The Star Wars Holiday Special is the kind of thing that honestly sounds like a joke the first time you hear of it. Why wouldn't there be a Star Wars Holiday Special? It's just a stupid enough idea that it has to be real; sure enough, in November of 1978, the world was introduced to Chewbacca's family by way of an utterly baffling television event that appears to be the product of every ounce of cocaine the decade had to offer.
The special operates around the framework of Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) attempting to return home to his family on Kashyyyk for Life Day, a non-secular Wookiee holiday that can be marketed to Star Wars fans of all creeds and religions. While his wife, son, and father wait for Chewie to arrive, viewers are "treated" (I can't put enough quotation marks around that word, so I won't even try) to a number of variety show-style segments. There's an alien cooking show (hosted by Harvey Corman), an art-deco space circus, an android instructional video (hosted by Harvey Corman), a performance by The Jefferson Starship, a look inside the Mos Eisley Cantina (starring Bea Arthur, but featuring Harvey Corman), and many more. Each of these segments is about ten minutes longer than it has any right to be; this is saying something, considering most of these segments are about five minutes long. It's just such an awful premise. When one hears the phrase "Star Wars Holiday Special", a number of things come to mind (most of them completely idiotic). One would hope that, if this special positively needed to exist, the creators would take the absurd "He-Man and She-Ra" route. Something involving the cast of Star Wars all uttering the phrase "CHRISTMAS? WHAT'S THAT?", a plot where Darth Vader tries to stop Santa Claus from bringing joy to the galaxy, and maybe Han Solo ends up delivering presents in the Millennium Falcon; something that, while awful, is at least so absurd that it becomes entertaining. What we got instead basically amounts to "Wookiees watch directionless skits on various monitors with Art Carney for over 90 minutes, not including commercials".
It honestly makes you wonder, what kind of diseased mind came up with the segments found in this special? Who sat down with the intention of writing an entertaining comedy sketch for the whole family, only to end up with a sequence in which an elderly wookiee watches virtual reality porn starring Diahann Carroll? Or perhaps this was written by some unfortunate, yet altogether sane soul who was simply forced into a position of having to deliver a finished script, the first twenty or so pages consisting of nearly nothing but remixed animal noises? The mystery isn't why The Star Wars Holiday Special exists; Star Wars was (and still is) a cultural phenomenon. It makes perfect sense that such a profitable property would be milked dry in any way possible, no matter how ridiculous. No, the real question here is why did the people who made this decide to make it... like this?
Now to be completely and totally fair, I will say this; the special is not entirely without worth. Aside from satisfying my morbid curiosity and being generally fascinating in a horrifying, circus sideshow kind of way, there are a few bits here and there that I actually appreciated. First off is a cartoon animated by Canadian studio, Nelvana. While the short itself is nothing to write home about (considering it looks like a budget kids' show version of Heavy Metal), it's worth noting that it was this special which featured the totally canon first appearance of Boba Fett. To be frank, Boba Fett does way more in this shoddily animated short than in Empire or Jedi combined; while he's essentially reduced to the role of a Saturday-morning villain of the day, it's fascinating to think that one of the most popular Star Wars characters of all time got his start in something as ridiculous and infamous as this special.
If I had to name a part of this special that isn't quite as awful as every other part, I'd definitely have to go with the segment taking place in the cantina in Mos Eisley. Bea Arthur appears as the gruff, singing bartender who serenades her drunken patrons after the Empire imposes an immediate curfew on the entire planet. The only reason the bit works at all is directly due to Bea Arthur herself; it seems that she and Harvey Corman are the only people actually trying here. For most of her screentime, she's working off of extras in mute, emotionless alien costumes. It's like a bizarre one-woman show that actually manages to be somewhat engaging and heartwarming, all because Bea Arthur is just giving it her all. I think it's important to let what I've just said sink in for a moment; out of all the segments in The Star Wars Holiday Special, the best moment is the Bea Arthur musical number with all the puppets. If a Bea Arthur musical number is the best thing your special has to offer, it's probably a reasonable idea to scrap everything and start over. Or just scrap everything and never try anything remotely like this ever again.
The Star Wars Holiday Special is a genuine curiosity to me. It's objectively terrible in every way, yet I can't not recommend it. It's just too insane, something that must truly be seen to be believed. It's the television equivalent of those Silver Age comic books where Superman fights Mohammad Ali; someone decided that there was money to be made, so common sense was thrown clean out the window. It's just so mind-bendingly stupid, to the point that it's almost kind of amazing. If you consider yourself a real Star Wars fan, you owe it to yourself to mix up a strong glass of eggnog and give this baffling, confusing, absurd thing a watch at least once.
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