In honor of April Fools Day, here’s one of my all-time favorite Star Wars fan films, The Odd Star Wars Couple, which has been banging around the internet for over a decade. I don’t know why this never became huge, because it is a side-splitter. Maybe it’s a generational thing, where the kids simply ain’t familiar with the old Tony Randall/Jack Klugman sitcom. Here’s a bit of what I wrote about it in my book, Homemade Hollywood
The Odd Star Wars Couple, produced by the Glendale, CA-based filmmaking collective Pewter Joe Flynn, was deceptively straightforward. The 1997 short simply recast Neil Simon’s classic play/movie/sitcom The Odd Couple with Chewbacca as nebbish Felix Unger and Darth Vader as über-slob Oscar Madison. It could be argued that they were cast against type (really, wouldn’t Chewie work better as Oscar and the sharp, straight lines of Darth flatter a Felix?), but the short still worked on a number of levels.
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By combining the biggest movie of the 1970s with one of the most popular sitcoms of the era, the short plays up the contrast between the two sources: a predictable comedy with predictable jokes versus a then-revolutionary space opera. While it’s affectionate towards the creations of Lucas and Simon, it also seems to suggest that the overwhelming success of Star Wars might have been due to a lack of true creative competition. If The Odd Couple was typical of popular entertainment at the time, how could recycled gags about two divorced men living together compete with X-Wings, lightsabers and the like?
Some people say this isn’t funny—particularly the opening scene—but I think the forced feel of it, underlined by the canned laughter, is one of the funniest bits ever in a fan film. The cleverness in this flick, however, is noticably absent in their follow up The Making of The Odd Star Wars Couple, a 10-minute mockumentary which just never clicks. The original still shines bright, however—give it a try.
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