If you don’t want to ruin your happy Star Wars memories, you may want to skip this one.
My fellow patriots, I present the Star Wars Holiday Special, circa 1978.
This is one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life. No, I am not kidding.
I have a vague memory of catching this the one and only time it aired, and as undiscriminating as I was at that tender age, I recall I didn’t care for it.
Over the years, I could not retain the painful memory of Harvey Korman in full drag playing an alien cooking instructor, and I blocked the trauma.
Nearly ten minutes of the opening of this thing is devoid of dialogue because it takes place in a wookie household. So we get to watch big hairy people growl and pantomime at each other.
If you can’t bear to sit through all two hours of this thing, check out this excerpt in which Princess Leia sings the Star Wars theme to celebrate Life Day!
No wonder Carrie Fisher started doing drugs.
Thrill to Bea Arthur in a guest starring role which may actually be the best acting in the show. This RiffTrax vid is much funnier than the actual film. (Hat tip: Brad Parnell.)
The most notable thing about this special is the Nelvana animated sequence that introduced Boba Fett. This may be the most inauspicious intro in Star Wars history, as Lucasfilm considers this story canon. Here is an unofficial fan page dedicated to this holiday treat.
Since the family wee ones are big Star Wars fans, I dug this up to share it. But after watching it again, I can’t bear to ruin their childhood, too.
The wee ones are sort of clueless about what my job is, and don’t really understand that when I make pictures of Star Wars people and whatnot, I don’t just do it for fun.
The other day, I tried to have a discussion about the meaning of intellectual property law (boy, Christmas is fun at my house!) and how film and movie rights get sold, and what makes it to the final screen is not necessarily what the author intended. The point went sailing right over their little heads, crowded out by visions of sugarplums. No kid wants to talk legalese over Christmas, I guess.
Regardless, I will bring this up if we ever have this discussion again.
Terrible things happen to intellectual property when it is not carefully managed.
That said, I hope nice Mr. Lucas doesn’t get mad at me for posting this. I like my Star Wars gigs.
I have nightmares about this sort of thing happening to my work, and of course we’ve all seen creators do terrible things to their cherished works for goodness only knows what reasons.
I promise no A Distant Soil characters will ever be drawn as sexualized children wearing nothing but thongs.
Just sayin’.
ooOOoooo. Yeah, I own this one too. Complete with wacky 70′s commercials. Why am I not surprised there’s a Rifftrax for it? I just may have to get that one…
I was only eight years old when this awful thing debuted, which was still old enough to have my sensibilities offended by it. I have a feeling Mr. Lucas wishes this one would just go away, but with a kitsch factor of eleven on a scale of one-to-ten I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Over the years, I could not retain the painful memory of Harvey Korman in full drag playing an alien cooking instructor, and I blocked the trauma.
Oh, man, you are dredging up some of my worst childhood memories. Ones that I had done a good job of suppressing, too.
I’m so glad I’ve missed this. I think, after reading the comments here and in response to your Facebook post, that I will continue to miss it. I don’t really need to warp my imagination that much. (I do it sufficiently myself – as I woke up this morning with the idea for a warped literary smash-up of Jane Austen and 007 — calling it *Operation: PNP*.)
OK, that I’d read.
Heck, we’ve now got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
don’t forget Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
I remember there was this awesome parody book called the Book of Sequels, and they ripped EVERYBODY in that one… one of my favorites was the Jane Austen book with the elegan Georgian woman packing a HUGE caliber handgun and the title was “Pride and Extreme Prejudice”
That book is hard to find. I wish I still had one. That was one of those books that I would lend to someone and they’d steal it so I’d buy another copy, then someone else would borrow it and then fail to return it, rinse, repeat…. *sigh*
Heck, we’ve now got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Wait, does that mean the original didn’t have zombies in it? Because I read the original and I seem to remember it being all about flesh-eating zombies.
Not sure if this is what you meant, Arlene — but it’s what shows up on a quick search — http://www.amazon.com/Book-Sequels-Henry-Beard/dp/0679732977
Hoo-boy. I remember that when this came out, I was eager for any kind of continuation of the STAR WARS experience. I bought the Marvel Comic. I read Alan Dean Foster’s wonky novel SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE. But my 13-year-old self couldn’t make it through this abomination. I think it lost me somewhere around Harvey Korman. I’m not going to watch it now. (The Boba Fett cartoon was fun, though.)
STARTED doing drugs? Her eyes are pointing in different directions while she sings that charming song at the end (also clinging to Peter Mayhew’s fur to stay upright). Who can blame her, after the Uncle Itchy part?
Oh GOD, SPLINTER. Yeah. Plot point: Hapless Princess cannot swim, and is afraid of water. Heroic Farmboy must have overcome such childish fears at the Mos Eisley YMCA.
Carrie Fisher was on good drugs to do that little piece of history.
My family denies they ever saw it. I know I did – I remembered the other wookies!
@scribblerworks: yep, that’s the one! It came out right after the GWTW sequel came out… before everyone ELSE wrote sequels to stuff. Extremely prescient.
Duly added to Amazon wish list. Thanks! I’m never lending anyone any books ever again.
As a child I thought the scariest thing was being in the trenches on Hoth and watching the AT-AT’s coming at me, and being able to do nothing to stop them, that was until I saw this Christmas…sorry “Life Day” special.
I just have to say that the whole cast seems to be wasted to some extent. Mark looks like a living Ken Doll, which makes me snort.
But the cast has one good excuse to why they participated in this abomination, “It was the 70′s, we were all wasted.”
Link to a Review of the Star Wars Christmas http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/15087-swchr
Mark is wearing a lot of eye makeup. I forgot what a pretty man he was before he had his face smashed in that car accident.
semi-OT: did anyone else ever see the blue ice version of Hoth? I think it was some test screening of ESB I got taken to; my aunt worked for a TV station and we went to some preview. I was like 11 or 12. But I distinctly remember seeing blue ice. Or am I trippin?
Blue ice? Nope. First I’ve heard of it.