The only commercial I have on my copy is for the new Star Wars action figures.
Y’all have neglected to mention that not only is Carrie Fisher singing…she’s singing the LYRICS TO THE STAR WARS THEME!
Bill Murray did it better. And more coherently.
“Are you OK, friend? Is that a tear, friend?”
I owned the tape in college and used to lock every incoming pledge class in a room and make them watch it, then take a test to make sure they were paying attention. (“What was the name of the Harvey Corman character?”)
I was partial to the “mental” form of hazing. 
I, too, saw the original airing, although I was only six at the time. My memory of it is pretty vague; in fact, for many years, I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing. Something about Chewbacca’s family… and stormtroopers (I knew they were the bad guys, but I always liked their outfits and weapons better than the rebels’)… and Han and Chewie show up at the end to save the day… and that’s about all I could remember.
I’d totally forgotten the animated Boba Fett sequence. Even seeing the stills from the link doesn’t jog my memory. Nor do I remember Bea Arthur or Jefferson Airplane/Starship (good Lord, were they really in it?). I do have a vague recollection of Leia singing at the end, but I’d blocked how bad it was.
The only scene that stood out for me was when the Imperial officer and/or his stormtroopers tore off the head of the little Wookie’s toy bantha. I can’t remember what they were searching for, but I have a very clear memory of the little guy mourning over his damaged toy, and my 6-year old heart really went out to him. Even as much I liked stormtroopers, I knew that I’d hate it if they had done that to one of my stuffed animals.
I own a copy of this, just to prove to people that it did exist.
The obviously cardboard cockpit of the Millenium Falcon is what kills me. That and the Carrie Fisher song where she has to lean on the table and the actor next to her to keep from falling.
This best I have been able to manage is MST3K-ing it while it runs in fast forward, at least it is over quicker.
If there’s ever a convention of Dopers, this is what must be sung loudly at midnight around the swimming pool (don’t even ask me how to sing it to the tune of STAR WARS, and yet it was:)
We celebrate a day of peace, a day of harmony.
A day of joy we can all share together, joyously.
A day that takes us through the darkness, a day that leads us into night.
A day that makes us want to celebrate the light.
A day that brings the promise that one day, we’ll be free to live, to, to dream, to grow, to trust, to love, to be.
My main memories of the special were Bea Arthur pouring the drink through the hole in the alien’s head and the seeming implication that while Itchy was enjoying his Kool & the Gang porn his daughter-in-law was getting it on with Art Carney.
Did anybody else notice how the Wookieville tree house sets were reincarnated for the Ewoks in ROTJ? (And why would Ewoks worship C3PO as a god instead of Chewbacca, who looks like them but is 5 times their size?)
I have got to see this thing.
IIRC the Holiday Special was the first iteration of Lucas’ Ewok story that he wanted to tell.
Me too! I seriously thought I had dreamed it. But no, it’s real. All too real…
One thing I didn’t catch the first time in the Boba Fett cartoon: why does Luke Skywalker look like Eric Stoltz?
I was about 10 when I saw it, but remembered very little about the show. I remembered it because of the scene mentioned above where the storm trooper tore the head of the stuffed toy my little brother started to cry. I can sit through most anything and have a large collection of b-z grade movies, however, this is the one thing I have not been able to watch in one sitting. I have to pause every 15 minutes or so to go outside and be reminded that life is not a dreary cesspool pain and misery.
Fighting the Frizzies, next at 11.
Why did Lucas make it in the first place?
It sounds horribly ripe!
According to the stories, he had absolutely nothing to do with it. His name does not appear in the credits.
Also, according to the legend, every copy that is in existence came from one original master tape made by someone in the production company.
I watched this when it aired. I distinctly remember the VR thing Chewie’s dad used, and the cartoon.
I tried to watch it again recently… And I just couldn’t. I could probably hold a burning piece of charcoal in my hand longer than I could sit through it.
I remembered being disappointed with it at the age of about 8, but I saw about 20 minutes recently, and it sucks beyond suck. There are movies that make you want to scream, “Find a decent ending!”, but this makes you wish they had just never started. We didn’t get out of the Wookie/Carney portion. No one could really stand it, even with fast forward.
I HAVE to find this as a digital file.
If you have “R2-D2: Beneath the Dome”, Lucas blames the fiasco on R2 wanting to direct some special. That line is the best thing from Lucas in 20 years.
By the way, I have to thank Max Carnage for sending me a copy of the Christmas Special in last year’s White Elephant swap.
CURSE YOU, MAX! CURSE YOU!!! I have to put a red-hot poker to the part of my brain that remembers the special!!! 
Well, then why was it made in the first place? Advertising purposes?
I’m pretty immune to bad movies-all that MST3K does toughen one up-but I don’t think I’m going to even try to watch this.
Is it as bad as Manos?
I have the un-Mistied version of Manos and it is much more watchable than the SWHS. I mean the first 20 or so minutes is nothing but wookie grunting and moaning. And the “comedy” bits are dreadful. The previously mentioned Harvey Korman multi armed cook on TV that Mala tries to follow but can’t keep up because she has two arms. You’d think it could not be any more unfunny, but you’d be wrong. The next Korman bit is as a video instruction on putting some toy for Ichy together. The highlight of this is that it slows down and skips and stutters a few times.
Oh god, the horror, the horror, I can’t go on MOMMY…MOMMY!!!
I think it is time to go to bed and sob ooooh the pain…the pain.
I could swear that I’ve heard that many (if not most) of the surviving copies where taped off the TV during the original broadcast (which explains why some copies have commercials).
Never seen it, and I take it that even Mike Nelson couldn’t save it.