Ralph McQuarrie's tree house concepts were implemented by art director Brian Bartholomew. A long-time associate of Smith-Hemion Productions, Bartholomew's extensive credits include This Is Tom Jones, The Julie Andrews Hour and variety specials starring Bing Crosby, Raquel Welch. and Cheryl Ladd.
Bartholomew added new rooms and devices to the tree dwelling and set decorator Garrett Lewis (Hook, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula) filled the rooms with exotic trinkets. "I used very simple, straight-forward objects, which I either painted or turned inside-out." Lewis recounts. "At the time, I thought the special was a precursor to a possible show about the Wookiees. That's why we developed such an elaborate world, much of which you never got to see in the movie." ("The Holiday Special" was indeed considered as a possible TV series. "There was some talk about it but it was very minor," confirms Rita Scott. "There was definitely talk about it," adds Patty Maloney. "I think [Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca] would have just made guest appearances because he lived in England. Unless they would have made it worth his while to move here for a time.")
Not all of McQuarrie's concepts were worked into the special. Kashyyyk was supposed to be teaming with exotic wild life, none of which is visible in the final show. "In the script, there were exotic birds flying around the tree house," explains Rita Scott. "We had planned to animate them after the fact, and composite them in. But the budget got a little off-kilter."
The sets were erected on Stage 2 of The Burbank Studios, which is currently occupied by Hathaway's living room from E.R. [as of 1998]. "We never could have built that large, two-story tree house in a TV studio -- we needed the height," says Scott. "It was unusual in those days to do a television special at a movie studio."
When first approached for this interview, Bartholomew had practically forgotten about "The Star Wars Holiday Special"; however, as his memories came back, he regarded Chewbacca's tree dwelling as one of his finest accomplishments.
FAX: The tree house set was quite impressive.
BARTHOLOMEW: I would have liked to have entered it for an Emmy but I hesitated in doing it. George Lucas had a very fine illustrator named Ralph McQuarrie and he had given the ideas for the kitchen appliances and other gadgets, although the tree house was mine. I felt that, unless I could couple his name with mine, and unfortunately Ralph wasn't a scenic designer, it wasn't a good idea to put it in for an Emmy. Ralph's very, very talented and I'm experienced as an illustrator, but I wouldn't rate myself up in his area. He gets photographic results whereas my time and energy is usually taken up with the actual problems with scenery.
FAX: What concepts did you come up with?
BARTHOLOMEW: The trading outpost was difficult to design because it had to belong in the Star Wars universe. I was very proud of the way the tree house was put together. It was fun to work out what kind of windows and doorways there might be, and we had to show the son's room upstairs. We tried to make it organic like being in a tree. The half trunk that we made was enormous. In Ralph McQuarrie's original illustrations there were tree houses built around these huge trunks, like redwood cedars in Northern California.
The stairs (to Lumpy's room) were inserted, like huge planks into the trunk of the tree. No one went down below, because it was so far down and all kinds of little horrid things lived there.
FAX: Some sets were replicas from the movie, like the Millenium Falcon's cockpit.
BARTHOLOMEW: Yes. I went up to Lucasfilm near San Francisco because they had references for the starfighters, and we had to have continuity. It was an incredibly interesting project. It was a joy working with Hemion and Smith as it always is.
Read on for more from "Holiday Special" artists...
