Source: Late Night Explosion | /Film | Posted By: Dan Geer

Hardcore Yoda-heads are well aware of the abysmal 97-minute Star Wars TV spin-off known as The Star Wars Holiday Special, which reunited the cast from the feature film and also brought on special guest stars like Bea Arthur, Art Carney and the Jefferson Starship band. Broadcast only once on November 17, 1978 on CBS, it was never officially released on any type of home media because of how terrible it was. Even George Lucas himself reportedly said that, if he could, he would track down every copy of the show and smash it with a sledgehammer.

In response, Late Night Explosion created a 5-minute abridged version of the special as a humorous way for fans to not have to sit through the whole thing (of course, in order to fully appreciate the video, you have to have seen the original version beforehand). While this still doesn’t make the special “good,” it is certainly more tolerable. Check it out after the jump!

Synopsis of The Star Wars Holiday Special (from Wikipedia):

In the storyline that ties the special together, Chewbacca and Han Solo visit Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s home world, to celebrate Life Day. Along the way 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 Attichitcuk, his wife Mallatobuck, and his son Lumpawarrump. During the special, scenes also take place in outer space and in spacecraft including the Millennium Falcon and an Imperial Star Destroyer. The variety-show segments and cartoon introduce a few other locales, such as a cantina on the desert planet of Tatooine and a gooey, reddish ocean planet known as Panna.

If you are curious, you can just seach on YouTube for The Star War Holiday Special and find it there in its entirety spit up over several parts. I will say that the Boba Fett cartoon segment (Fett’s first on-screen appearance) is actually quite entertaining, and as a whole the special is a good laugh amongst fellow fans. It is also the very thing I point to when people complain about how “horrible” the Star Wars prequels were to help keep their opinions in check (well, that and Superman III).
🙂