The Star Wars Holiday Special was a two-hour television special (including commercials) broadcast on November 17, 1978 on CBS. In it, 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 rebels on the planet. The special introduces three members of Chewbacca's family: his father, Itchy, his wife, Malla, and his son Lumpy.

The program also features cameos (although the cameo actors are listed as stars) by other Star Wars characters, including Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader, and Princess Leia (who sings the film's "theme song", set to the music of John Williams' Star Wars theme, near the end). The program is best known for an animated cartoon that introduces the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

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The main storyline of the film transpires on the jungle planet of Kashyyyk. As characters on the planet interact wtih people elsewhere, and as characters travel to Kashyyyk, scenes also take place in outer space and in spacecraft such as 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 water planet known as Panna.

The Holiday Special is important for being the first film-length Star Wars story after the original movie, and for showing an expanded look at parts of that universe. For the most part, however, the plot serves as little more than a means to string together a series of musical numbers, celebrity cameos, and other variety-show acts. These include songs and comedy routines by such '70s talents as Jefferson Starship, Diahann Carroll, Art Carney, Harvey Korman, and Bea Arthur. Easily the most notable segment is an animated cartoon featuring the pre-Empire Strikes Back debut of Boba Fett.

• Mark Hamill .... Luke Skywalker
• Harrison Ford .... Han Solo
• Carrie Fisher .... Princess Leia Organa
• Anthony Daniels .... C-3PO
• Peter Mayhew .... 'Chewie' Chewbacca
• James Earl Jones .... Darth Vader (voice)
• Beatrice Arthur .... Ackmena
• Art Carney .... Trader Saundan
• Diahann Carroll .... Mermeia Holographic Wow
• Marty Balin .... Holographic Band Singer (as The Jefferson Starship)
• Craig Chaquico .... Holographic Band Member (as The Jefferson Starship)
• Paul Kantner .... Holographic Band Member (as The Jefferson Starship)
• Harvey Korman .... Krelman/Chef Gormaanda/Amorphian instructor
• Mickey Morton .... 'Malla' Mallatobuck
• Paul Gale .... 'Itchy' Attichitcuk
• Patty Maloney .... 'Lumpy' Lumpawarrump
• Jack Rader .... Imperial Guard Officer
• Stephanie Stromer .... The Great Zorbak (Holographic Gymnast)
• Michael Potter .... Imperial Guard Officer
• Wazzan Troupe .... Holographic Tumblers
• Yûichi Sugiyama .... Ringleader
• Mum Brothers .... The Reeko Brothers
• Claude Woolman .... Imperial Officer (wallscreen)
• Lev Mailer .... Imperial Guard #1
• John McLaughlin .... Imperial Stormtrooper?
• Sir Alec Guinness .... Obi-Wan Kenobi (archive footage) (uncredited)
• David Prowse .... Darth Vader (uncredited)
• Arthur Rowton .... Zutton Zutmore (uncredited)
• Leslie Schofield .... Chief Bast (uncredited)

The special features four songs. The first, sung by Diahann Carroll, is best remembered for the bizarre monologue which precedes it in which Carroll—who is supposed to be an image created by a virtual-reality machine—tells Chewbacca's father, Itchy, that she is his "fantasy" and suggestively invites him to "experience" her. The second musical number is the song "Light the Sky on Fire", performed by Jefferson Starship, which is presented as a 3-D music video watched by one of the Imperial guards. Later, Bea Arthur, who plays the bartender in the Mos Eisley cantina, sings a song to the same set of aliens that were seen in the cantina in Star Wars. Finally, at the end of the special Carrie Fisher sings (somewhat off key) a song in celebration of Life Day to the tune of the Star Wars main title.

Harvey Korman provides comedy in three of the special's skits, including the cantina skit with Bea Arthur. He also performs two solo routines: one as a four-armed parody of Julia Child, whose four arms allow her to work much faster than Malla can keep up with, and one as a malfunctioning android in an instruction video watched by Lumpy. Art Carney has a more integral role in the story, playing a trader on the Wookiee planet who is a member of the Rebellion and helps Chewie's family. His segments are also largely played for laughs.

The high point of the special is generally considered to be the animated segment, produced by Nelvana. While the artistic style takes great liberties—R2-D2's body is rubbery and Han's face nearly unrecogniable, the animation is good and the music and sound effects are straight out of the film. With all the main stars from the film doing the voice work for their characters the cartoon sounds like a Star Wars film even if it looks a little odd at times. Not only does the cartoon introduce Boba Fett, but both his jet pack and rope gun, which do not appear again in the movies until Return of the Jedi four and a half years later, are both seen in the cartoon.

Gendy Tartakovsky, director and animator of the Star Wars: Clone Wars micro-series, states that he payed homage to Nelvana's animation in the Holiday Special segment, particularly the design of C-3PO. He says that he animated Threepio's eyes to move in a similar way to Nelvana's, and made the droid's overall look similar to theirs.

The Holiday Special also includes a circus-style acrobatics routine that includes uneven bars and juggling. All the acts were loosely linked together with material which involves the Wookiees' preparation for Life Day, Han and Chewie's attempt to evade the Imperials and make it to Chewie's family, and the Imperial garrison's search for rebels.

The Star Wars Holiday Special had been lost to the world and mostly forgotten after its premiere in 1978. There was very little evidence of its existence until sometime in the early-to-mid-1990s when people came forward who had in their possession original recordings of the show from 1978. Some of these individuals began to copy the show and sell it illegally at conventions. It soon became a cult classic and a legend among Star Wars fans. File-sharing technologies have made the special more widely available to curious fans to see for themselves.

Most viewers revile The Star Wars Holiday Special for its meager plot and low production values, but some enjoy it for its wackiness and novelty. Those who own copies contiue to sell and trade them illegally as a bootleg video or DVD, and many Star Wars fans have a copy in their collection. Some fans hope for an official release, if only as a comedic novelty.

The special is known to exist in the following versions:

• The original print rests in the Lucasfilm archives. Animation-cel merchandise sold in the mid-1990s mentions no source, but probably comes from the special's animated Boba Fett segment. Segments of the cartoon appear in the 2002 Attack of the Clones web documentary "Bucket Head." Boba Fett actor Jeremy Bulloch introduces the segment as coming from the Holiday Special.

• The copies that were distributed in 1978 to CBS and its major broadcasting stations are most likely also in the Lucasfilm Archives with the original print.

• Some who watched the program's single airing recorded it to video-cassette tape. These have since been duplicated and reduplicated so that most copies of the special available today (and since 1978) are second to sixth generation on DVD and VHS. Very rarely, original recordings of the special surface. Some of these fan-made copies include the original commercials that aired during the show, while others have had these edited out.

• In 2001 or 2002, an anonymous video professional digitally remastereded a second-generation recording of the original special with Dolby Digital technology. Though this remastered version exists, the term "digitally remastered" is many times used as a slogan to sell illegal copies on eBay and at conventions.

• A persistent rumor claims that one version of the special contains a few extra seconds of the Boba Fett cartoon.

Rumors of a follow-up special called A Very Star Wars Christmas have spread in recent years, but are an April Fool's prank. The special's plot was said, according to its creator, the people at stomptokyo.com to go something like this: Rebellion forces abandoned Hoth after the Empire invaded the base, and, some rebels were left behind. The story follows two such soldiers, Coren and Vila. Forced to survive on the barren surface of Hoth, we are told, Coren and Vila have learned to live with the Wampas, who are not so much evil as misunderstood. Vila is particularly fond of one young Wampa whom she has dubbed "Christmas" after her favorite holiday. When Darth Tyranus comes to Hoth in search for the young Wampa, trouble begins, as Tyranus and the Rebels go on a chase leading them all the way to Coruscant and back to Hoth, where the Rebels attempt an escape.

The Star Wars Holiday Special is technically in the Star Wars canon, which means that the events depicted are part of the greater continuity that includes the other films, novels, comic books, video games, etc. Elements from the film appear in several other Star Wars projects. The Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk, for example, features in various novels, comic books, and video games, including Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the cartoon micro-series known as Star Wars: Clone Wars, and video games such as Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. George Lucas, who wrote the basic story for the special but otherwise had very little to do with it, has rarely commented on or even acknowledged its existence except to friends and co-workers. At one Australian fan convention he reportedly said, "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it." Later, in a May 2005 interview with StaticMultimedia.com, Lucas was asked if the episode had soured him on working in television:

"The special from 1978 really didn't have much to do with us, you know. I can't remember what network it was on, but it was a thing that they did. We kind of let them do it. It was done by... I can't even remember who the group was, but they were variety TV guys. We let them use the characters and stuff and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but you learn from those experiences. I had a wonderful time on Young Indiana Jones. It was a great series. We did it for four years. I spent those four or five years actually working on it. That's really all I did during those years. It was really a great experience and I love television."[1]

Several of the characters in The Star Wars Holiday Special appear in other Star Wars works. Chewbacca's family feature in various stories, notably Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, Patricia Wynne's The Wookiee Storybook (1979), A. C. Crispin's Han Solo trilogy, Troy Denning's A Forest Apart, and in the comic stories such as Marvel Comics Star Wars #91 and in the Russ Manning comic strip "The Kashyyyk Depths". Boba Fett returns in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and in many expanded-universe books, comics, and video games (not to mention numerous fan-made films).

• Star Wars Holiday Special comprehensive fansite
• Star Wars Holiday Special original fansite
• Star Wars Holiday Special German fansite
• The Star Wars Holiday Special at IMDb
• TVObscurities.com - The Star Wars Holiday Special
• Category at ODP
• When the Force Was a Farce
• Site with some of George Lucas's comments on the special.
• Amazon.com's reports on a future release of the special.