Yep, found some vidcaps of Carrie, mostly in the notorious “Beach Blanket Bimbo” sketch (years before she wore a bikini for Jabba!) I remember her at the end flailing her arms and singing “Help me, help me, Obi Wan Keno-bee!”
Sometimes I think back on growing up in the Seventies and wonder why we’re not all serial killers.
Gilda Radner (RIP 
) had the best line in the “Beach Blanket Bimbo” sketch:
Princess Leia: Hi!
Radner as Annette: Hi. I-I’m Annette… and this is my boyfriend Frankie… and these are my breasts!
Regarding the Star Wars Holiday Special: I always have to mention that I had to endure it dubbed to Spanish back in the old country… It made it worse.
I have not seen this monstrosity nor will I.
Stomptokyo poses a good question: who is to blame for this? The producers? The directors? I’m guessing that the writers might make good candidates.
Here are images of the credits: Stomp Tokyo's Star Wars Holiday Special Gallery - Credits
IMDB lists Lucas as an uncredited writer:
Ken Welch and Mitzi Welch produced this calamity, Mitzi helped with the script and they both wrote songs, if you want to call them that.
Surprisingly one of the writers Pat Profit does not appear to be using a pseudonym.
Steve Binder directed: “His specialty has been producing and directing musical and variety specials…” Work includes Christmas on Ice, Alladin on Ice, Beauty and the Beast: A Concert On Ice, Soul on Ice (just kidding), Blondes vs Brunettes and The Barry Manilow Special. He also directed 2 eps of Gilligans Island.
I think we’ve found our man. Go get him, boys.
I based my claim on having watched the special, not on image captures. I had no idea until this thread that Carrie Fisher ever did drugs. And I still think she looks stoned. Look at her vacant stare and constant slight grin.
In some of the previous threads on this abortion, several posters have claimed that Carrie states she was so whacked on drugs that she doesn’t remember doing the special. Of course, that could be BS on her part, or the posters repeating ULs, however, having seen the thing, I would not at all be surprised if Fisher was completely whacked out of her gourd when it was taped.
The stupidest things stand out in my memory of this thing (I refuse to download it to watch it…much funnier to read the reviews.)
Anyway, at one point the Stormtroopers are searching the Wookie hut looking for Chewie and Han Solo, or contraband, or something.
Anyway, they are in the kids room, one of the Stromtroopers holds up a large stufed animal, dramaticly faces the camera holding it up, tears the head off the animal, and drops it without looking inside or anything. Even as an eleven year old I went ‘huh’.
The fact that I watched this as a kid (and the Carrie Fisher SNL skits) demonstrated just how much Star Wars we craved in that age. That somehow a 2 hour movie with minimal background had crept into the collective concious.
I would watch a syndicated movie clip show called ‘That’s Hollywood’ every time it was one just on the off chance that a 5 second clip from Star Wars might be shown. Its amazing how VCRs put that mentality out to pasture.
As big a Star Wars fan as I was, I managed to miss this show somehow… and it seems like I didn’t miss anything.
I did, however, buy the single released from the Star Wars Christmas album that came out in 1980. It’s called “What Can You Get a Wookie for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?).” Yes, the song as is bad as you might guess from the title.
I don’t suppose anyone wants to buy it from me? Purely as a collector’s item, of course. 
Were there any film or TV depictions of virtual reality before this show?
Okay, that is something I would buy bootleg. I don’t suppose you know of any sites where that might be viewed?
A few years ago, in the course of my work producing children’s plays, I inadventently wound up talking to the director of the SWHS (Steve Binder) on the phone a few times.
I’m a huge Star Wars fan. I just couldn’t bring myself to mention the show to him, though. He seemed nice enough, why pour salt?
BTW, I just ran across this SW Holiday Special FAQ which you might find interesting…
Ha! we overlapped posts.
Sorry I missed my chance to ridicule and deride him directly, but I believe in turning the other cheek. Plus, my boss was befriending him, for some reason, so it wouldn’t be in my best interest to ridicule and deride. Apologies to all of the unavenged melted brains out there (including my own - I’ve seen the thing. Twice! Arrrrgh!)
Define what you mean by virtual reality.
Sadly, in the old country, video cassettes were just being introduced or were very rare, searches on the web only point to Spanish sites that show slides of this monstrosity but it seems they are using only copies in English. It may help in further searches to notice that in Spanish Star Wars is “Guerra de las Galaxias”
While searching, I found this amusing item:
The Mel Brooks parody Space Balls, was titled diferent in Spanish: they followed a very old tradition of titling movies in a way that shows a connection to a previous hit.
So, Mel had a hit with The crazy history of the world part I, and then in Spanish we had “La Loca Historia de las Galaxias” -The crazy history of the Galaxies! :smack:
I was thinking along the lines of an immersive computer-generated artificial environment, where the user has to have devices over his eyes/head or plugged into his brain so the virtual environment takes over at least the visual sense.
I do not really recall what it was like in the Star Wars special, I saw it when it aired, but haven’t been able to make myself watch it since. I’ve tried a couple times, but I never make to the VR section.
What did you have in mind? I’ll try not to Pit you if it does not meet my definition… 
When I think back on 1978, I actually have found memories of that TV special as being a highlight.
Ah well. I shall keep my nose to the wind on that one.
Well, sort of but not really. In Westworld (1973) we saw point of view shots from the android robot gunfighter’s eyes as he hunted his prey. They were done by computer animation.
“Co-written by Bruch Vilanch?!”
Anyway, my comment was that a couple years back, there was a Star Wars mockumentary produced by Lucasfilm called RD-D2: Beneath the Dome, all about R2-D2’s meteoric rise to fame. TV Guide interviewed Lucas about working with R2, and my favorite line in the interview was that R2 came up with the idea for the Star Wars Holiday Special.
As a total SW geek, I believe I can explain this-the Empire is incredibly xenophobic towards non-humans. Some species get it worse than others, and Wookiees were especially persecuted-they were used as slaves.* So the Stormtrooper did it on purpose, just like say, maybe a Nazi might have done the same to a young Jewish child during the 1930s-deliberately destroy a stuffed animal. Or let’s say you have a lynching in the 1930s-you have some Klansmen searching a the house of a poor black family for the one they want, they might break some of the kid’s toys.
In the last film, ROTS, because the Wookiees helped the Jedi, and fought the clone troopers who came to take down Yoda and some of the other Jedi, the entire planet and species was punished.
*That’s how Han met Chewie. Han was an Imperial officer, and at one point, he was assigned to a labor detail of Wookiee slaves. Chewie lashed out at the guy in charge, the guy was about to shoot him, and Han saved him. Han was drummed out of the military, and Chewie swore a life debt to Han.
Yes, but the Muppet Show appearance was good.