the star wars holiday special

Chris Knight's avatar

It’s become something of a tragic holiday tradition for me.  Every year about this time, I watch The Star Wars Holiday Special – considered by many to be the very worst two hours of television ever produced – and do a running commentary about it for my friends on Facebook.  Why do I torment myself like this?  I have no idea apart from the comedy (?) value.  I’ll do most anything within reason (emphasis on “reason”!) to make my friends laugh.  And if it takes subjecting myself to this… thing… then it’s a minor sacrifice to make each holiday season.

Pic I took of my TV screen while watching The Star Wars Holiday Special,
here depicting the lowest moment of Harvey Korman’s career
For whatever reason, I didn’t watch the Star Wars Holiday Special when I usually do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wound up setting it to play
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Chris Knight's avatar

It was on this night in 1978 that The Star Wars Holiday Special – arguably the WORST two-hours of television in history – aired on CBS.

Y’all won’t buh-LEEEVE what is going on here.

So in honor of this misauspicious occasion and thanks to some poor tortured soul on YouTube, here it is (absent some music for copyright purposes):

It’s all here: Chewbacca’s son Lumpy, Mark Hamill’s make-up overkill, Princess Leia’s singing, Boba Fett’s first-ever appearance (the special’s one redeeming feature), Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur (?!), lots of unused B footage from A New Hope, what can only be described as a porno machine… and about twenty-seven minutes of incomprehensible Wookiee grunting.

One viewing and you’ll see why George Lucas has said he would take a sledgehammer to every copy if he could.  But what about you?  Can you endure to the end?...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Today marks an extraordinarily dubious anniversary for the Star Wars saga. Because it was thirty years ago tonight, on November 17th, 1978, that CBS aired the first and last broadcast of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

The two-hour schlockfest is now widely considered by many to be the absolutely worst block of television in the history of anything…

“One of these things is not like the others…”

I’m not even going to try to pretend to make sense of this… thing. If you want to see it, you’ll be able to find it all over the ‘net and if you don’t want to see it well, that’s two hours of your life that’re your own to spend how you wish. I remember watching this as a way wee lad on the night that it aired, and even then I thought it was pretty terrible. I mean, Harvey Korman as ...

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