Star Wars Pin-up #39 Award Ceremony FRAMED Christmas Holiday Special

Description

Incredible rare pin-up from the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special featuring Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker!

The Star Wars Holiday Special is a 1978 American television film set in the Star Wars galaxy. It starred Harrison Ford and the film’s main cast while introducing the character Boba Fett, who would appear in later films. It was one of the first official Star Wars spin-offs, and was directed by Steve Binder. The show was broadcast in its entirety only once, in the United States, on November 17, 1978, on U.S. television.

In the storyline that ties the special together, Chewbacca and Han Solo visit Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s home world, to celebrate Life Day. 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 Itchy, his wife Malla, and his son Lumpy, though these names were later explained to have been nicknames, their full names being Attichitcuk, Mallatobuck, and Lumpawaroo, respectively.

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.

The program also features many other Star Wars characters, including Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader and Princess Leia Organa (who sings the film’s “theme song”, set to the music of John Williams’ Star Wars theme, near the end). The program includes stock footage from Star Wars, and also features a cartoon produced by Toronto-based Nelvana that officially introduces the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

The special is notorious for its extremely negative reception. Anthony Daniels, in a documentary promoting the worldwide tour of Star Wars: In Concert, notes with a laugh that the Star Wars universe includes “The horrible Holiday Special that nobody talks about”. Nathan Rabin of the AV Club wrote, “I’m not convinced the special wasn’t ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine.” George Lucas did not have significant involvement with the film’s production, and was reportedly unhappy with the results; however Patty Maloney (who played Lumpy) stated in 2008 that Lucas was sent “dailies” of each day’s shooting for approval. David Acomba, a classmate of Lucas at USC film school, had been selected to direct the special, but he chose to leave the project, a decision supported by Lucas.

The Star Wars Holiday Special has never been rebroadcast or officially released on home video. It has therefore become something of a cultural legend, due to the “underground” quality of its existence. It has been viewed and distributed in off-air recordings made from its original telecast by fans, which were later adapted to content-sharing websites via the Internet.

As Chewbacca takes the stage, C-3PO and R2-D2 suddenly appear, along with Luke, Leia and Han. Leia gives a short speech on the meaning of Life Day and sings a song in celebration, to the tune of the Star Wars theme, missing the high note. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Chewbacca remembers his adventures in the previous film and he will somehow comeback to Luke, Han, Leia, R2 and 3PO.

The Star Wars Holiday Special was critically panned, both by Star Wars fans and the general public. Actor Phillip Bloch explained on a TV Land special entitled The 100 Most Unexpected TV Moments, that the special “…just wasn’t working. It was just so surreal.” On the same program, Ralph Garman, a voice actor for the show Family Guy, explained that “The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of the most infamous television programs in history. And it’s so bad that it actually comes around to good again, but passes it right up.”

George Lucas himself has reportedly said, “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.” In an online chat with fans, he reportedly said: “The Holiday Special does not represent my vision for Star Wars.” In an interview in the May 2002 Maxim magazine, when asked if there were plans for a Special Edition of the special, Lucas responded, “Right. That’s one of those things that happened, and I just have to live with it.”

In a May 2005 interview with StaticMultimedia.com, Lucas was asked if the film had soured him on working in television. He replied, “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.”

On February 8, 2006, Harrison Ford made an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien to promote his film, Firewall. During the interview, Conan O’Brien brought up the special, and began asking various questions regarding it, such as inquiring whether he remembered making it. Ford said nothing, but looked away and shook his head nervously, then saying he had no memory of it whatsoever and it, therefore, “doesn’t exist.” The audience responded with laughter and applause. O’Brien then asked Ford what he would think if he played a clip of the special on the show, Ford jokingly grabbed him, then said that “he’d never seen it, maybe it’ll be nice.” Humorously acting anxious and distracted, Ford suffered through the clip (which featured a scene showing Ford as Han Solo telling Chewbacca and his wife that they are “like family” to him), and then muttered a gruff, sarcastic “Thank you.”

On the 2010 television program Times Talk, New York Times columnist David Carr asked Carrie Fisher about the special; she said that she made George Lucas give her a copy of the special in exchange for recording DVD commentary for the Star Wars films. She added that she shows it at parties, “mainly at the end of the night when I want people to leave.”

In 1979, one year after the special’s broadcast, Lucasfilm published Star Wars: The Wookiee Storybook, a children’s storybook which reunited characters from the special.

Frame is shrinkwrapped until time of purchase. Ships boxed with packing peanuts.

THE PERFECT GIFT!