know that we're not even remotely born when the film came out, and like they're digging in on it. So I mean, for me, the issue I had with I think a lot of people have is like, like with Ferris Bueller's Day Off came out. I was way too young to probably really appreciate it. But like that's a film that there's always going to be high school kids that are experiencing that even at times change. But I think that's kind of what hopefully what we tapped into. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 6:39

absolutely. And it's amazing. Because you made it with no money. It made a ton of money. Like when you think like John had heard the rumor, like he made like $1,000

Jeremy Coon 6:49

or something? Yeah, I mean, it's not that's not entirely true. He was paid scale, which I think was like two grand, but I mean, he's got back in on the film. It also like launched his career and led to other projects. I mean, the distributor paid him to kind of do press I mean, so it's like, he didn't make millions. Like he didn't make as much money for how much attention you got. But he did not get $1,000 He got more than $1,000. Yeah, I

Jeff Dwoskin 7:10

understand the tangible benefit is just funny. I've seen that in multiple

Jeremy Coon 7:13

theaters, where it's like a trivia thing. Like how much was John heater play for bowling dynamite. And it's like $1,000. And I'm like, I don't know where anyone gets that. I don't know.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:22

You know, some of these things. They just kind of John Kreese is like big guy in the White Lotus even just recently. So it was,

Jeremy Coon 7:29

yeah, I was I was texting him last night. That was just like, he's, he's just one of those people where we cast him. So local Rico we're trying to get like a star for and like there's a period of oddly enough, we're looking at like Jack Black, but it was just completely unrealistic at the time. We're leaving to go to Idaho, like the next day or two. And we had to have someone cast for Uncle Rico and like, the casting director showed us like his reel. And we're like, he's great. Just cast him. We'll see him in Idaho. So like, he didn't audition. We didn't meet him. So we're in Idaho to happen be the character but he he just wants people that's always fun to have on set be around like he's just a joy.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:05

Yeah, I can't imagine anyone else being more perfect. And he was the scene where he's reminiscing about the football and playing football. So good

Jeremy Coon 8:16

is a funny story with when the film came out to like Randy Jackson from like, American Idol was like a huge star at the time. And like he knew John and he was at a dinner and Randy Jackson just going off on like how great Napoleon Dynamite was going off and not realizing that John played uncle Rico because the wig made him look so different. And then find out that his friend is like, he's like, I'm in that he's like, What part did you play? Like a monkey? Like, what do you say?

Jeff Dwoskin 8:40

That's funny. That's really funny. I don't usually you hear that when there's prosthetics involved? Maybe? Yeah,

Jeremy Coon 8:46

well, I'll be that the wig really does kind of transform the way piers because he's, he's bald, fully bald, you know, most of the time. And he's just looks completely different.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:54

So funny. Yeah. There's just so many great things about Napoleon Dynamite. It's one of those movies you almost like have to rewatch the dancing scene. I mean, it's like, like, this is so much. I just, I just love it and his voice. So

Jeremy Coon 9:10

to answer your question we did not think was gonna be as successful it was. And I'm still amazed the fact 20 years later that it still has this lasting power. Like, I just fear that like it films last 10 years, they're gonna last forever. And I kind of feel broken out from that, because a lot of films after like five years, you kind of just forget about just the lifecycle of how many like there's so much product out there. It's hard to break out.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:31

Yeah, Napoleon Dynamite is definitely one of those movies that every generation because it was my mother in law. That was when I was talking about it. It was my mother. No, I'm sorry. It was my stepmom who was like telling me about it. So it was like, I think it's transcended. It's there forever. So you got that one? What was with the Star Wars Holiday Special? What's your background just in that in general, like everyone, everyone who's a fan of Star Wars kind of just has the background meaning like, Are we aware of it? Had you seen it? Did you see seems to scope it out on YouTube. Like, like what was

Jeremy Coon 10:03

I mean, I was, I don't remember not being a Star Wars fan. I was born in 79. So it's the year after the special but like the first toys are playing with four star wars, figuring like action figures because that's my brother's had. And like the first move ever seen the theaters Return of the Jedi when I was about four. So I've always been I'm not obsessive to the point where I dress up all the time. But I mean, I know the world. So I mean, I kind of heard rumors about the holiday special, but it's kind of I mean, it's kind of like the Raiders tape when I did that. It's just like, people talk about it. But it was hard to find at the time. And I wasn't quite certain if it was real, but like a friend gave me a copy of the holiday special on DVD and like 2002 I watched maybe 1520 minutes, and I wasn't convinced that it was real at that point, I was gonna like this. He was like, It's a joke, like someone has managed to take like elements of Star Wars and mixed it in with maybe some variety stuff and made it look like was a real TV special. But like, I don't, I can't I was like, I can't imagine this actually aired and then just didn't really think about it for after that I kept the DVD but never finished it. And then I filled around around the like YouTube comes out and like this holiday specials readily available, because then it's just not on bootlegs. And especially in like some reason there's an inflection point around 2010, where it becomes much less underground and more of this like pop culture reference for like people always like to reference it. Like Mark Hamill is doing tweets about it. It's just it's this kind of like fun thing to talk about. And that's what really appealed when I was interested in that aspect. Because it was such a part of like popular culture. And like no one really knew no one had done like a deep dive on like how this actually happened. Because like, in my mind, I was like, there has to be reasons why this was a good idea and 78. And in retrospect, if it doesn't look that good, but like that be like no one went into this, knowing that was a bad decision, and just kind of figuring out and then when we got to the world of like 70s TV, that's where I was like, Oh, this is so much fun, because there's so much bad Variety TV that we can show, like, just kind of give a sense of what the time was. That kind of really opened up the film.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:56

Yeah, it's an interesting time. Like, right 1977 Star Wars comes out the biggest thing ever, right? It just blows everything away. It's interesting, because in the documentary, you talk about just the whole one, the psychology of how they did this groundswell and created fans before the movie even came out to to get them interested in Star Wars. And they created such a satiable appetite for Star Wars and everything that they were afraid everyone would fall off the cliff and forget all about them. By the time the Empire Strikes Back comes out in 1980. At the time, right? There's no There's no internet, there's no social media, there's nothing really to do it. So somebody comes up with the idea which brilliant on paper, let's do a holiday special.

Jeremy Coon 12:48

I always say this, it's like it would have been weird for them not to do something like this. The other thing too, it's not like they went cheap on this, like they paid a million dollars hired the best people that had done TV specials and got bigger stars, they could have time and it was just destined never to work. But at the time, it's exactly what you do to market it's that's how stuff was marketed. Like if you had any notoriety you did a TV special didn't matter if you're a football player and you couldn't sing dance or act they would give you something to do and fill up with stars like and it's just a fun time it also feel a lot of it at the time is like who's available let's throw them in the special and mix these people up. I don't share this but like kiss on the pollen Halloween special. I think it's hilarious because it's just so bizarre to have kiss in that world performing. Like normally. But yeah, it's just it's, it would have been fun to like been alive at that time. Just to experience.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:37

It was interesting because one of the kind of threads or themes is that as bad as the Star Wars Holiday Special was, this is what 70s Variety TV was. So in comparison, it was all bad. And specifically, I love that you showed the pollen holiday or Halloween special because one day I was just kind of flipping through and at my fire stick said, Hey, you should watch this. And I did. I watched the pollen Halloween special and like you said it has kiss which is so out of place, but they're rockin it had witchy poo in it and a woman from Wizard of Oz a Wicked Witch of the West. And I mean, it's the set

Jeremy Coon 14:18

actually her or is it someone playing her novel her actually looked into that. That's actually it's so weird. It's like, Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 14:25

well, because they're Yeah, they're alive then you don't think you know they are. And so that special in itself is so horrible, but it's so great because that's it's so bad, right? I mean, it's there's something to it. And I guess at the time, this must have been enjoyed by people. It's like you think aliens would land here and they would they'd have a whole group of people just investigate.

Jeremy Coon 14:49

I mean to me, to me also was like you got to understand like your demographic at the time or it's kind of like the holiday special. If you're between like five and 10 when it came out. You thought it was the greatest thing ever because it was the only time To you, because back then it's like you have three channels, there's no home video, other than seeing the movie in a theater. This is all the Star Wars you're gonna get. So if you're between five and 10, you're ecstatic to see like Han Solo and Chewbacca and like all this other stuff and you didn't care like seeing the dancing, you might that sock but like you didn't, you had no alternative. And I got to do this with TV was where it's like you have three options if you want to watch the Brady Bunch variety, our like Love Boat or whatever, like, these are your options where you can go, or you can go read or do something else. But I mean, it's just completely foreign to what it's like now where we have so much content, it's so readily available. I mean, it's almost I mean, it's the opposite problem where stuff gets lost that you just don't see. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 15:37

there's there was a whole TV show starring Julia Roberts. And I was like, what? I didn't even know. How does that get lost? So you're right. It's interesting. So November 17 1978, the holiday special airs, Lenny ribs has a funny comment in the documentary. I think he mentioned it when I was talking to him talking to him as well, is that they really thought this was going to be their meal ticket like this was gonna play as annuity. Yeah, there. It's gonna play every year like to Charlie Brown, every Charlie Brown special. This thing aired one time, which in itself is interesting to think like how popular Star Wars must have been at that time. That and I don't think VCRs were that prevalent at the time Vcr is if I remember correctly, a good one costs $800. I mean, it was like inside of

Jeremy Coon 16:26

and more than that. You had to be very rich to have like a beta or VHS. So like they were around. But it was definitely not prevalent. I mean, I want to say it might have even cost like $2,000 in 19 $78. I mean, it was like buying a car or something like it was expensive.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:41

Yeah, it was very cost. So to think that it survived because that's really the way it survived. Somebody captured it. And then at some point, that person realized they had at some point, and then started distributing it. I was like you were I don't know. 15 or so years ago, a friend of mine gave it to me on DVD. And it was like, you know, I'd heard of it. But you know, then you watch it. I'm impressed. He got through 15 minutes of it.

Jeremy Coon 17:09

Yeah, I mean, once you get like the 10 minutes of like, walkie speak with no sense of what's going on. I'm just like, this is like someone's taking the sound of this and taking the subtitles out. Because like, there's no way that this is just going on endlessly. around that mark is where I tuned out. So it's probably it's probably around the 15 minute mark. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 17:27

it was fascinating actually, in, in his documentary, where he talked about how they wouldn't use captions like that there was some like stigma with it or something like that. And I gotta say

Jeremy Coon 17:39

America was to America was too dumb to want to read subtitles because they were lazy. And like, I don't know how to do that. I mean, you also got to think TV at the time, too, is also like not high quality. It's like three by four. So it's probably a little bit harder to read subtitles on that. I think there's some truth to it. But I think the thing is, like George was just adamant that he didn't want subtitles, for whatever reason. It's

Jeff Dwoskin 18:00

all interesting. So I didn't have to take a quick break. I do want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors, you're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on for the record. I keep captions on for everything. And we're back. What was sort of the impetus where you're like, alright, let's, let's make a documentary about the Star Wars Holiday Special. What's the process of making one of these documentaries, you kind of got storyboarded out, then you go get somebody that have helped finance it, like sell the idea, you got to get rights to all this stuff, too, right?

Jeremy Coon 18:37

I don't worry about any of that beginning. So it's more kind of like, the reason why I like documentaries is you just kind of explore a little bit and see what's there. So like, to me, the first starting point is like, I think this is interesting. I have questions to which they're not answers readily available. So like, to me that's like the starting point to have that. It's like, oh, well, let's go do some interviews. So like Lenny ribs was one of the first people we interviewed. And it was during his interview, I was like, Alright, there's stuff here that we can go and talk to other people from the production like, like he was the one that really because we wouldn't did like three days of interviews we did like it was not to sound too morbid, but we kind of hit the people that were concerned might die of which none of those people have died, oddly enough, but like they were older, and then like memories fade, and you never know how someone's health is gonna be. But we knocked out as many of those as we could. And Ghana gave us a base to kind of go on. But the other thing too, like when you're making these, it's kind of like being a journalist to some degree where it's like, you're asking questions, you're doing research and digging into it, and you have an idea of where you think it might go, but you need to be open to things that might surprise you, or things that you thought were the case that ended up being wrong. I mean, it's just part of the documentary process is just kind of rolling with it. And like as you do more and more interviews, I think we interviewed like 50 people, those interviews lead to other interviews and then kind of piece stuff together. I mean, like the first cut was heavily Lenny ribs and the Bruce Vilanch because they were the ones that had the most core and we didn't want to have to the point where it's kind of awkward to have The film beat that heavy on them. So we kind of filtered in other people to cover similar topics. That made sense. So yeah, it was ended up being like a four year process. COVID came in the middle of it, which kind of derailed it for about a year, year and a half. I mean, we made this completely independently, and then it goes back to the rights. I mean, we claim fair use on this. And I've gone through it enough on documentaries, where, you know, we've had enough commentary and like, we didn't push the envelope on any usage. So when the fair use lawyer did his review, the sign off and everything, he only had like two small tweaks. So that's always the most nerve wracking process is like, am I so off? How off base are we compared to because the lawyer has to basically given the okay to make it okay, and

Jeff Dwoskin 20:38

you're probably in a good spot, right? You're like, what's George Lucas gonna do? He doesn't, he doesn't admit that this exists. So he can't claim you're using.

Jeremy Coon 20:49

Yeah, but I mean, it's been it's been on YouTube for like 15 years, right or done anything about it. So like you want to, I mean, part of like, this is like, you got to incur damages. And it's like, well, it's just out there and you're not selling like it's not, it's been it's also what makes it fun is like Disney plus did like a formal release and put it out, actually, for me would kind of spoil the fun of it. It's like being in on the joke. I kind of like it's placed, it annoys them a little bit, and they tried to ignore it. And that's just, it makes it more enjoyable for all those fans that kind of poke at

Jeff Dwoskin 21:17

it. I heard the Boba Fett cartoon is on does Yeah. But that's on Disney plus, but the rest of it is not and I agree with you. 100% is soon if it was 1,000% mainstream like Disney plus, then then it's just that it just becomes like a piece of garbage. Not like this special horrible thing that we all love.

Jeremy Coon 21:36

Yeah, I don't don't love it. It's kind of like I appreciate its uniqueness and like place in history, but like, I've had to watch it like six times getting to end and like every time it's it's hard. It's not

Jeff Dwoskin 21:49

I met love. More abstractly than that. Yeah, yeah, I can't watch it either. It's it's unwatchable. But the amazing thing about the documentary is how you made an amazing documentary about something completely unwatchable. But you made an extremely enjoyable and watchable document documentary that incorporates it. And now, where you're like, oh, okay, you know what, I think I do want to go, I'm gonna go check this out. You know, I mean, I'm gonna go torture myself. And I'm gonna go watch the full Jefferson Airplane video, or I'm gonna go watch the whole Diane Carroll, soft born walkie scene, I gotta find the whole thing. You know, where you just teased it.

Jeremy Coon 22:28

That's probably the impetus for the documentary or I was like, What's the story behind that same because someone thought that was like, we couldn't get into it too much, because I couldn't find any audio. But like, I'm pretty sure there's an interview that Mitzi welts didn't print where she said that, like, we were just screwing with the sensors and see what we get away with. And like no one flagged it, which is shocking, because just kind of like there has to be that because like, you're doing this kid's program of this, like softball or erotica born. It's so weird. It's like so strange.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:55

It's one of the most bizarre things so I so what I'm getting from your earlier comment is there is a hashtag, rips lanch cut. We can go Oh, Zack Snyder on you. And like, release the ribs. Blanche cut?

Jeremy Coon 23:12

No, I mean, their whole interview, I'm gonna go through interviews. We're probably like an hour, hour and a half. And like I said, like, It's great talking to people like a lot of these interviews, we just have to like, throw out a question and then step back and get out of their way. Like Kevin Smith was that way patent? I was like, all these people are just like, the professionally funny. And all you can do is get in their way. You bet. Like someone was asking, like, why don't we have more extras on the blu ray. And I'm like, we don't really have any, I started to put something together. And I'm like, everything we like is in the movie. There's not some like, oh, I would have loved like every movie I've done. I'm like, Oh, I would have loved to have the scene in but it throws the timing off. Or it's too like people don't care, the end of the day that like everything we thought was interesting. So there's stuffing pull out just felt kind of lame putting it together. Like we're just trying to create extras out of nothing.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:53

I respect that. So what surprised you when you were researching interviewing, putting this together?

Jeremy Coon 23:59

The most surprising thing to me is that so when I set out in this was kind of like, oh Lucas is such a charity. He just seems to own this. I was kind of like, I feel like a lot of friends, like a lot of fans are words, necessarily anti Lucas, but kind of like, Come on, man, you're being lame about this. And through the course of making the movie, I have way more empathy for his position, knowing what was going on at the time where he's like, he's made the most successful movie of all time. He's like 33 Is everything is disposed like everything, anything he wants to do, he can do any decides to leverage his entire net worth to do empire. Or if Empire doesn't happen, he basically goes bankrupt. And like that's his priority. And then he has like other stuff going on. And like he's like American Graffiti too, is like a side note. But in the middle of all this and you try to get the merchandising off the ground. In the meantime, someone was like, Hey, you should do holiday specials. He's like, Oh, great, we'll help sell toys. He talks on a per day and then goes back to Empire. So I'm kind of like, Yeah, I mean, what are you gonna do in that situation where it's just like you have much bigger fish to fry than what the holiday special is. At the end of the day. Also, if you if you do that Holiday Special is also this weird thing about Star Wars where you have like the the films and TV shows that are all like very sacred. And then you have this like marketing engine where they'll slap Star Wars on everything. And they're kind of like two parallel tracks that go on. And if you do the holiday special more is like on the marketing side as opposed to like a film. It makes more sense. So that's the that's the kind of I was surprising looking at it that way where it's like, yeah, this, it makes sense why this happened and why they did it. And at the end of the day, I would have to argue that was probably successful and what I set out to do, I mean, while it's not good, 13 million people watched it. The toys were available that first Christmas for the first time, and I can only assume it helped sell more toys going into Christmas.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:40

Yeah. Did you get a feeling of anyone who remembered it at the time? Because at the time, it probably everyone was like, oh, Star Wars. I mean, like, I didn't win the Goldbergs clip, they immediately the boy immediately. Didn't like it. But I'm sure it was like weird for people. But

Jeremy Coon 25:57

if you as I said, like, if you were five to 10, like you thought it was well, while not like amazing, like you really enjoyed it, because it's the only Star Wars you're gonna get until 1980. You know, if you're seven, that's a long time to wait, you're gonna wait three years to see something new. But if you're older than 10, you kind of were even if you're if you're older 10 You were clearly kind of like, hey, something's not right here. That's me. That's where the cutoff is. Like, you're like 1112 13 You're kind of like, I like that. I mean, I'm happy to be watching this, but like something's off.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:28

Is a disturbance in the forest. Yeah, exactly. That's right. It was funny, because like, it seemed that Peter Mayhew was the only person that you had a clip of saying that he actually was, I don't remember who said proud, but he didn't have a negative thing to say about.

Jeremy Coon 26:44

He was proud of it. We have an audio recording of like an interview he did on the phone and like 90 was 98. None of it was like perfectly. It was a strange phone call. They put that but he was very, like, proud of it. And he's like, I mean, it's basically Chewbacca starring role. Like, that's the one thing where it's like, it's all around the Wookie family and Chewbacca. So I mean, there's also like this rumor that they're going to this was like a test program to then do a Chewbacca TV series, or like a Wilkie TV series where Chewbacca would kind of come in periodically. I actually don't think that's true. What I think it was, I think someone executives, okay, we spent all this money on the set, maybe we could use this for TV show, because because as well. And I think that's that's where it stopped. Because once the special came out, there was no no sense that they were ever going to revisit it.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:28

Thank goodness.

Jeremy Coon 27:31

Although wiki TV series would have been interesting, I don't know.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:33

It would have been it would have been so how did you pick the folks like Seth Green? I think that's that's a good one. How did you get him to be in? No, he worked with Lucas on on his shows that he does.

Jeremy Coon 27:47

Yeah. So Seth was the top of the list of people I wanted to interview that weren't directly like involved in the making of it. And fortunately enough, like our producer, Kyle Newman's friends with him and reached out to him and South was like, Oh, I'm all in and what do you need? Like I love talking about the special. He was just like an open book like you just an open book. I mean, the other thing about Seth is like, I would say, Seth, he's the next best person to interview other than Lucas, because he's like one of the few people who I feel has talked to Lucas at length about this and work them like a Star Wars Dieter show. I mean, out on the years they spent making that but like, he was with Lucas for long periods of time talking and just kind of like hanging out. So like, that's was really interesting. To me. That's where the more empathy for Lucas came from, is from Seth, giving his perspective on how Lucas has reacted to it, because I feel it's probably the most honest, you're gonna get, I don't even know if Lucas himself and we sat down, interviewed him with that open are honest about it. So those were that was really enlightening. But fortunately, we had a connection to Seth and he was willing to do it. But like everyone he reached out to, like, no one really said no, like all the people who reached out to we're like, Yeah, let's make this happen. I want to support it. I want to be a part of this. And that kind of comes to the kind of fandom I think the Star Wars has, or people enjoy being a part of this and just kind of, it's just fun at the end of the day, right,

Jeff Dwoskin 28:57

like Taran Killam. What was his connection?

Jeremy Coon 29:00

That was strictly our producer Colin Newman's also friends with him. And oddly enough, I was not like, I was kind of like, I mean, I liked Taryn. But like, what's his connection other than being a star, a Star Wars fan. And when he started doing his interview, I was just like, he had so many like funny bits and just takes and it was just, like, kind of goes to the same thing, where it's like, if you get interviews with funny people who are professionally funny, and give them a topic to riff on, they will inevitably come up with fun stuff. So that's, that's where I kind of feel with the comedians we pulled in. It was like, we needed more, more humor, because, I mean, Bruce Blanche and Lenny ribs are funny, but like, a lot of these people are just kind of older and drier, that we're actually like, making this special. So it's kind of nice to filter and commentary to kind of lighten things up. Keep jokes going.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:42

Gilbert Godfried last film role, as far as I know, yeah.

Jeremy Coon 29:47

Yeah, so my directing partner, Steve Co. Zack works with Jimmy Kimmel show and he had a connection to Gilbert. And we just did that interview remotely. But yeah, he was down for it. That he was in Florida when we shot it like that. That was why He was our first star I would say, we're just like named like, Hey, we got Gilbert Godfrey. That's awesome. But but he also did like he had a connection where he had done a podcast about the Star Wars Holiday Special like with Bruce phalange and had like, talked at length about it for like an hour and a half. So like he had a lot of funny bits. And he was familiar with it wasn't just like out of the blue.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:19

Yeah, no, he made sense say because his colossal podcast he Yeah, he is, uh, he goes very deep into a lot of pop culture. His is one of that's one of the things I miss now that he's gone is new episodes of that podcast because him and his co star of that podcast, they go deep. They do their research, I you can appreciate it. Because a lot of folks

Jeremy Coon 30:41

don't. In his interview he has like a five minute like aristocrats like filthy joke he does on the Star Wars Holiday Special, which if we're gonna do an extra that would probably be the extra.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:51

I can imagine he's known for that. The other night in Star Wars filthy one. I loved the threat of Donny Osmond. Now I don't know if this is what you intended. But this is what I took from the Donny Osmond thread was that in a way he represented what we would hope George Lucas would be in terms of coming to grips with something that he they didn't enjoy being a part of Danny Murray show for Donny Osmond. But then later coming to grips that it was okay. Be okay. And embrace that.

Jeremy Coon 31:21

Yeah, that's exactly what we want to do something rather worked out.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:24

You nailed it. Here's the here's the way I'm usually not that deep. So for me to

Jeremy Coon 31:29

know, Donnie was one of those people we interviewed. And it was just so refreshing to have him be like, just cool about it. He's like, Yeah, it exists. I don't like it. But like it is what it is. I mean, it's what it was, during that time, I kind of came up with this idea where it's like, if you look at the All Star Wars Holiday Special as like, I don't know, the eighth or ninth grade yearbook of Star Wars. No one's cool in middle school, like no one's like, looks great. And it's kind of like you're embarrassed about it. But like we don't burn our yearbooks pretend like they don't exist, like we usually kind of look at and be like, Oh, look, what I was wearing was ridiculous. Or what I thought was cool was meant the times have changed and I just didn't know better and like, it's kind of like the Star Wars adolescence, where they didn't know what Star Wars was yet, during this weird time. So I was just going with what like, I was ecab Ricci pants and like, fifth or sixth grade, if that means anything, or like the big puppy Hammer pants. T shirts. Yeah, it was just like, in like, 40 there's not a whole lot of photos floating around. But like, yeah, like, I'm not proud of that. But I'm not gonna pretend like I didn't do it.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:24

I like average advanced.

Jeremy Coon 32:27

Yeah, there was like, I can't believe my parents were like, $100 back in like 89, or whatever it was. And I'm just like, I was like a fat kid too. So it's like, they weren't actually flattering. It was just, it was not a good look. And they all had like a million pleats at the front.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:41

You know, they weren't quite the quite the fashion statement. The other awesome thing that I loved it was John Fabbro talking about how that Boba Fett cartoon from the Star Wars Holiday Special influenced the Mandalorian. I will say I was like, I remember watching the Mandalorian going, Oh, that's the same disintegration weapon from the cartoon. And in my head. I was like, Oh, I bet that's where they got it. Having no idea. So it was nice to hear him say that. And I got him referencing Life Day. And you know, in one episode, that was it was really cool that for something that's so forgotten under ground like how it's still part of

Jeremy Coon 33:19

cultural I can't really hold favour was the time but he was somewhere around like eight or 10. So like, it's funny that like they floating him or like people like that are now making Star Wars content because they're gonna pull from what they grew up with. So they have especially like a soft spot in their heart for the Star Wars Holiday Special because like they were the exact demographic when they made it. And I love that clip too. Cuz it's like so it's on my camera. So I'm basically asked start like George Lucas about the Star Wars Holiday Special. And you can clip you can tell he's not totally thrilled to be talking about. And that was just from those from like, the be extras on Mandalorian. Some like series. And I remember I found that I'm like, oh, that has to go in the movie.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:57

When you were putting together a documentary, like when you start interviewing Lanny and Bruce, then when you're creating a documentary, do you then kind of just start to form the arc? I remember like, a second I think camera which committee I was talking to there, but we were talking about the aristocrats the movie, and they were talking about like, when it film, George Carlin, that's when they knew they had the movie, Paul Provenza I was talking to and that's when they knew they had the movie, because everything he gave and then they could start to create a structure around that. So any ribs sort of gave you that the output then what was your hopes what was like the journey you hope the person who maybe has never seen the holiday special, but he's gonna watch his documentary out of curiosity, because our current Star Wars fan, what were you hoping to have someone walk away with? Yeah, I

Jeremy Coon 34:43

mean, to me, the biggest goal was to create a time capsule of what 1970 78 was, like, at that time, and the TV world like that was kind of because like, I wasn't familiar with that, and like most people I know aren't, you know, it's just weren't old enough the time to really know so to create that kind of world and give a sense to me that really opened up Film up to a broader audience. Just from a pop culture standpoint, the Star Wars Holiday Special is like a hook for people. But to pull them in, like, like the polling, this is a thing I thought was strictly for Star Wars fans, it's crossed over to a number of people that I thought in a million years would like this because like I've had people who are adamantly dislike Star Wars are just they're indifferent. But they love revisiting this time period, because they remember what the 70s was like. And because we kind of open the film up where it's like, also, nothing I want to do is try to live in cod is kind of this unsung hero of Star Wars from a marketing perspective. And I felt this is a way to kind of tell his story that hasn't, he has to get the credit I feel used to do. And I feel as a way to kind of give him the credit, because he was part of this whole marketing, the marketing, he did kind of lead to the holiday special, but he's also responsible for Star Wars being as successful as it is. So I mean, that was a big piece. But after that first half hour is kind of just going into the highlights of the holiday special and getting some backstory of like, kind of it's that Instagram become more of a traditional doc. But the first half hour is where we really spent a lot of time molding to kind of appeal to a broader audience. And also, I mean, I think there's a lot of people who just don't know, they think the Star Wars came out and was just like, by some miracle, like a lottery ticket was just successful, and they don't know how much work and like work went into to actually make it successful. Who

Jeff Dwoskin 36:08

made the poster? Because I gotta tell you, the poster for this movie is unbelievable.

Jeremy Coon 36:14

Danny minarelli she is you can buy it on Etsy. There's a link on our website that was designed before we made the movie. And we interviewed, we interviewed her at the end. She's the one that's holding the poster up talking about commercials are the credits. But we told her like, we're like, we use your poster. And she's just like, yeah, you have added and I'm like, Well, what do you want for it? She's like, Oh, whatever you want to pay me. It's fine. Just like she's super cool about it. Yeah, that's a full on, like fan made poster that probably pre exists us making this by at least a couple of years. But as part of it, but it's exactly the kind of look we want. And it's yeah, we're really fortunate to have,

Jeff Dwoskin 36:47

you can look at that. And it really captures the Star Wars Holiday Special in a poster. Yeah, it was.

Jeremy Coon 36:54

It's fun. There's a really cool Japanese one fanmade. But it's not as this one fits better to give an idea of what the special

Jeff Dwoskin 37:03

you do the award circuit then is that what's the I know you can anyone listening? You can get this on demand on Google Play and Vudu and Prime Video, Apple TV and buy blu ray or buy the DVD at disturbance in the force.com and head over there and buy all that what was your marketing plan inspired by the Star Wars genius you were showcasing to get I

Jeremy Coon 37:26

don't know. It's it's totally grass roots. I mean, we did like the festival circuit to build reviews. There's merit at South by Southwest and like we've been fortunate to play some really prime film festivals, but a lot of it's just organic and fan support. So like we've like Richard Roeper did an interview that I did a review of it that was super nice, but it was just kind of like, Hey, you should check out our movie, are you willing to you know, and he's just like, a huge Star Wars fan. I'll check it out. But it's just kind of like, it's that and just kind of organic growth. But like the thing, it's amazing. So I never in a million years thought like I did a documentary Star Wars Holiday Special review the best reviewed movie of anything I've been involved with, like we're Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 100%. And I'm like, I thought for sure we're gonna get some people that are just like, why would anyone care about this and just dismiss it. And that hasn't still time for it to happen. But it hasn't happened yet. But like, it's just I feel like the fan support is just really been behind us to make it. But we don't have anything formally organized. It's not we're not spending hardly even spend hardly any money on actual like ads or marketing. It's just all organic, showing the car probably be disappointed in our marketing approach. We actually got the lottery ticket.

Jeff Dwoskin 38:29

Besides people that we reached out or interviewed Is anyone in the Star Wars universe contacted you or your crew in any way and said, This is awesome. Yeah,

Jeremy Coon 38:38

I mean, so like Mark Hamill watched the movie really liked it. We got really close to interviewing him. But I feel at the end of the day, he's just kind of promised Lucas that this is not something that it's worth because he like he'll talk about it. Like he's on archive talking about it. But he doesn't want to do like a formal sit down interview, because it came down to like, I'll interview but I can't talk at all about the Star Wars Holiday Special. And I'm like, well, that's gonna be difficult, I think to do an interview to talk around for

Jeff Dwoskin 39:01

a documentary on that. Yeah. Movie or that show? Yeah,

Jeremy Coon 39:05

it just, it was just kind of like, let's just let it go. I mean, I kind of prefer having the cast talk in archival, because it kind of feels more add on feels more truthful and real to me, as opposed to someone like knowing that they're gonna have to talk about this and then coming up with something. Yeah. And then we've had some people actually work with Lucasfilm that like loved the movie, which is funny, but ever kind of trickles up to the higher ups there because we we approached them early on, and went all at the top and like the answer we got back was that it's too soon for Lucasfilm to be directly involved in the Star Wars Holiday Special documentary

Jeff Dwoskin 39:38

too soon.

Jeremy Coon 39:39

Yeah, I, I've always just like, I read into that as like, as long as George Lucas is alive. Maybe it's an Off Limits topic. But I also feel like I actually don't think Lucas cares at this point. Like he's not he doesn't enjoy talking about it. It's not like it keeps him up at night or like he gives it to thoughts. You get with the quote in the movie where he talks about like, look, I'm like I've spent more time talking about the holiday special than I ever did. Working on it. And I kind of feel that to some degree. That's true.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:02

Well, at least the folks around him like in the Mandalorian are embracing pieces of it, though they are embracing the one piece that is maybe he was just upset that life day never caught on, like Festivus

Jeremy Coon 40:15

has caught on now. So he got his wish. I mean, here's the other thing, like, I mean, like the Disney, I mean, Disney's marketing, it's like a life day, rookie says life day on it. Yeah, but they've like life, the merchandise parks. So I mean, they are embracing it to some degree. And like you said, it's on like the animated segments on Disney plus. So they're slowly embracing it as long as they can make money on it.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:37

That's always it's always the key. So what's Jeremy, what's next for you? What's your next project?

Jeremy Coon 40:42

So I mainly I don't direct terribly often, but like, the next video I'm producing is a documentary on the comedian Gallagher. We've been working on it for about three years that will people are going to expect but it's like, it's super interesting. Like he lived a very unique life. It was more and he's more complicated than I think people give them credit for.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:58

Did he have a whole thing like his brother kind of took his act Gallagher to and we

Jeremy Coon 41:03

found his brother we've talked to Yeah, it's an interesting story. Yeah, he had his brother, like, do his act. But the idea was gonna be like Gallagher too. And then the idea was supposed to compete with carrot top because his manager became carrot tops manager. And like, we interviewed carrot top a couple of months ago, at roku. have that done, probably that you started as festival circuit maybe later later this year.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:23

Very cool. Well, congratulations on disturbance in the Force. How the Star Wars Holiday Special happened. It's a mate I've really loved it. Really did.

Jeremy Coon 41:32

Well, thanks so much, really appreciate it.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:34

It was one of those where I saw I think when I originally reached out to you all it was was you know, it hadn't come out yet. And so I was excited just by the idea of it. And you lived up to it. 1,000% 1,000% it was probably well, thanks. Yeah, it was so good. I encourage everybody to go watch this documentary. I'll put links in the show notes. Awesome, man. I really appreciate Jeremy, thanks for hanging out with me and sharing some of these stories. I appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thanks.

Jeremy Coon 42:02

I'll see you just fine.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:03

Take care. All right. How fun was Jeremy Coon? Oh my gosh, Napoleon Dynamite and a disturbance in the Force. If you haven't seen a disturbance in the Force, I highly recommend it. It's an amazing documentary. If you haven't watched Napoleon Dynamite recently, time to watch it and celebrate its 20th anniversary. I actually was just at the Motor City Comicon and Efrem Ramirez Pedro. I ran his panel, so I got to hang out with him for a while. And he shared a ton of great stories from Napoleon Dynamite. That was super fun. So I can't believe it. I mean, the interview is over where the end of the another episode. How do these fly by and now I know one more huge thank you to Jeremy Coon. I sent him a million emails. And he finally came in and came on the show. And of course, a huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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