Star Wars Holiday Special

The Star Wars Holiday Special is an American television special originally broadcast by CBS on November 17, 1978. It is set in the universe of the sci-fi-based Star Wars media franchise. Directed by Steve Binder, it was the first Star Wars spin-off film, set between the events of the original film and the yet-to-be-released sequel The Empire Strikes Back (1980). It stars the main cast of the original Star Wars and introduces the character of Boba Fett, who appeared in later films.
In the storyline that ties the special together, following the events of the original film, Chewbacca and Han Solo attempt to visit the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk to celebrate "Life Day". They are pursued by agents of the Galactic Empire, who are searching for members of the Rebel Alliance on the planet. The special introduces three members of Chewbacca's family: his father Itchy, his wife Malla, and his son Lumpy.
The program also features the rest of the main Star Wars characters, including Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader and Princess Leia, all portrayed by the original cast (except R2-D2, who is simply billed as "himself"). The program includes footage from the 1977 film and a cartoon produced by Toronto-based Nelvana featuring the bounty hunter Boba Fett. Scenes take place in space and in spacecraft including the Millennium Falcon and a Star Destroyer; segments also take place in a few other locales such as the Mos Eisley cantina from the original film.
The special was very poorly received, and has never been rebroadcast nor officially released on home video in any format in its entirety (save for its more favorably-received cartoon segment). It has become something of a cultural legend due to the underground quality of its existence. It has been viewed and distributed in off-air recordings of the original 1978 CBS television broadcast by fans as bootleg copies, and it has also been uploaded to content-sharing websites.
On Life Day, Chewbacca, accompanied by Han Solo, is headed home to see his family. Along the way, the duo is chased by two Star Destroyers, but they escape into hyperspace. Meanwhile, on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's family is preparing for his return. Hoping to find the Millennium Falcon, his wife, Malla, runs a computer scan for starships in the area but is unsuccessful.
Malla contacts Luke Skywalker, who, along with R2-D2, is working on his X-wing fighter. Luke tells her that he does not know what happened. Malla contacts Saun Dann, a local trader. He tells her through a carefully worded message that Han and Chewbacca are on their way and should be arriving soon.
Malla then attempts (unsuccessfully) to prepare a meal, the instructions of which are being aired via a local cooking show by an eccentric four-armed alien cook, Chef Gormaanda (Harvey Korman).
Saun arrives with Life Day gifts for everyone, including a virtual reality fantasy program (featuring Diahann Carroll) for Itchy. Back on the Falcon, Chewbacca and Han have just come out of hyperspace not far from Kashyyyk. Han notices an increased Imperial presence, so they decide to land in an unguarded area to the north.
As they enter the atmosphere, Lumpy hears the roaring of the ship. Believing Han and Chewie might be arriving, Malla opens the door, but instead finds two stormtroopers and officers. The Imperials force their way into the house. An officer orders a search for Chewbacca.
As they search, Saun and the others attempt to distract them with food and Malla's music video box (which features a video by Jefferson Starship). When the music finishes, the head officer orders the search to continue. The head officer tells Malla to keep Lumpy busy while they search his room, so Lumpy (and the viewing audience) uses a viewscreen to watch a cartoon of his father's many adventures:
Lumpy works to create a translation device that will fool the Imperials into returning to their base by faking their commander's voice. To do so, he first must watch the manual for the device, being presented by a malfunctioning, incompetent robot (also played by Korman). While the Imperials are searching downstairs, the living room viewscreen activates, announcing that Tatooine is being put under curfew by the Empire because of "subversive forces".
The video is announced as required viewing for all Imperial forces and much of it features Ackmena (Bea Arthur) running the Mos Eisley cantina. Ackmena is approached by an admirer: Krelman, an amorous alien, who has misunderstood something she said to him recently. Ackmena announces last call, and upon being ignored, sings a farewell song.
Lumpy uses this opportunity to put his plan into motion, faking a repeated call for the Imperials to "return to base". They leave, but one stormtrooper stays behind and realizes that they were tricked. He finds Lumpy and destroys the machine, then chases Lumpy outside.
Han and Chewbacca arrive. Chewie protects Lumpy as Han kills the stormtrooper. After they are reunited, an Imperial officer appears on the viewscreen, giving a general alert for the missing stormtrooper. Saun quickly responds that the trooper stole supplies and deserted. The danger averted, the family prepares to go to the festival at the great Tree of Life. They hold glowing orbs, and appear in space wearing red robes.
Wookiees walk into a bright star and arrive at the Tree of Life, where many are gathered, including C-3PO and R2-D2. Luke, Leia, and Han also appear. Leia gives a short speech and sings a song in celebration. Chewie remembers his adventures during the events of the original film. Finally, the Wookiee family sits around a table and bow their heads.
Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2 in the films, was not involved in the special. The droid was performed entirely by a radio-controlled unit, operated by Mick Garris (Lucas's receptionist). In the credits, R2-D2 is credited by announcer Art James as playing himself.
Because James Earl Jones was originally uncredited in Star Wars, the special marked the first time he was credited as the voice of Darth Vader.
Malla's mask was repurposed from a Chewbacca mask from the original film. The names of Chewbacca's family were later explained to have been nicknames, their full names being Mallatobuck (Malla), Attichitcuk (Itchy), and Lumpawarrump or Lumpawaroo (Lumpy).
While outlining the original Star Wars and planning its potential sequels, Lucas imagined a "film just about Wookiees, nothing else." After the original film's success, its cast made a few appearances on TV variety shows. According to Charles Lippincott, who was head of marketing of the Star Wars Corporation, CBS brought the idea of doing a TV special to him and Lucas, although there is some internal dispute about this claim. According to J.W. Rinzler, "Everybody agreed that a television special was a good idea." Lucas was busy moving his production company to a new location, which was not heavily involved in the special. According to Lucasfilm producer Gary Kurtz:
Though Lucas is uncredited, it was his idea to build the narrative around Chewbacca's family. CBS hired experienced variety show writers and producers, including writer Bruce Vilanch, who was concerned about the decision to center the special on a species who grunt in a fictional language without subtitles. Regardless, Lucas would not budge on his vision. The special went through two directors. The first, David Acomba, was brought in through an attempt to "make us different in variety shows", according to Lippincott.
Acomba, a classmate of George Lucas at USC film school, was unfamiliar with a multiple-camera setup, which caused some problems. Acomba also felt that there was a divide between himself and the producers, and chose to leave the project after finishing only a few scenes, including the cantina and Jefferson Starship. He was replaced by Steve Binder, whose only contact with Lucasfilm was a "Wookiee bible" detailing how the species should look and behave. Stan Winston was hired to design the Wookiee family.
The special was broadcast in its entirety in the United States only once, on Friday, November 17, 1978 (the week before Thanksgiving), on the television network CBS from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (EST), pre-empting Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk leading to the latter shows' episodes to be aired that day to instead be shown a week later. It was also broadcast on the Canadian television network CTV from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time.
All the acts are loosely linked together with material that involves the Wookiees' preparation for Life Day on Kashyyyk, Han and Chewie's attempt to bypass the Imperial blockade and make it to Chewie's family, and the Imperial garrison's search for rebels. The plot strings together a series of musical numbers, celebrity cameos and other variety-show acts. These include songs and comedy routines by such 1970s talents as Jefferson Starship, Diahann Carroll, Art Carney, Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur, and a circus-style acrobatics routine including uneven bars and juggling. The most notable segment is an animated cartoon featuring the onscreen debut of Boba Fett.
Original music was composed for The Star Wars Holiday Special by Ken and Mitzie Welch, while Ian Fraser was brought in to adapt John Williams' orchestral themes from Star Wars. The special features four songs:
Harvey Korman provides comedy in three of the special's skits, including the cantina skit with Bea Arthur where he plays a love-struck barfly who drinks through a hole in the top of his head. He also performs two solo routines: one as Chef Gormaanda, a four-armed parody of Julia Child (the four arms allow her to work much faster than Malla can keep up with) and one as a malfunctioning Amorphian android named Dromboid in an instruction video watched by Lumpy.
Art Carney has a more integral role in the story, playing a trader named Saun Dann on Kashyyyk who is a member of the rebellion and helps Chewie's family. His segments are also largely played for laughs and at one point includes a scene alluding to his character Ed Norton from The Honeymooners, where an Imperial officer demands that he "get on with it" while Carney dallies with a prop, thus introducing the Jefferson Starship performance.
The high point of the special is generally considered to be the animated segment known as "The Faithful Wookiee", which is the first official Star Wars cartoon. It was written by Lucas and produced by Toronto animation firm Nelvana Ltd., which later produced Droids and Ewoks, two Saturday-morning series based on the franchise in 1985 on ABC. Lucas requested that the visual style be inspired by Moebius. The vocal talents of the main cast are featured. Intended as an in-universe flashback, Luke wears a yellow jacket similar to his outfit at the end of A New Hope.
The cartoon introduces Boba Fett, whose appearance was based on footage of the unpainted costume from The Empire Strikes Back, and according to Nelvana co-founder Clive Smith, their suggestion to "scuff up his costume a little bit" influenced the character's live-action appearance. The final costume design made a public parade appearance two months before the Holiday Special aired. The simplified color scheme for the cartoon was later repeated for Fett's appearance in Droids. According to the official Star Wars website, Fett was voiced by Don Francks in the special.
Separate from the rest of the special, the cartoon is presently available to view on the streaming platform Disney+.
The Star Wars Holiday Special was universally lambasted by critics, audiences, and Star Wars fans alike. Jerry Buck, in a November 1978 review for the Associated Press, called the program "bubble gum for the brain". Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club wrote, "I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine." David Hofstede, author of What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, ranked the holiday special at number one, calling it "the worst two hours of television ever". On the review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 25% approval rating, based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 3.4/10.
Writing for Fatherly, Nathan Rabin says the cartoon segment is singular compared to the rest of the special in that it "feels worthy of being canon and not a hypnotically insane aberration."
The special was ranked at No. 3 in "The Five Goofiest Moments of the Star Wars Mythos" in the 62nd issue of the UK's Star Wars magazine. TV Guide ranked it at number 11 on their "25 Most Hilarious Holiday TV Moments", mentioning that it was "unintentionally hilarious". Both TV Guide and TV Land ranked the special at No. 59 on their "Top 100 Unexpected Television Moments" in a five-part special that aired from December 5 until December 9, 2005.
In 2008, the Star Wars Holiday Special was selected to be shown at the Paley Center for Media by 59% of voters in an online poll of Christmas specials (which allowed users to vote on five titles), beating A Charlie Brown Christmas (34.6%), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (31.3%) and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (28.4%), among others.
George Lucas did not have significant involvement with the film's production and was reportedly unhappy with the results. In 1987, Lucas reportedly said of the special: "I believe it will be released on videotape. I'm not sure if they're going to rerun it on television or not." In a May 2005 interview, Lucas was asked if the film had soured him on working in television. He replied:
In 2006, Harrison Ford made an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and jokingly did not even acknowledge its existence at first when asked about it, then saying that he had never seen it. On the 2010 television program Times Talk, New York Times columnist David Carr asked Carrie Fisher about the special; she said that she made Lucas give her a copy of the special in exchange for recording commentary for the Star Wars trilogy so that she would "have something for parties ... when [she] wanted everyone to leave". In 2018, Mark Hamill admitted to not having seen the entire special. In his 2019 autobiography, Anthony Daniels referred to the special as a "turd".
The official Star Wars site states that the special "delivered mixed results" and states that its highlight was the Boba Fett animated segment. The official site also says, when referring to the fan interest in seeing the Wookiees on-screen, "the 1978 Holiday Special didn't cut it". The official site also refers to the Boba Fett animated segment as "a cult classic".
Despite only airing once on television, bootleg recordings of the special uploaded to the Internet led to it becoming a cult classic among Star Wars fans. The cartoon segment appeared as an Easter egg on the 2011 Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray set, making it the only portion of the special to be officially released in any home video format. The cartoon was also released on Disney+ on April 2, 2021, under the name The Story of the Faithful Wookiee.
The program was seen in Canada on CTV on the same evening as the CBS broadcast. Toronto CTV station CFTO-TV aired the program at 7 pm, an hour earlier than seen on the nearest American outlet, WIVB-TV in Buffalo, New York. It was also distributed and seen in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia it was repeated multiple times on local stations between 1979 and 1984. It aired in France on January 1, 1980, on TF1, in a shortened 72-minute version, dubbed in French.
It was shown on Swedish SVT on May 31, 1979 as Stjärnornas krig - och fred (literally "Star Wars - and Peace").
It aired in the Republic of Ireland on RTÉ 2 on Christmas Day 1979. The special was also broadcast in Honduras on Canal 5 and Brazil on TV Bandeirantes (on Christmas Day, 1981).
Despite the unpopularity of the special, Lucasfilm maintained its status as part of the continuity, placing it halfway between Episodes IV and V. From 1978 to 2014, most elements of the Holiday Special fell under a secondary level of canon superseded by other licensed works.
This was clarified in 2007 by Leland Chee, who maintained Lucasfilm's internal continuity database called "the Holocron". According to Chee, the Holocron contained at least 28 entries about The Star Wars Holiday Special by that point. These placed all elements referred to in other works, such as Life Day and Chewbacca's family members, in an intermediary level of canon. Chee stated that elements not subsequently referred to were given the next lowest rank.
Chee also confirmed that Leslie Schofield appears as an unnamed character in The Star Wars Holiday Special and not the character he played in A New Hope named Chief Bast. Previously this confusion had caused some fans to question whether Bast's death aboard the Death Star was genuine (drawing on a hint in the Customizable Card Game).
After Lucasfilm was acquired by The Walt Disney Company, the Holocron was retired. Only the episodic films and animated series beginning with The Clone Wars were declared to be part of the new canon. J. J. Abrams sardonically referred to the holiday special as canonical in a 2015 interview. Life Day was mentioned in "Chapter 1: The Mandalorian", the first episode of the canonical live-action series, The Mandalorian (2019). A hologram circus similar to the one used by Lumpy was used in "This Could Be a Real Adventure", the first episode of another canonical live-action series, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024).
After being introduced by the special, the character Boba Fett and the planet Kashyyyk have gone on to play integral roles in the franchise, making their first film appearances in The Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith, respectively. Apart from this, more specific references to The Star Wars Holiday Special have been made, including:
In 2005, Lawrence Person wrote a review of a "Platinum Edition" DVD release of the special as an April Fools hoax.
In the 2006 music video accompanying the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "White & Nerdy", the main character is seen buying a bootlegged version of the Star Wars Holiday Special. The scene depicts the exchange as a drug deal, referencing the underground status of the special.
In 2007, the comedy troupe RiffTrax, which is composed of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy and Michael J. Nelson, released a parody commentary on the special including the original commercial breaks.
In the 2011 Community episode "Regional Holiday Music", the main characters watch the "Inspector Spacetime holiday special", a clear nod to the Star Wars Holiday Special.
The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special featuring characters from the sequel trilogy in a Life Day-themed adventure was released on Disney+ on November 17, 2020, the 42nd anniversary of the special. The same day, io9 announced that Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak were directing a documentary about the making of the special titled A Disturbance in the Force.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is a Disney+ special released in November 2022. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and director James Gunn has cited the Star Wars special as its main inspiration.