SNAPSHOT
A long time ago in living rooms across the US, a bizarre 98-minute Star Wars-themed variety show aired on CBS to an estimated 13 million viewers. It wasn’t necessarily the first of its kind: hosts like Donny & Marie Osmond and Richard Pryor had done TV variety shows with Star Wars characters in 1977, which had helped boost box office sales. But unlike those shows, the Holiday Special featured the original film’s cast. George Lucas was convinced to approve the project in order to maintain interest in the franchise until The Empire Strikes Back’s 1980 release — but the special itself is a confusing mess. A crossdressing Harvey Korman leads a cooking show segment, Jefferson Starship stars in a holographic concert, and Chewbacca’s dad watches some very suggestive virtual reality entertainment. But if nothing else, the Holiday Special was one of the first examples of Star Wars’ expanded universe — whose influence continues to shape the today’s Star Wars stories. (synopsis (c) Vox via YouTube)
Rushed out the year after 1977’s A New Hope, the Star Wars Holiday Special was one of the first forays into establishing what the universe exactly meant and looked like. (It was meant to keep the surprise hit movie uppermost in peoples’ mind while the film’s creator, George Lucas worked on the sequel.)
While the promotional intentions might have been good, the actual result fell flat, resulting in a messy variety-esque show that many of A New Hope‘s stars disavowed or ignored, and earning the ire of George Lucas who effectively buried the special in obscurity never to be seen again.
Well, almost …
This fascinating look at the Star Wars Holiday Special and its place or otherwise in the overall Star Wars pantheon of books, movies, multimedia projects offers an idea of what the special is, which combined some odd elements indeed, didn’t work but why it managed to exist in the first place at a time when Star Wars was figuring out its place in the pop zeitgeist.
That place is now firmly established but as Vox points out, it has evolved over the years from just one film to an “Expanded Universe” to a slimmer, Disney-approved canon and the importance of the Star Wars Holiday Special, for all its cringeworthy elements, is that it shows how a beloved franchise goes from novelty to institution and what happens in-between.
Happy Star Wars Day everyone … and maybe happy Life Day too!