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For someone like me, what we’re about to discuss is the absolute ne plus ultra of holiday specials, despite being perhaps the single worst thing to have ever been broadcast on television. Most people into the same things as I am have heard of it and many have seen it, but I’m sure even more have not. Before the Internet made everything easily available to everyone, it was awfully hard to come by, and even now it is hard to come by in a form that isn’t so full of distortion that you have to squint your eyes really hard to tell what’s going on. Of course, what’s going on is the most truly awful celebration of the holidays ever, so maybe you don’t want to squint that hard. It’s one hour and thirty-five minutes of nonsense, ranging from the mind-blowing to the gut-wrenching. It’s a travesty so atrocious that even its creator wants all existing copies destroyed. And it all happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Yes, it’s the Star Wars Holiday Special, coming in the holiday season of 1978, just after the success of the original Star Wars but before anyone knew that the rest of the trilogy would turn the franchise into the major force (ha!) that it is now. Had the creators known what Star Wars was to become, I’m sure this never would have happened, but at the time it was just seen as another way to cash in on a lucrative sci-fi property. Wait, did I say “lucrative?” I meant ludicrous, because what is about to transpire is without a doubt the strangest assemblage of images and sounds that has ever been collected. The main “story” focuses on Han and Chewie’s attempt to make it back to the Wookiee’s homestead on Kashyyyk in time to celebrate Life Day, but there are more digressions (and transgressions) into the land of the ridiculous than you can shake a stick at. Trust me, we’re in for a hell of a ride.

The special opens with the Millennium Falcon encountering an Imperial blockade while en route to Kashyyyk. Chewie is desperate to make it home in time for the Life Day celebration, but Han doesn’t want to mess with the Imperials: “That’s it,” he says, “I’m turning back.” Throughout this special, it seems like Harrison Ford wishes he could say that, too. He looks utterly shamefaced at being a part of what he knew even then was garbage, and rightfully so. A fine actor like Ford doesn’t deserve this, even here at the beginning of his career before he’d achieved superstar status. Anyway, after a lot of whiny growling from Chewbacca, Han agrees to press onward toward the Wookiee’s home planet. And if you liked that bit of whiny growling, stay tuned!

And so the opening titles roll. An incredibly over-the-top announcer gives the names of all the principal actors and the characters they play. Interestingly, although he says “Anthony Daniels as See Threepio,” he then says “And Artoo-Detoo as…Artoo-Detoo!” Kenny Baker, it seems, gets no love at all, but midgets rarely do. The announcer then introduces us to Chewbacca’s family: his wife, Mala; his father, Itchy; and his son, Lumpy. Yes, there are characters named Itchy and Lumpy. If you think that’s surprising, just wait for special guest stars like Beatrice Arthur, Harvey Korman and Jefferson Starship.

The special proper begins in Chewbacca’s tree house home, where his family is preparing for Life Day. This being the focus of the story, much of the action takes place here. Consider, for a moment, the significance of that statement. Consider that for most of the special’s running time, the only characters on screen are Wookiees, speaking to each other in their native tongue without any subtitles. Yes, the Star Wars Holiday Special has a script made up mostly of “Grr arrggh rraaarrrh!” Of course, to help give the characters some individuality, each has a distinctive vocal sound. Young Lumpy, for example, sounds like a swarm of angry bees. Take my word for it, few things are less pleasant to listen to than forty-five straight minutes of a swarm of angry of bees.

The Chewbacca family wanders around their house talking to each other. It’s difficult to follow exactly what’s going on since, as I’ve stated, someone had the brilliant idea to film extended sequences of Wookiee-speak with no translation, but the impression seems to be that Lumpy is sad. There are a lot of camera pushes on him and he looks contemplative, so when that’s coupled with the soft flute music I’m pretty sure he’s sad. It’s difficult to say what he’s sad about. I imagine he’s probably worried about Chewie, fearing he won’t be home in time for the big Life Day shenanigans, but he could also be worried about that beehive he apparently swallowed. I know I’d worry about that in his position. After Lumpy tries to steal a cookie, his mom ushers him outside. We see him looking down from his perch high in a tree and we think—nay, we pray desperately—that he is contemplating suicide, unable to stand the injustice of being scolded by his mother.

But no such luck. Lumpy, bees and all, stays alive long enough to go back inside for another round of “conversation” with his family. During this sequence, we see Mala and Itchy looking worriedly at a picture of Chewbacca, confirming that, yes, that is actually what they are upset about. Lumpy, though, could still be upset about the bees, and I wouldn’t blame him. Familial love is great, but when you’ve got stinging insects in your throat it tends to become your number one priority.

To take their minds off of their absent family member, Lumpy and Itchy settle down to watch a holographic projection of a whole bunch of wacky alien dancers. With video this grainy, it is difficult to determine what species the dancers are, but this much is certain beyond all doubt: if the spastic gyrations of space aliens, accompanied all the while by what can only be described as funky circus music, can soothe your jangled nerves, then you are a far more steadfast person—or Wookiee—than I.

While the dancers on heroin cheered everyone up for a short time, a quick check in with traffic control that reveals no starships in the area—meaning Chewie could be anywhere in the whole, wide galaxy—brings the family right back down into a deep spiral of holiday depression. Fortunately, if there is one sure-fire cure for depression it’s talking to Luke Skywalker and Artoo, and that’s exactly what they do. This holiday special was filmed shortly after Mark Hamill’s infamous auto accident. The accident did significant damage to his face, leading to the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke is attacked by the Wampa to explain a few noticeable scars. Here, however, following the accident so closely, they had no time for such luxuries. The only solution was makeup and lots of it. Mark Hamill’s got so much makeup on that he looks like a drag queen showgirl in Vegas. Of course, he was kind of ugly to begin with, so maybe this is an improvement. Soon enough, it’s revealed that Luke doesn’t know where Chewie is, either, but he’s confident he’ll show up soon enough. It’s also revealed that Artoo is apparently drunk as a skunk, because he keeps bumping into Luke’s legs. Oh, another comment about Mark Hamill’s looks: his hair is significantly shorter here than it was in the original movie and it’s styled into a weird sort of chili bowl. He looks like a cross between Moe Howard and Mrs. Brady, and that certainly grants all my Life Day wishes.

The check-in with Luke ends with Luke’s garage exploding in a puff of smoke (apparently), so now it’s time to check in with Art Carney who for some reason runs a trading post on Kashyyyk. An Imperial guard is giving all kinds of flack to the kindly old shopkeep for reasons that aren’t exactly clear, but the music is ominous so I’m sure trouble is around the corner. Art Carney sends a transmission to Mala, telling her that Chewie is on his way in the Falcon. Of course, with the Imperial guard over his shoulder, he is forced to speak in code, using pathetic attempts at cleverness such as “He’s bringing a present for you. A little old lady made it all by herself, and by hannnnnnnnd. Solo, you might say.” Of course, being a dumb Imperial, the guard doesn’t figure this out, but Mala understands it right away. Art Carney then gets rid of the guard by showing him what appears to be a wooden stick that is supposed to be a grooming device that trims and combs and recites Imperial penal code. The guard takes it without paying, leaving Art Carney all alone with his ominous music.

And so we cut to a Star Destroyer, where the man in black himself, Darth Vader, is ranting and raving about finding the Rebels because, frankly, they’re starting to chap his ass, what with exploding his expensive space station and all. He announces that they’re going to find them even if it means searching every household in the system. And guess whose household is in that system! Uh oh!

Now we’re back on Kashyyyk, and it’s sort of a relief. Even though these scenes suck, at least we know they’re going to suck, so we don’t get our hopes up. Mala is preparing a dish of “Bantha Surprise” for the Life Day dinner, and to help her she’s tuned into a cooking show with—and I swear before god and all the angels that I am not making this up—a four-armed transsexual host(ess?) played by Harvey Korman. The dialogue is extremely weird here, as the transsexual describes Bantha Surprise as nutritious and economical and says it will be “yummy-yum” in everyone’s “tummy-tum-tums,” but it’s hard to even focus on the specifics of what he/she is saying because my mind is still reeling from the overall concept of it all. A hermaphroditic cooking show host in a Star Wars program that is, ostensibly, aimed at children? Holy cow. A few lines are hard to miss: “The loin is very tasty,” for example, and—even better—”I would suggest the rump.” Yes, I’ll bet you would.

Eventually, Mala finds herself having a difficult time following the campy shemale’s insane instructions (beat, beat, beat, stir, whip, beat, beat, stir!) and, mercifully, turns off the TV. At that point, we rejoin Han and Chewie who are being attacked by stock footage of TIE fighters from the first movie. Apparently, they’ve come out of hyperspace in the middle of an Imperial convoy. Or, as Han so eloquently puts it, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh pal?” Han has other great lines in this scene, such as, “This is one Life Day we won’t soon forget!”

Of course, the relief of hearing actual English dialogue that isn’t about rumps and loins ends all too soon, and it’s back to the Wookiee homestead. An announcement from the Empire reveals that Kashyyyk has been placed under martial law and no ships will be allowed to land or take off. This causes Itchy and Mala to launch into a new round of feverish growling and moaning and causes me to tie my noose a little tighter. Art Carney arrives at the house bearing presents for all. At this, Lumpy makes a sound that, instead of reminding the listener of angry bees, sounds for all the world like a garbage disposal eating up a spoon. It’s hardly an improvement but, hey, at least Art Carney is there.

It’s Art Carney’s gift for Itchy that is the most memorable part of this scene. In any other special, it would be the craziest scene of all, but here there is so much insanity to come that it almost gets forgotten. In any case, Art describes the gift only as “Wow!” in the finest of dirty-old-man tones. It’s a sort of holographic chip that—I think—beams images directly into Itchy’s brain. Unfortunately, these images are of Diahann Carroll wearing a fright wig and purporting to be some kind of seductress and Itchy’s ultimate fantasy. She says things like “I am your pleasure” while a freaky light show swirls behind her before she launches into an attempt at an erotic song that lasts almost four minutes before Diahann splits into two or three replicas of herself and explodes in a blinding flash of light (seriously). And, best of all, Itchy—and this is Chewbacca’s father we’re talking about here—is shown basically getting off on this, his most erotic of fantasies. A happy Life Day, indeed!

Flash cut to some other place, where Leia and Threepio are sending a message to Mala. Threepio translates the Wookie’s groans for the Princess, who looks like she’s having a really difficult time remembering her lines. A little later, you’ll see more evidence of why she probably couldn’t even remember her own name at this point. Anyway, she finds out Chewie and Han haven’t shown up yet and asks Art Carney to keep an eye on the family until they get there.

Meanwhile, back on the Falcon, our two heroes have made it to Kashyyyk but are forced to land on the far side of the planet because of the Imperial blockade. As Han remarks, it’ll be a long walk, but at least they’ve made it back to the homeworld safely.

But not everyone is so safe! Just then (well, after the commercial break, really), a bunch of Storm Troopers bust in and…well…storm the place. The bad guys get in a fight with the Wookiees and act all kinds of nasty, but Art Carney placates them by showing them how to work a high-tech sci-fi gadget called a television. What do they watch on TV in this galaxy far, far away, you might wonder? Well, wonder no longer, because I’m here to tell you that what they watch are spectacularly bad music videos by Jefferson Starship. Marty Balin loudly shrieks the lyrics to “Light the Sky on Fire” into what I guess is a space-age microphone but what looks for all the world like a giant, glowing, hot pink dildo. And he sings into it for about five of the longest minutes of my entire life.

The Imperials force Art Carney to leave. I say he got off lucky; I’d be compelled to blast into oblivion anyone who forced me to watch that Jefferson Starship video. After he makes his exit, the baddies continue their search of the household, looking for anything that would connect the Wookiee family with the hated Rebel Alliance. A normal child might be hiding in a corner after such a scary invasion (and such a scary music video), but not Lumpy. Instead, he decides to watch a cartoon about people he knows personally, in this case all our beloved Star Wars characters.

The cartoon features bottom of the barrel animation with character designs that make Luke and Chewie appear even uglier than they are in real life (if you can imagine) and a story so ludicrous it hardly bears commenting upon. Suffice to say, it centers on Han crash-landing the Falcon on some planet or other and Luke and the droids following him in, for some reason, a Y-wing. This, I do not understand. Luke always flies an X-wing. All the time! What’s with this crazy Y-wing action? What’s with anything we see in this holiday special?

Pretty soon, giant dinosaurs start attacking and before our heroes have even finished pissing their pants with fear, a new character appears to slay the attackers. He rides a dinosaur, carries a big weapon and goes by the name of (drum roll, please) Boba Fett. Yes, Boba Fett, the very definition of mystique and cool in the Star Wars universe, got his introduction not in The Empire Strikes Back but in the goddamn Star Wars Holiday Special, where he appeared as a purple-helmeted guy who pretends to be helping Luke rescue Han and Chewie and has more lines than in the rest of the trilogy combined. Eventually it’s revealed that Boba Fett is working for Darth Vader or something, trying to find out the location of the Rebel’s hidden base and he’s a total bad guy. The characters are all the time calling the bounty hunter just “Boba” as in “Boba sure fooled all of us” and “Boba seems to be Vader’s right hand man.” The cartoon ends with Han saying “Well, let’s get off this galactic raindrop” and the unidentified Rod Serling like narrator who has been speaking throughout signing off. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the unflattering origin of the Fett man. Does it make him seem silly? Yes. Does it take away some of the dark, mysterious quality about him to see him in a purple helmet? Yes. But was it as damaging to his image as seeing him as a curly-haired little boy in Episode II? Heck, no!

Anyway, now it’s back to the story proper. Lumpy goes upstairs to his room to shriek some more and play with what appears to be a severed Bantha head, but the video was especially grainy at that point, so it’s hard to tell exactly what happened. Lumpy then proceeds to watch some more TV, this time gladly watching an instruction tape featuring Harvey Korman teaching you—very, very slowly—how to build a transmitter/receiver in your own home. Harvey fools around with tools for a while in a scene that I guess is supposed to be funny, but once he starts making crazy broken robot noises it’s hard to tell exactly what the intention was.

Back downstairs, the Storm Troopers are forced to watch a mandatory training film about life on Tatooine. Why? Who knows. And who cares, because this film gives us one of the .Star Wars Holiday Special’s shining moments: Beatrice Arthur’s musical number. That’s right, folks; Dorothy Zbornak is gonna sing to you live from the Mos Eisley Cantina. Also, that walrus man with the butt coming out of his mouth (technically, he is of the species Aqualish and is named Ponda Baba) is gonna dance. It’s the highlight of any holiday season! Bea Arthur plays the cantina’s bartender; apparently that ugly guy quit after Obi-Wan chopped off walrus man’s arm. Some man—apparently some man in love with Bea Arthur (after all, this is science fiction)—comes in, orders a drink, pours it on his head, gets scorned by the golden girl and finally leaves. An announcement comes through saying that all Tatooine residents must return to their homes, and it’s this that finally inspires Bea to break into song. She caterwauls her way through a number about last call at the bar, accompanied by the all-Bith Cantina Band (Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes, if you must know) playing at their absolute funkiest. Wait, did I say funkiest? I meant retardedest.

After what feels like many hundreds of minutes, Bea’s song finally comes grinding to a halt, much like you would have expected her career to do after going from Maude to this atrocity. The Imperial training film is over just in time for the Storm Troopers to receive orders to return to base. One stays behind to wait for the other Wookiee that lives there because, according to one of the guards, “he could be one of the Rebels we’re looking forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” And sure enough, he is, but he is also like eight feet tall and has Han Solo on his side, so he is not about to take any shit from a Storm Trooper. Han and Chewie finally arrive, busting into the tree house and throwing the Storm Trooper over the side to his death. (An important note: as he plummets, he emits the so-called Wilhelm scream, that same scream that’s in all the Star Wars movies. If you thought the producers were skimping on this holiday special, buddy were you ever wrong.) Hooray! Chewie made it home in time for Life Day! (See, this is a holiday special, in case you forgot why I was writing about it some two thousand words ago.) Mala, Chewie, Lumpy, and Itchy embrace lovingly, and even Art Carney comes back to celebrate with them. Then music plays and all the Wookiees ascend into heaven or something—again, I’m not kidding. It’s the best Life Day ever!

And then…oh, and then. The coda to this charming Life Day extravaganza is a speech from Princess Leia about how “this day brings us closer to harmony and peace” and will “always be a day of joy.” (See, it’s really about Christmas, secretly.) Then, she launches into an off-key ear-drum shattering song that is truly the special’s crowning achievement. At this point in time, Carrie Fisher had just about every exotic, imported drug imaginable carousing around in her veins and man oh man does it show. Her glassy-eyed stare is enough to frighten any small child, and her inability to avoid falling over without holding onto Chewbacca for dear life is absolutely hysterical. You can practically see the thoughts going through her head: “Why is the floor tilting? Am I falling over? Man, this hairy guy is sooooo tall!” At one point, she makes a wide gesture with her arm and nearly sends a part of the set tumbling over onto the floor. It’s things like this that make Life Day truly special.

The show closes with an image of the Wookiee family, together and whole, sitting down to dinner and bowing their heads in prayer. Life Day, just like Christmas, is a deeply spiritual time, full of messages about family and lush orchestration during the serious parts. Sure, the Star Wars Holiday Special may not be as good as Rudolph or Frosty or even that ol’ blockhead Charlie Brown, but it has two things that none of those have: A hairy boy with a mouthful of bees and…well, when you’ve got that, what else do you need? Merry Christlifedaymas, one and all!

If you don’t like The Star Wars Holiday Special, you will also totally hate:

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• The Spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jerk
• Bea Arthur Died and That is Bullshit
• Bizarre Nostalgia
• Star Wars Memories, Vol. 1
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