Star Wars Holiday Special Revisited

[Hedji]

Skot - try and chase down the Starlog issue. It's the cover story. I had it several years ago, sold it on eBay and a few weeks after the sale I got a takedown/copyright violation! For a magazine! I called eBay and the eventual manager I talked to said it was because "a company filed a blanket rights violation for anything with that title in the listing". IOW, Lucas wanted anything mentioning Star Wars and "Holiday Special" to be considered illegal.

I have that issue, and it's great. That's shocking it was flagged. If that was years ago, maybe they've loosened up since then, as there have been a number of licensed Holiday Special items approved and sold by Lucasfilm. Granted, most of them have been from the cartoon segment, but I do have a licensed Luggage Tag sold at Celebration V featuring the image from the cover of that Starlog, with Ackmena and the Cantina aliens. Probably the eBay ban was meant to halt the sale of bootleg copies more than legitimate press kits or magazines.

[Nostalgiabuff]

It's weird how when people talk about this,they ignore the cartoon. They focus on everything else.

love the cartoon. best thing about the whole special

[Earth 2 Chris]

The cartoon is great, but Han's design is a bridge too far into that loose, slightly-grotesque style. It does look like it popped out of a Heavy Metal comic, though!

Chris

[SKotK]

That's your site? AWESOME! I've wasted plenty of hours there! Well done, Sir!

Thanks, man! It's my secret shame.

I keep threatening a massive overhaul of the site, and it keeps getting put off. But I've got lots more stuff now to put up there, so hopefully before too long...and certainly by the 40th anniversary!

--SKot

[SKotK]

I watched the Holiday Special on this very TV here, at my grandparents' house:

Pong.jpg

The Special had been advertised in the local paper's TV listings, and I knew my dad was aware of it. Even though we hadn't seen Star Wars, he was apparently excited enough about the hype to make sure we just happened to be at my grandparents' house that night. I'm sure he was expecting to be amazed like people were for the movie, but after a short time watching I'm pretty sure he left the room with a bad impression of Star Wars...all because of the Holiday Special.

I remember being let down mainly that the main cast only appeared for a few short minutes. Also I remember wondering what Diahann Carroll had to do with anything. But I actually did love the day-to-day Wookiee family life portrait, the cantina segment, and the few shots cribbed from the movie. The cartoon's artwork looked a little funny, but I enjoyed the story immensely.

Later on at school I remember kids talking about it a little. Boba Fett got a few mentions. But after that, it was like it never happened. Eventually people looked at me like I was crazy when I mentioned it. It was like a collective memory wipe had occurred. To this day, almost nobody I went to school with remembers seeing the thing, even though I know most of them did. It was Star Wars in 1978, man...it was a really big deal! Nobody just "forgot" to watch the first big Star Wars TV event!

So I spent many years after that searching for anything related to the Holiday Special, just so I could prove that it existed. Finally in the early 90s I found a terrible quality VHS copy, and at last I could redeem myself. In the early 2000s I found an original TV script for it. I really felt a need to share all of this with the world, and eventually the website came out of all that.

I love it. It's horrible and awesome at the same time, and I love it.

--SKot

[Hedji]

Great post, man. It's a trainwreck that many of us adore.

[K]

I got the SW Holiday Special at a local comic con in November. I was curious to see if it's as bad as they say. LOL! Not sure I can watch Carrie Fisher without getting misty, though, so I've put off watching it.

[Bionicfanboy66]

Jason Swank and Jimmy Mac included the audio of Carrie Fisher singing the SW Main Title in their 'Carrie Fisher Remembered' edition of Rebel Force Radio. My personal favorite scene is where Han and Chewbaca finally arrive on the wookiee homeworld and the interaction between Han and the family. We see a slightly different side of Han that we didn't see in the movies.

[megoat]

I, too, saw it when it originally aired. Count me as a fan. Have had a DVD copy for 10+ years. I've been known to break it out when somebody is over who hasn't seen it.

However, the key to enjoying it is to have your finger steady on the Fast Forward button. Some scenes are just WAY to long and tiresome!