Darth Vader was one of the biggest villains of the original Star Wars trilogy, overshadowed only by Emperor Palpatine. Now imagine Vader, complete with dark robes and helmet, sitting behind a desk hosting a talk show comedy, rather than Force-choking underlings. It’s perhaps hard to envision, but it sounds pretty fun. Comedian and The League vet Paul Scheer recently explained just how much work was completed for a Darth Vader talk show comedy, only for Disney to ultimately scrap the whole shebang.
That’s right, Paul Scheer hosted a Disney-official Darth Vader talk show set to be called After Darth. The comedian actually played Darth Vader conducting interviews and doing other late night shenanigans. The premise sounds great, though Disney shuttered the talk show before it could ever see the light (or dark) of day. Speaking on Gary Whitta’s Animal Crossing talk show Animal Talking, Scheer laid out the details for After Darth, the Star Wars project we never knew we needed so badly. Here’s what he said:
It was a Darth Vader talk show that took place on the Death Star. It was sponsored by Disney, no one will ever see it. No one will ever, ever see this. I played Darth Vader. I did not do the full-on voice of Darth Vader, but the Emperor had a band, it was kind of like a Cantina band led by the Emperor. It was co-hosted by my brother, who looked like me but wore a Hawaiian shirt, kind of out of canon. And we did a full-on recreation of the Death Star. It looked like the Emperor's throne room; we put a wooden desk in there, threw up a fern. We had interviews with people across the Star Wars galaxy.
A Vader talk show that took place on the actual Death Star? I would’ve been here for it. It sounds rather silly, but also comical enough that it might have drawn in an audience of self-aware fans. Who wouldn’t want to be interviewed by a banter-loving Darth Vader while Palpatine rocked out with the band? The premise sounds incredible.
Paul Scheer went on to say that the After Darth talk show filmed a total of eight episodes ahead of the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That’s a pretty amazing chunk of footage, but the actor is adamant that the parody will never, ever be released, and that’s a damn shame, considering everything that Star Wars did end up releasing after Episode VII.
Plus, it sounds like Disney and Lucasfilm gave the creative team full use of whatever they wanted. Paul Scheer also revealed some of the many Star Wars guests who appeared on the talk show, some of which were surprising. In his words:
[I got to] interview people like Lobot, which is Lando Calrissian's head of security. Talking to Wedge Antilles or one of Padmé's handmaidens. The canon of the show was all over the place, but we'd do cooking segments. We had Yaddle on; Yaddle, who's the female Yoda who was also a sex therapist. So we'd do a lot of these dumb bits. We even did like a 30 for 30 about the podrace where Anakin won, the first human to win a podrace. And it was just a very straightforward, serious 30 for 30.
Paul Scheer enjoyed making the show, but thought it was maybe “for the best” that After Darth never got a proper release on TV or DVD. I don’t know about you, but the Star Wars universe could always use a bit more comedy and this Vader talk show sounds wild enough to be watchable. I can’t get over the fact that the talk show even included Yaddle!
Perhaps the folks at Disney will cave one day and release it, perhaps alongside the produced-but-also-scrapped project Star Wars Detours from the Robot Chicken team, but only time will tell. Until then, I'll just imagine Vader sipping his coffee while discussing with Lando's security guard about how hard life in the galaxy has been for a Sith.
With The Mandalorian Season 2 set to bring the Star Wars universe back to fans in October, stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates, and be sure to check out our 2020 summer TV premiere guide to find out what’s coming soon.
