Only now does it occur to me... MAME (1974)

Only now does it occur to me... that an operetta-within-the-musical MAME can function as an important prequel to THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL. Yeah, that's right, I'm giving you all that May-the-Fourth-Be-With-You content you crave.

So in MAME, Auntie Mame's (Lucille Ball) buddy Vera Charles (Bea Arthur) is starring in an operetta as a lady astronomer.


In the operetta, Bea casts an eye to the stars, drawn by the promise

of astronomical knowledge and adventure among the galaxies.

Is it so hard to believe that the character––with the hard-headed determination, raw intellectualism, and charmingly bad attitude of a Bea Arthur––might escape her planet, cross the galaxy, and end up as Ackmena, the nightshift bartender of the Mos Eisley cantina, as depicted in the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL?

No, it's not so hard to believe because it's precisely what happened.

Also, as I can happily inform you, Bea Arthur has never looked quite as much like Gene Simmons as she does here.

Bea in MAME.

Gene doing poor man's Tim Curry in NEVER TOO YOUNG TO DIE.