The Star Wars Holiday Special!

If you’ve never seen The Star Wars Holiday Special, yes, its infamy is deserved. The 1978 TV special was an absolute fiasco in so many ways, but if all you’ve ever heard is BAD BAD BAD, know that it does have some highlights. Sorry, but you’re never gonna convince me that Bea Arthur singing in the Mos Eisley Cantina was a bad idea.

The truth is that there was a serviceable-if-cheesy special hiding in there, but the thing is just so long and so full of meandering bits that it’s hard to see anything but the… well, the BAD BAD BAD.

I wasn’t alive when the special aired, and never even heard of the thing until I had AOL almost two decades later. Homebrew VHS copies were commonly traded on ancient action figure newsgroups, and when I finally got mine, just seeing any “new” Star Wars footage blew my mind.

I won’t tell you not to make fun of it, because I guess making fun of it is part of the fun. But if you’re even a minor Star Wars fan, you really gotta see it once. It’s… it’s something.