The Craziest Moments From The Wild Star Wars Holiday Special

The Star Wars Holiday Special aired only once on CBS on November 17, 1978, and has since been widely criticized for its bizarre content and poor quality.

All I knew was that it was something Star Wars-related that I had, against all likelihood, never heard of. And it was obviously some sort of official tie-in because Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher were on the cover. Did I buy it? Of course I bought it!

What awaited me once I got home and slid the Star Wars Holiday Special tape into the player was one of the most singularly inexplicable things I’ve ever sat through. Its every element seemed to defy reason and common sense, leaving me with nothing but questions, so many questions.

Oh so many questions here with the Star Wars Holiday Special. Why was Han Solo suddenly in the middle of an all-Wookiee sitcom? How did Jefferson Starship find their way into a holographic video a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away?

Was that really Bea Arthur? Singing? Sadly, time has provided us with no satisfactory answers. Like the existence of evil or the literary success of Stephenie Meyer, it cannot be explained; it simply is.

In honor of Star Wars, here are our picks for the best and/or worst things about the Star Wars Holiday Special.

See, we’re even being generous and beginning this Star Wars Holiday Special feature on a high note. It’s still kind of amazing how popular the bounty hunter Boba Fett has become over the years, given that he doesn’t actually do that much in the Star Wars trilogy.

He mostly just stands around looking menacing, delivers a couple of lines, and then gets unceremoniously dumped into a giant tentacled sand vagina by a blind man. And yeah, I know he escaped in the Expanded Universe, but that’s not the sort of thing a guy could live down.

I’ve always envisioned him showing up at the next Intergalactic Bounty Hunter Convention only to find Dengar wearing a Mandalorian helmet and following a seeing-eye womp rat around.

Given how undignified his on-screen end was, maybe it’s only appropriate that he was introduced during the notoriously awful Star Wars Holiday Special.

The bounty hunter first appeared in an animated segment depicting Luke, Han, and Leia’s initial encounter with the allegedly badass hunter.

In Star Wars Holiday Special, our favorite rebels are in search of a mysterious talisman on the water planet of Panna. Fett shows up, armed with a Tuning Fork of Doom, and at first seems to be on the side of angels. He saves Luke from a monster attack and even helps out when Han and Luke contract a strange virus.

He shows his true colors soon enough, though, attempting to hand the others over to Darth Vader. On the upside, Fett gets to use his jetpack without flying into the side of a sail barge, so that’s a silver lining right there.

Chewbacca is awesome. Devoted bestie to Han Solo, Chewie always has Han’s back, but he’s not afraid to call the roguish smuggler out when he’s trying to ditch the Rebel Alliance right before its desperate attack on the Death Star.

He’s the best wingman you could ask for, and even though Han occasionally calls him a big furry oaf, it’s clear that Han and Chewie wouldn’t know what to do without each other.

And let’s face it, when you’re involved in shady activities like Han is, sometimes having a seven-foot sasquatch as your co-pilot can come in handy, especially if you need someone’s arms ripped out of their sockets.

Based on all that, you’d have to believe that Wookiees as a people are probably pretty great. I’m picturing towering, noble warriors capable of fierce loyalty and compassion that belies their immense physical strength.

So getting to meet Chewie’s family is bound to be a memorable occasion, am I right? Oh no, you are most definitely wrong, Hypothetical Question Man.

The whole premise of the Star Wars Holiday Special is that Han is escorting Chewie back to his homeworld of Kashyyyk so he can celebrate “Life Day,” which is basically Wookiee Christmas.

The red flags begin when we learn that Chewie’s dad and son are named Itchy and Lumpy, respectively, and it only gets worst from there. And don’t tell me those were just nicknames for their full Wookiee names — that excuse would maybe be passable if the sequences involving Chewie’s relatives didn’t play out like a lost episode of Harry and the Hendersons.

Trust me, Jar Jar Binks wasn’t the first incredibly annoying Star Wars character.

One of the more baffling elements of the Star Wars Holiday Special is that it takes the gritty universe of Star Wars and says, “Man, this thing needs some musical numbers to spice things up.”

If you thought the extended musical sequence in Jabba’s palace during the Return of the Jedi special editions was bad, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve sat through Bea Arthur crooning “Good Night, But Not Goodbye” while posing as a Mos Eisley cantina bartender.

Or Carrie Fisher singing a song about Life Day that just happens to be to the tune of the Star Wars main title theme. Or a holographic Jefferson Starship entertaining a bored Imperial guard. These aren’t quick clips, mind you, but full Star Wars Holiday Special musical numbers that just stretch on and on and on.

But by far the most disturbing of the Star Wars Holiday Special many forays into variety-show antics is when Chewie’s dad, Itchy, settles in for what amounts to a trippy softcore erotic video featuring Diahann Carroll, who ensures our discomfort by delivering lines such as “Oh, we are excited, aren’t we?” and “Now we can have a good time” and “I am your pleasure.”

All of this is interspersed with shots of Itchy twitching and grunting. We don’t actually see that he’s frantically masturbating below the frame, but he might as well be. And this sequence continues. For seven. Freaking. Minutes.

Amidst all the madness that is the Star Wars Holiday Special, the trilogy’s main cast is gamely giving it their all and likely praying that the negatives would be devoured by rats before this fustercluck could actually make it to air.

Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker — the gang’s all here, performing with all the enthusiasm of a kidnap victim being forced to record a ransom demand at gunpoint.

And sure, there is ostensibly a plot to this thing, with Han and Chewie ducking Imperials so they can get their Life Day on. But that’s really just the flimsy connective tissue holding together one bad idea after another. It’s all ill-conceived in the most glorious way possible, and you can’t help but wonder if the cast had any idea what a slice of infamy they were making at the time.

But hey, let it never be said that Harrison Ford can’t rally and elevate damn near any material. Watch him bring the feels around the 0:53 mark.