Star Wars Expanded Universe craziness!

As we all know, the Star Wars sequels and spinoffs are coming along nicely, despite the sets attacking the actors. Is it a curse? Or has the Expanded Universe that will be discarded almost entirely by the new films taken mortal form and is now enacting desperate measures to try to stay alive? Certainly, that would be less dumb than actual things from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which we will highlight below because laughing at dumb things is fun!

These are actual Star Wars Expanded Universe Canon things. Luckily, Star Wars EU has such a broad and multi-tiered definition of canon that almost everything is some sort of canon, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff or the stuff that has been declared not canon. So it’s time we looks at some of the goofy junk that may or may not be 100% real canon, before it is discarded in favor of long arguments about light sabers with fancy hilts. So this is like a retrospective, a fond farewell if you will. Except not really that fond for a few of these entries, because…well, you’ll see!

Before we begin, I will note that I’m not even going to touch the Wookieepedia articles on Breast, Brassiere, and Underwear, because they are their own jokes and anything I add will never compare to the actual articles. I’m also avoid the Star Wars Holiday Special, as it’s too obvious a target. But let’s get to the stuff that is from official Star Wars productions/merchandise, as that’s where the real money’s made…I mean, the real crazy canon stuff is!

Irek Ismaren/Lord Nyax

If Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor was in the Star Wars universe, he’d be all “More power!” and grunt a lot before falling down the Death Star reactor well and blowing up the space station. But before he died (and thus saved the galaxy), he would first add a bunch of lightsabers to some random guy to make him more cool.

Irek Ismaren is said guy. He was he one of the Emperor’s concubines’ kids (which means we now have to visualize the Emperor having sex!), and they pumped him full of growth hormones until he was 9 feet tall, then installed lightsabers in his elbows, forearms, wrists, and knees. That’s eight lightsabers, for those of you keeping track at home! Not only that, but he got stabbed in the head, so his brain was replaced with a computer. Then he was put in stasis until he woke up years later with amnesia, killed him mom, is told he’s some Force ghost named Lord Nyax, and was ultimately hunted down and killed by Luke and some of his new jedis. At least until some idiot writes a book where he survived or has him pop up in the new canon books.

Irek Ismaren is dumb as heck, and also 90s as heck, with a bunch of weapons poking out of him in all directions and an effort to make him all cool as Wolverine. Instead, he just looks ridiculous and embarrassing. Good riddance to this jerk!

Trioculus

The Emperor had a kid (ANOTHER kid? Learn to wrap your wiener, Palpatine!), and he has three eyes. This story is so ridiculous you will roll all three of your eyes, but having three eyes is the most normal part of Trioculus’ tale. First of all, Trioculus was later retconned to not be Emperor Palpatine’s three-eyed son. Not because a three-eyed son of the Emperor is stupid, but because Trioculus is a pretender to being the Emperor’s three-eyed son, the real three-eyed son is a completely different character named Triclops. (Not to be confused with Tri-Klops from He-Man.) Trioculus began an obsessive quest for Darth Vader’s glove, which somehow would give him the leverage needed to prove that he should be the new Emperor. He had a rivalry with Jedi Prince Ken (yes, Ken), who turned out to be Triclops’ son with a Jedi Princess. Trioculus teamed up with Jabba’s father, Zorba the Hutt, which ended with Trioculus frozen in carbonite. Later freed, he hatched a complicated scheme to marry Princess Leia, but was foiled when Leia was replaced by a robot Leia, who promptly shot him in the chest with her robot eyebeams. The fact everything I just wrote is incredibly stupid, yet parts of it sound like various Episode 7 rumors, means Trioculus must die!

Here Trioculus prepares to kill some space whales, along with Captain Ahab, who is also somehow in the universe of Star Wars:

Gyaos Vader

Gamera is friend to all children, but his long-time foe Gyaos is a jerk to all children, and everyone else. Even space kids like Luke Skywalker, who Gyaos Vader fought long ago. Gyaos Vader was a powerful shapeshifter who had a thing for not liking Jedi, as evidenced by him kidnapping Obi-Wan Kenobi and holding him hostage on Kessel, until Luke Skywalker arrived and quickly killed Gyaos Vader dead.

These events happened in the Japanese Star Wars video game that was released in 1987. Not only is there Gyaos Vader, but there are three other fake monster Vaders: Clados Vader, Sasori Vader, and Wampa Vader!

Clados Vader was a pink shark that could shapeshift into Darth Vader, thus he stole C-3PO away to his water planet of Iskalon, because that’s what pink shapeshifting sharks do, apparently. Luke kills him, presumably while holding his breath, as those devices the Jedi use in Episode 1 hadn’t been invented yet.

At the same time a giant scorpion named Sasori Vader commandeered a sandcrawler, took the Jawa crew captive (as well as the previously captured R2-D2), and morphed into the form of Darth Vader in order to trap a young Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker killed him dead. Weird how Luke is going on a killing spree in this video game…

Wampa Vader was a shapeshifting Wampa who could also turn into Darth Vader. Thus, he stole Chewbacca and took him back to Hoth, at which point Luke had to go rescue him and murder Wampa Vader. Why Han Solo couldn’t go rescue Chewbacca I do not know, maybe he broke his leg or something. Or maybe he caught a horrible disease from Itchy, who looks like he has every parasite in the galaxy…

These video game bosses are sort of cheating, because even Wookipedia tries to dismiss them. But they fit right in with S-canon, which stands for Secondary Canon even though it should stand for Silly Canon. Let’s shoot this canon out of a cannon!

Jizz

Stop laughing! Get your filthy mind out of the gutter, because Jizz isn’t what you think it is. Jizz is a type of music, the music that Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes were playing when Luke and Ben walked into the Cantina on Tatooine. Jizz instruments include the jizz, jizz-box, kloo horn, slitherhorn, ploong sounder, and peel rod. Why are you laughing again? You need to learn to respect jizz, people! Someone who plays jizz is referred to as a jizz-wailer. STOP LAUGHING! Oh, I give up. Let’s just flush Jizz down the toilet of Star Wars history!

Unidentified Alien (Desert Cave)

One thing I enjoy is arguing about on the internet is the canon of things that appear in commercials. Thus when Star Wars or Star Trek have aliens that pop up only in commercials, it’s time to start nerding out on which one is real and which one was just a dream. Thus, this guy, called Unidentified alien (desert cave) by Wookieepedia, gains special recognition because is he a Star Wars alien! Unidentified alien (desert cave) is actually an unused Mos Eisley Cantina alien design by Ron Cobb. The sketch appears in a 1998 calender and a few of the behind the scenes books, but beyond that there is no real information on if the costume was built for the movie and not used, or if it was made just for the commercial based on the unused drawing (which seems like a big expense!)

Unidentified alien (desert cave) eats the Star Wars cereal called C3POs, which was a real thing and I ate it as a kid (and I recall not liking it) Actually, refugees C-3PO and R2-D2 bribe Unidentified alien (desert cave) with C3POs to let them hide out in his cave while the Imperial Fleet bombards the planet. That’s actually very disturbing, untold thousands of people may have been killed in this childrens’ cereal commercial. But at least our heroes R2-D2 and C-3PO were saved thanks to the latter’s brilliant idea to glue Cheerios together. Hooray?

In any event, let’s flush C3POs down the toilet and into the sewer where they belong! Sorry, Unidentified alien (desert cave), you were just an innocent bystander, enjoy rebuilding the ruins of your civilization, and I hope the Imperial Stormtroopers didn’t stop by later to burn your cave down!

For some more commercial fun, check out this Star Wars Smoking PSA

Sesame Street is in Star Wars Canon

Everyone knows that C-3PO, Luke, R2-D2, and Chewbacca popped up on The Muppet Show, but did you know that Star Wars characters also ran around on Sesame Street? R2-D2 and C-3PO made two appearances on the show. In one, they delivered a message to Oscar the Grouch from a Grouch in space, Lothar. In the other, R2-D2 fell in love with a fire hydrant. Lothar was from the seventh moon of Zircon, and his message “Oscar the Grouch, get lost!” Oscar commented “What do you know? There is intelligent life in outer space.” There is another Grouch from space who also lives on the seventh moon of Zircon, Othmar the Grouch.

Luckily, even if Star Wars tries to erase the Grouches from history, the Sesame Street canon has not rebooted, so they will still exist! Take that, Disney!

The Fighting Trio of Colonel Sanders, Taco Bell Dog, and Pizza Hut Delivery Girl

Remember when Colonel Sanders took up a light saber to defend the galaxy against intergalactic terror? Well, that happened, and he was joined by the Taco Bell Chihuahua, and a random Pizza Hut Delivery Girl who I don’t think got a name. This was also the closest we ever got to Spaceballs‘s Pizza the Hutt joke becoming realized in the EU. The Defeat the Dark Side promotion came out in 1999, just in time to watch the three fast food mascots run around on Naboo and save the galaxy. In case you are wondering, the official website had biographies for the three characters, which Wookieepedia has expanded into official canon biographies:

At age 65, armed with nothing more than determination, a bucket of chicken and a secret recipe, Colonel Harland Sanders started KFC and had the whole universe lickin’ its fingers a few years later. His reputation as a force to be reckoned with makes him a natural when it comes to showing the Dark Side who’s boss. Any Battle Droid messing with the Colonel had better watch out, because this time, he’s serving up a bucket full of pain.

A true dog of the people, the Chihuahua has tirelessly devoted his life to one thing – the pursuit of tacos. This kind of dedication has allowed him to heighten his natural skills of navigation, negotiation and general deviousness. Now he is putting his considerable talents to work fighting the ultimate evil in the universe. Because, he rationalizes, when the universe is free, the tacos are free. In the meantime, he’s confident he’ll get that Jedi mind trick to work eventually.

Before joining the Pizza Hut® force, this fighter for all that is covered with cheese and tomato sauce put in stints for Micro-Tech, inc. (as a hacker-er, hardware tester) and for 2-Rock Concert Promotions (“crowd control.”) She was schooled around the world, including stints in Hong Kong and Tunisia, before becoming the youngest female graduate from the Citadel.

Finally, at the ripe age of 23, she discovered her true calling – a position where her love for pizza and mastery of Tae Kwon Do collide. Now she’s out to share a little of her immense knowledge on the Dark Side. And if they don’t back off, a couple Sith Lords are gonna get a home delivery of suffering with extra agony.

Luckily, the series of commercials live on in blurry VHS form on YouTube, and also in our hearts…. I for one will be sad to see these characters wiped off the map when the universe is reset, at least until Disney teams up with fast food companies again! As a note, despite Pizza Hutt Girl not getting a name, she appears to have one in the storyboards – Alexis McCoy! Perhaps she’s related to Dr. Leonard McCoy, thus connecting the two universes!

The Energizer Bunny defeats Darth Vader

Yes, Darth Vader was defeated by a tiny bunny that just plays the drums. How did this guy rate Natalie Portman again? Or even become a galactic threat and be the Chosen One? In any event, the Energizer Bunny created a disturbance in the Force by having such a cool battery, and the Emperor ordered Vader to track him down. The two dueled at Cloud City, only for Vader to be foiled when his lightsaber ran out of power, because he was using rival Supervolt batteries! (Supervolt was a fake competitor used in Energizer’s promotional campaigns at the time). The Energizer Bunny would reappear in the Star Tours ride, establishing him in multiple canon branches.

Jaxxon

There is one other rabbit running around in the Star Wars EU — Jaxxon! I’m sort of cheating here because Jaxxon is actually awesome, but I need to include him because if I don’t, someone will comment below that I forgot Jaxxon. Well, here he is, so comment below about which characters I forgot who aren’t Jaxxon! Jaxxon is a character from the Marvel comics, he’s a giant green bunny rabbit called a Lepi who acts like Space Bugs Bunny (at one point he’s captured by bounty hunters Dafi and Remel Fud). I think he rules, and not just because I had the comics as a kid. Okay, having the comics as a kid probably helped, but still. He rules. Jaxxon was a loudmouth fighter who kicked the crap out of people who disrespected him because he looked by a bunny. He rockets around the galaxy doing heroic stuff and being a cool friend and shooting guns from both hands. Between Jaxxon, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Bucky O’Hare, we are batting 1000 on awesome green bunny heroes. Jaxxon better show up in the new movies, or I’ll just have to become an established director and get assigned to one of the new spinoffs and then put him in myself!

Bonus entry!:

The death of General Crix Madine

You might remember Crix Madine from Return of the Jedi blathering on about the stolen Imperial shuttle, and also some deleted scenes, but did you know he died because some Hutt dude shot him? And when Crix Madine died, he was like “Oh, really? I die like this? What stupid author thought this up?” I agree! RIP General Madine, you’ll be alive again when history gets erased.