The Time Classic Sitcom Stars Partied With Chewbacca for the Holidays

When comedy writer Bruce Vilanch got the four-word pitch from his agent in 1978 — STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL — it seemed like a very bad idea. “But I ignored that,” he writes in his upcoming book, It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At the Time: The Worst TV Shows In History and Other Things I Wrote. “Actually, it was no worse than any other bad idea that was being floated around for a pre-Thanksgiving holiday show.”

The Star Wars Holiday Special, however, was a notoriously bad idea. Vilanch takes his fair share of the blame. After all, "it was 1978. There were a lot of chemical additives circulating.” But he also points to George Lucas as a reason the special turned out to be outrageously terrible. Lucas had written outlines for several Star Wars tales, most of which he’d planned to make into movies. A few stories were committed to other media, leaving one that Lucas proposed for the special: Wookies gathering for a holiday called Life Day. 

Everybody loves Chewbacca, but a quick reminder: He doesn’t speak English. Wookies communicate in grunts and growls, not exactly great for delivering punchlines or singing musical numbers. CBS said subtitles were out. The only way for it to work was some human being standing nearby to explain what the hell was going on.

Good thing that 1970s variety shows employed comic actors from network shows as a way to plug other projects. That’s how we got Bea Arthur, star of Maude, as a brassy barkeeper in a Star Wars-style cantina. (Lucas wouldn’t hand over costumes so the bar was full of off-the-rack aliens, Vilanch said, including one that looked like a walking vagina.) Arther was joined by old Carol Burnett Show star Harvey Korman in a few different roles that allowed the hammy actor to chew the cosmic scenery. Honeymooners legend Art Carney as a mild-mannered shopkeeper and secret member of the Rebel Alliance? Sure, why not?

Years later, Vilanch reveals, the special got grief because Korman played an alien Julia Childs who appeared to be wearing culturally insensitive makeup. Vilanch remembered the makeup as purple and green, but 14th-generation video copies were “indistinct enough to actually look like blackface.” But current culture has yet to cancel the show, to Vilanch’s chagrin. 

Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford filmed brief cameos, but aside from those cutaways, there wasn’t much for Star Wars fans. One cast member who was down for some variety show action was Carrie Fisher, who had already sung and danced on Broadway alongside her mom Debbie Reynolds. Fisher’s idea was to have Princess Leia grab a guitar and sing a Joni Mitchell tune, Vilanch says. That would have been weird, but no stranger than most of the other bits in the show. Mitchell’s people nixed her songs being included — wonder why? — so Fisher had to settle for singing a Life Day carol at the end of the special. 

The Star Wars Holiday Special is hilarious today for all its weirdness, including a Boba Fett cartoon and a hologram version of Jefferson Starship singing their latest hit. Fans were shaking their heads, Vilanch says, because the show had so little to do with the Star Wars they loved. “It was as if The Godfather Part II had been made about the Irish lawyer’s domestic life and his problems dealing with his father-in-law with gout.”  

It didn’t make much of a dent in 1978, but the advent of YouTube and social media meant Vilanch and the show’s other creators would have their names dragged through the mud for years. So be it, he says. “It will be my lightsaber to bear.”