Introducing... Boba Fett

Welcome to the rebellion. I went absolutely bonkers for this cartoon as a kid, when it aired as part of the infamous Star Wars Christmas Special. The first screen appearance of Boba Fett was easily the best part of the show.



The animated short was like nothing I'd ever seen. The designs are part ILM/part fairground caricature artist/70's underground comix and it was our first ever look at badass Boba Fett. Even though Boba never actually does anything in this, it was all about the tease. This dude had potential to rival Darth Vader in coolness.

From small screen...


...to tall screen.

For a young Canuck like me, the most amazing thing was that this short was by by an upstart Canadian company named Nelvana, now one of the largest animation companies in the world.

It somehow made the possibility of being connected to that Hollywood/Star Wars universe so far, far way seem less remote. They so impressed George Lucas this short became a precursor to is a precursor to their later Droids and Ewoks series.

At the time they were making animated shorts in their Small Star Cinema series and moved into really unique, and awesome animated specials like their early Christmas Two-Step, their breakthrough production was A Cosmic Christmas. (Don't believe me? View it here!).

And of course, the Halloween special, The Devil And Daniel Mouse...

Which inspired their ambitious feature debut, Rock And Rule!

After the Star Wars Christmas Special, Nelvana continued the galactic holiday themed specials with Intergalactic Thanksgiving, Romie-0 and Julie-8, Take Me Up To the Ball Game and the not so sci-fi Easter Fever (the very first animation voice credit for Maurice LaMarche: voice of "The Brain" from Pinky & The Brain!).

All fun, unique specials. But this really is about Boba Fett. He's a man of few words but we'll give him the last words today.

Bad... Ass.

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What's In Our Holiday Holo Stocking?

Welcome to the rebellion.

As the Empire negotiates a controversial bailout of the Commerce Guild and the very shady Intergalactic Banking clan, we all tighten our belts and settle in for a sombre holiday season.

I say, let go of that negativity, you gloomy Gus, and do what we’re all meant to do on the holidays; blindly cling to the hope that the better nature of all sentient beings will lead us into a new hope for the coming year. And what better way to do than to overload our sweet tooth with sweet as candy cane, holiday classics?

This week the universe celebrates Life Day and the sub-space Holo Channels have a raft of holiday treats to give us all warm fuzzies while our once peaceful galaxy falls to the unrelenting, dark might of the Imperial Alliance.

HOME BOX HOLO kicks it all off with a Life Day marathon of classics, starting with Dome Alone and Dome Alone II: Lost on Coruscant. I know, their definition of classic doesn’t seem to jibe with the rest of the universe’s idea of the term does it? Add Rebel Life Day Vacation and A Muppet Life Day Special to the list of wrongly labeled classics lined up for our amusement.

Actually, I’m all for the Muppets doing anything. I've spent hours at my favourite Muppet Fan Site, Muppetcentral.com, Heck, our beloved Jedi Master Yoda used to be a real muppet, back when he had a personality and an ability to make audiences care about him. He lost all that when he went under the digital knife for a CGI chin augmentation, tummy tuck, pixelsuction and spinal repair on his scoliosis hunchback. Sigh... I always loved the hunch. Or maybe it's the holidays making me wistful.

For those of you with little clones running around blasting up the dome, SITHOLODEON has a full day s of family-friendly fare including Frosty the Snow Wampa, Red-Five The Red-Nosed X-Wing and Santa Claus is Coming to Space. It’s all capped off by everybody’s favourite animated ode to the holidays, A Jedi Brown Christmas (Whatever Christmas is… Nudge nudge. Wink wink.).

On Life Day Eve, VADER CLASSICS runs the really good stuff. Miracle In Star Quadrant 34 has an early, seven o’clock start so the little wookiees can catch the whole movie and still be in bed in time for Santa Paws. At nine, it’s the universal favourite, It's A Wonderful Force. Then my personal fave, Darth Scrooge (Or A Life Day Carol, as we purists prefer to call it.) takes us through midnight.

So celebrate, kick back, crack open some of this Princess Leia approved blue nog and enjoy the holidays!

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