Friday, November 17, 1978 was one of the most anticipated days of my nine-year-old life. Why? Because The Star Wars Holiday Special was on TV that night, that's why!

Although Star Wars had premiered 18 months before (back in May of 1977), it hadn't gone away; no siree Bob, not by a long shot. If anything, Star Wars-mania was at a higher pitch in 1978 than it was in 1977, as an endless parade of Kenner toys, Marvel comic books, etc., etc. kept me entertained all through the magnificent year of 1978.

But this was something huge. Back in the days before home video had penetrated into mainstream America, there was only one way to see a movie: In the theaters. Oh, sure, you could catch a movie on TV, but they were frequently sliced and diced (ABC did some horrendous things to the James Bond movies), or split into two parts (which happened more often than you would think). And there was no way in hell that a movie as big as Star Wars was going to be on TV anytime soon.

And that's why The Star Wars Holiday Special was such a huge, huge deal: we were actually going to be able to see our favorite characters in our own living rooms! How awesome is THAT?

I had no idea that I was about to see what is arguably the worst thing ever shown on American television.

The show opens up quite promisingly: Harrison Ford and Peter Mayhew reprise their roles as Han Solo and Chewbacca, and they're in a lot of trouble; thanks to the magic of stock footage from the actual movie (which looks HORRIBLE; you'd think that with the blessings of George Lucas behind this project, they could get spaceship footage that didn't look like a fifth-generation bootleg), they're being chased by Imperial ships, but Han promises Chewie that he needn't worry; he'll get him home in time for Life Day, don't you worry, pal. Of course, I wondered at the time: "What is Life Day?" Apparently it's a non-denominational, non-offensive holiday that Wookies celebrate that won't offend anyone in America. Or something.

Since we're off to Kashyyyk for Life Day (okay, we didn't know the name of the planet then, but we know it now!), of course we have to meet Chewie's family, and we do: wife Malla, son Lumpy and father Itchy. Awesome, right? After all, Chewie was the coolest character in the movie, and now we get to see more Wookiees! Actually, what we get to see is three people wearing shag carpeting, puttering around a tree house and honking, screaming and whining. For ten minutes. I kid you not: A full ten minutes of a nationally-broadcast television special was conducted entirely in Wookiee. Even as an eight-year-old, I knew that was not good.

Lumpy turns to his oh-so-high-tech-for-1978 Commodore 64 and conjours up an entertainment program, and this is where the wheels well and truly fall off. What Lumpy watches is a 3-D prototype of Cirque de Soleil, run by an absolutely fabulous bearded dancer in green leotards. How campy and gay is this sequence? Let's just say that if Rip Taylor and Elton John threw a lavish Pride Party on Fire Island, Lumpy's dancers wouldn't be invited because they were too over-the-top. Now that's gay.

Speaking of Rip Taylor, Malla is getting worried about Chewie, so she contacts one of his friends who might be able to shed some light on his situation: Luke Skywalker! With R2-D2! Awesome, right? No, sorry. A particularly color-blind makeup artist apparently loaded a whole bunch of makeup into a T-shirt cannon and fired the whole thing into Mark Hamill's face. He's wearing more makeup than all of the Kardashians combined, and a prettier woman I have yet to see. We're only 15 minutes into this thing, and it's already so bad......

Well, Luke can't help, so Malla wastes another five minutes of our life by calling her best friend Art Carney, who is apparently some sort of merchant somewhere. After painfully putting small children through Art Carney's deadly "funny schtick" (was he ever funny? Certainly not in 1978 he wasn't) and some more poor-quality Star Wars footage of Darth Vader that James Earl Jones overdubbed to make it relevant to this show, we finally hit the first commercial break.

Thankfully, the surviving videotape of this show preserves most (if not all) of the commercials, and they're generally more interesting than the show itself.

Okay folks, we're 20 minutes into this thing.....hang on, and we'll make it through the whole show, but it's going to take several blog entries. There's no way I can take it in all at once. I couldn't even do that in 1978.