A lil' somethin' for the kids.

Original DewBack scene from Star Wars

    I remember seeing Star Wars in 1978 (yeah, a few months late, but then again I had just turned 8 years old).  It was pretty awesome.  I had seen some bootleg footage around that summer in Maine with the original Jabba the Hutt played by the Irish actor Tom Mulholland, and I had made a mental note of that, as well as some unusual extended dialogue with C3P0 and R2D2 when they first crashland on Tatooine.  They had chatted and argued for quite a bit, and I remember C3P0 didn't seem so prissy because of it.  I also remember the Dewback riding Stormtroopers as well.  The CGI updates look like crap in comparison.

Original Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars

  I had made a mental note of those things as sort of a memory snapshot in my mind because I knew at the time, for some reason, at 8 years old, that it was significant in some way.  Years later, despite argument from some, my memory was correct.

  I really liked the film back in '78.  It was pretty cool.  A lot of countries were kicking themselves because they had wished they had made something as cool.  Like in my life whenever I myself do something pretty cool, it gets stolen or added-to because a lot of folks lack creativity or skill.  I remember a whole montage of a movie I called P2 (for Ping Pong) with an '80s rock theme starring Journey about how a Ping Pong champion started a gang but she herself stopped actually competing because of a brutal accident with her fiance and her super-move.  Only after training a young new male recruit (complete with falling-in-love stuff) she has to once again save the day with a final boss nemesis to save the day.  There were oddball characters such as Ping and Pong, twin girls with upturned collars.  Their catch-phrase was, "You can't pong if you don't ping."  Movie started out with "Anyway You Want It" by Journey as the main female character rode a scooter through Californian suburbia to her warehouse gang hideout. 

  Yeah, it goes on a bit.  I had relayed it to Becky a few times in detail.  We were at the Marriott near the Bob Hope International Airport in Burbank, California one day and at the restaurant there I was going over some of it again with her.  One year later, it came out without my approval as "Balls of Fury".  It was pretty darn close to what I had said.  Eavesdropping writers?  Perhaps.
 

  Anyway, a lot of countries stole the Star Wars idea.  Here's one of 'em.  It's pretty mad-cap and hilarious.  Watch it all the way through.  They steal a LOT of George Lucas stuff, and a little Flash Gordon at 6:12.  Enjoy the sleazy, international plagiarism.