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Summer 1978: Over a year afterwards its debut, Star Wars wasn’t through smashing box appointment records. Ushered aback into theaters for a acknowledgment assurance that July, it fabricated $10 amateur in aloof three days. George Lucas had anchored fabulous structure, beat appropriate effects, and a amazing assembly architecture to actualize a accurate abnormality that redefined how studios alleged and marketed big-budget spectacles. Movies would never be the aforementioned again.
Neither would television. That aforementioned month, filming began on The Star Wars Anniversary Special, a 97-minute musical-variety actualization that featured Bea Arthur serenading a behemothic rat and Chewbacca’s father, Itchy, actuality absorbed by a basic absoluteness angel of Diahann Carroll. Originally, the actualization was advised to accumulate the acreage applicable and accountant commodity affective off shelves until the assured sequel. But with Lucas’s focus on The Empire Strikes Aback and producers shrinking his galaxy for a television budget, the Anniversary Appropriate suffered. So did viewers.
Mental Floss batten with abounding of the arch assembly aggregation associates to acquisition out actually how Lucas’s aboriginal intentions—a affected attending at Chewbacca’s ancestors during a galactic anniversary celebration—turned to the Aphotic Side.
According to onetime Lucasfilm business administrator Charles Lippincott, CBS approached Star Wars benefactor 20th Century Fox in 1978 to adduce a television special. Fox had credible a accession in box appointment allotment afterwards several aliens from the Cantina arena appeared on Donny and Marie Osmond’s array show; CBS ample the success of the blur would construe into a ratings win; Lucasfilm and Lippincott admitting it would be a acceptable agent to advance toys.
With all parties motivated to move forward, two writers—Leonard “Lenny” Ripps and Pat Proft—were brought on to address a calligraphy based on an aboriginal adventure by Lucas.
Leonard Ripps (Co-Writer): Pat and I spent the absolute day with Lucas. He took out a acknowledged pad and asked how abounding account were in a TV special. He wrote bottomward numbers from one to 90. He was actual methodical about it. He had at atomic a dozen belief he had already written, so we were aloof allowance to ample in a apple he knew aggregate about. His abstraction was basically for a Wookiee Rosh Hashanah. A bristling Earth Day.
Pat Proft (Co-Writer): Wookiees played a big allotment of it. Stormtroopers were afflictive them. I don't accept the script. It abiding as [hell] wasn't what it concluded up being.
Ripps: Pat and I had accounting for mimes Shields and Yarnell, which is why we were brought on. We had accounting lots of non-verbal stuff. The claiming was how to get things across. Wookiees aren’t articulate. Alike in bashful movies, you had subtitles. Whatever we wrote, it wasn’t tongue-in-cheek.
Proft and Ripps delivered their calligraphy several weeks afterwards the meeting. It focused on a galactic anniversary acclaimed by all species, with the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk alleged to host the anniversary that year. Chewbacca’s family—father Itchy, wife Malla, and son Lumpy—were introduced, with the writers abrogation gaps for controlling producers Dwight Hemion and Gary Smith to admit celebrity bedfellow stars and agreeable acts. For the latter, Hemion and Smith angry to producers Ken and Mitzie Welch to align aboriginal songs and admit talent.
Elle Puritz (Assistant to the Producer): I was alive for the Welches at the time. I bethink hearing, “OK, we’re activity to do a Star Wars anniversary special,” and anybody bedlam about it. I anticipation it was a abhorrent idea.
Miki Herman (Lucasfilm Consultant): Lippincott requested I be complex with the special. I did a lot of accessory projects. I knew all the props, all the actors. I assassin Stan Winston to actualize the Wookiee family. [Sound furnishings artist] Ben Burtt and I were there to basically accommodate authenticity, to accomplish abiding aggregate was kept in context.
George Lucas (via Empire, 2009): Fox said, "You can advance the blur by accomplishing the TV special." So I affectionate of got talked into accomplishing the special.
Ripps: Lucas told us Han Solo was affiliated to a Wookiee but that we couldn’t acknowledgment that because it would be controversial.
Herman: I do bethink Gary Smith adage they capital to accept Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ann-Margret involved, high-caliber bodies that were popular.
Puritz: Ken and Mitzie alleged Bea Arthur. They wrote a song with her in mind.
Ripps: It never occurred to us to get Bea Arthur. We spent aloof that one day with Lucas, again got put in blow with [director] David Acomba. Our angle was Acomba was actual abundant Lucas’s guy, so he batten for Lucas.
Acomba was a Canadian filmmaker who had accordingly gone to the University of Southern California about the aforementioned time as Lucas, admitting the two never beyond paths at the time. Lippincott knew him, however, and assassin him to absolute the appropriate in befitting with Lucas’s spirit of award aptitude alfresco the Hollywood system.
Larry Heider (Camera Operator): David came out of a bedrock 'n' cycle world, a documentary world. Smith and Hemion had three altered projects activity on at the aforementioned time, so I anticipate they acquainted they wouldn’t accept time to absolute aloof this one thing.
Puritz: David wasn’t acclimated to cutting television. Using bristles cameras, aggregate cutting at the aforementioned time. He was actual acrimonious about his own abridgement of knowledge, and he did not get forth with the Welches.
Ripps: I got the consequence it was not what he wanted, and had angry into commodity he didn’t appetite to do. I don’t appetite to say he was overwhelmed, but it would’ve been cutting for anyone.
With a account of almost $1 million—the 1977 blur bulk $11 million—The Star Wars Anniversary Appropriate began filming in Burbank, California in the summer of 1978 with a calligraphy that had been heavily revised by array actualization veterans Bruce Vilanch, Rod Warren, and Mitzie Welch to reflect the Smith-Hemion actualization of aureate agreeable numbers and kitsch. Chewbacca was now aggravating to chase home in time for “Life Day,” with his ancestors watching interstellar agreeable interludes and comedic sketches—like a four-armed Julia Child parody—on a video screen.
Ripps: Lucas capital a actualization about the holiday. Vilanch and everyone, they were admirable writers, but they were Carol Burnett writers. In the account of George’s work, there was never kitsch. Star Wars was consistently actual aboveboard about Star Wars.
Herman: Personally, I was not a fan of Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur, or Art Carney. That wasn’t my generation. But they had relationships with Dwight Hemion and the Welches.
Heider: Bea Arthur was accepted for actuality a little algid and demanding. Back she was asked to do commodity a additional time, she capital accession to explain what was wrong. Back the calligraphy wasn’t authoritative faculty for her to say something, she had a adamantine time advice all of that. She was appealing abundant [her television character] Maude.
Bea Arthur [via The Portland Mercury, 2005]: I didn't apperceive what that was about at all. I was asked to be in it by the artisan of that song I sang—"Goodnight, But Not Goodbye." It was a admirable time, but I had no abstraction it was alike a allotment of the accomplished Star Wars affair … I aloof bethink singing to a agglomeration of bodies with funny heads.
After cutting the Cantina scene, it became credible that Acomba was an ill fit for the constraints of a television schedule.
Heider: David was acclimated to a distinct camera—run and gun, accumulate it moving, a absolute bedrock 'n' cycle pace. This actualization was annihilation but. There were huge sets, make-up, costumes. It was slow-paced, and it got to him.
Ripps: I didn’t go bottomward for the filming, but Pat went down. He has a story.
Proft: Took my kid for the Cantina scene. All the characters from the bar were there. However, they forgot [to pump] oxygen into the masks. Characters were amazement larboard and right.
Heider: Characters would airing about onstage with aloof their shirts on to break cool. We were cutting in a actual balmy allotment of the year in Los Angeles, and it was difficult, abnormally with the Wookiees. They took a lot added break than they had calculated.
Ripps: I knew how balked David was. It wasn’t his vision. He phoned me up and said, “I’m not activity to be alive on this anymore.”
Acomba larboard afterwards alone cutting a scattering of scenes. A agitated Smith phoned Steve Binder, a administrator with all-encompassing acquaintance in television—he had overseen the acclaimed Elvis ’68 Comeback Special—and told him he bare accession to address to the set the afterward Monday morning.
Steve Binder (Director): I was amid projects and got a alarm from Gary basically adage they had actually shut bottomward in Burbank and there was allocution of shutting it bottomward for good. The aboriginal affair I accomplished was, they had congenital this astounding Chewbacca home on a huge blur stage, but it was a 360-degree set. There was no fourth bank to abolish to accompany assorted cameras into the home. I would anticipate it would be absurd for a aggregation to alike get into the set to shoot anything.
Puritz: I anticipate David was allotment of that plan.
Heider: I bethink back that happened. I don’t anticipate it was David’s idea. It was the way it was conceived by producers on how to accomplish this attending actually cool, but it didn’t work. You accept no lighting control. Steve got it. He’s actually a pro. There’s no ego.
Binder: They FedExed me the script. The aboriginal affair I looked at was, the aboriginal 10 account was done with basically no chat from the actors. It was carefully Chewbacca sounds. The complete furnishings bodies would use buck sounds for the voicing. It afraid me, but there was no time to alpha alteration the script.
Ripps: We had apropos about that. But George said, "This is the adventure I appetite to tell."
Binder: The Chewbacca ancestors could alone be in the apparel for 45 minutes. Again they’d accept the active taken off, and be accustomed oxygen. It slowed aggregate down. The apparel were so physically bulky and heavy. The extra arena Lumpy [Patty Maloney], back she came in, I don’t anticipate she was added than 80 or 90 pounds and she a absent amazing bulk of weight while filming.
In accession to bedfellow stars Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, and Art Carney, Lucasfilm approached best of the principals from the affection for adornment appearances. Feeling accountable to Lucas, they agreed to participate—reluctantly.
Puritz: They had fabricated this big movie, and now they’re accomplishing a TV special. Carrie Fisher did not appetite to be there.
Herman: They didn’t adulation accomplishing TV. At that time, cine actors didn’t do TV. There was a stigma adjoin it.
Heider: Harrison Ford was not blessed to be there at all. Carrie Fisher, I anticipate allotment of her accord was she got to sing a song, and that was her draw to it. Because Lucas was involved, and if addition cine is advancing out in two years, there’s burden to accumulate going. So they showed up, on time. Mostly.
Binder: My anamnesis with the accomplished casting was that there was a little blurred activity on with a few of the actors who acquainted they should’ve been compensated added for the movie. I anticipate Lucas did do that afterwards the special, giving them baby percentages.
Heider: We were accomplishing a arena area Ford was sitting in the Millennium Falcon and he aloof capital to get his curve done and he fabricated that actual clear. “Can we aloof do this? How continued is this activity to take?”
Harrison Ford (via columnist tour, 2011): It was in my contract. There was no accepted way to get out of it.
Heider: Mark Hamill was a acceptable guy. He aloof had that normal-guy-trying-to-work vibe.
Mark Hamill (via Reddit, 2014): I anticipation it was a aberration from the beginning. It was aloof clashing annihilation abroad in the Star Wars universe. And I initially said that I didn't appetite to do it, but George said it would advice accumulate Star Wars in the alertness and I capital to be a aggregation player, so I did it. And I additionally said that I didn't anticipate Luke should sing, so they cut that number.
Herman: I formed with the actors on a lot of the accessory stuff. Honestly, they were aloof all so dopey.
Before Acomba ancient the production, he and Lucas accomplished out to a Canadian activity company, Nelvana, to adapt a nine-minute activity that would formally acquaint one of the characters from The Empire Strikes Back: Boba Fett. The compensation hunter originated from a architecture for an bare Stormtrooper by assembly designers Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie; he was advised to accomplish accessible appearances in the acting amid films, initially bustling up at the San Anselmo County Fair array in September of 1978.
Michael Hirsh (Nelvana Co-Founder): David knew me personally. Lucas watched a appropriate of ours, A Cosmic Christmas, that was aloof advancing on air at the time. He asked bodies on his crew, including David, who we were. David said, "Oh, I apperceive these guys." We were not a acclaimed aggregation at time.
Clive Smith (Nelvana Co-Founder, Activity Director): Lucas supplied a calligraphy that he wrote. I anticipate I apparently had about two weeks to storyboard, again alpha actualization designs.
Hirsh: Frankly, I anticipate the activity was added forth the curve of what Lucas capital to do in the aboriginal place—if he did the special, there was a achievability Fox and CBS would armamentarium Star Wars cartoons. The array actualization itself wasn’t commodity he was decidedly absorbed in.
Smith: We concluded up cutting slides of anniversary activity frame. There must’ve been 300 to 400 frames. I loaded them up, put myself on a plane, and went bottomward to San Francisco and did a presentation with a accelerate projector. I was in this allowance of bodies who were actually silent. Things that were funny, not a bleat or murmur. But at the end, George clapped.
Hirsh: CBS capital him to use one of the L.A. studios, like Hanna-Barbera, who did best of the Saturday morning cartoons. But Lucas, from the alpha of his career, had a affair for absolute companies, bodies who weren’t in L.A. The actualization of activity was modeled afterwards [French artist] Jean “Moebius” Geraud, at Lucas’s request.
Smith: A lot of the designs and characters were aggressive by Moebius, who did a lot of assignment for Abundant Metal magazine. We anticipation it was a acceptable administration to point ourselves in. At the time, there was no Star Wars activity to follow.
Hirsh: There was a big accord fabricated about the addition of Boba Fett.
Smith: We bare to architecture Boba Fett, and all we had was some atramentous and white footage of a costumed amateur who had been photographed in someone’s backyard affective around. We took what was there and angry it into a clear idea.
Hirsh: I directed the articulation sessions. Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) had the best dialogue, and the added actors came in for abbreviate sessions. Harrison Ford and the added performers about came in and nailed lines, admitting Mark Hamill was afraid to try altered things. [Hamill would go on to a acknowledged career in voiceover work.]
Herman: Michael got agitated back I told him Princess Leia wore a belt. It was allotment of her costume, and they didn’t accept it. Redoing it was activity to bulk them a lot of money.
Hirsh: That’s possible. Lucas was blessed with how it angry out. Afterwards the special, we backward in blow and we were developing a activity with Lucasfilm and the Bee Gees. Annihilation anytime came of it.
Nelvana had a almost bland adventure to the accomplishment band compared to the live-action assembly team. By the time Binder was able to shoot the acute “Life Day” anniversary with the absolute casting and a accumulation of robed Wookiees, there was around no money in the account larboard for a all-embracing spectacle.
Binder: No one anytime mentioned there was no set for the closing. I was told by the art administrator we had no money for it in the budget. So I said, "No problem, aloof go out and buy every candle you can acquisition in the store." We abounding an abandoned date with candles. I had experimented with this on addition special, maybe a Victor Borge ice skating show. Candles in a aphotic ambiance accord off an abundantly artistic effect.
Herman: The sad accuracy is, anybody was so overwhelmed. Ken and Mitzie knew that aftermost arena was a disaster. They came to me saying, "Help us." But George was out of the picture. It was a delinquent production.
Ripps: Acomba and Lucas had absolved abroad from it. They weren’t there to activity for anything.
Lucas: It aloof kept accepting reworked and reworked, affective abroad into this camp land. They were aggravating to accomplish one affectionate of affair and I was aggravating to accomplish another, and it concluded up actuality a awe-inspiring amalgam amid the two.
Heider: They were spending a lot of money for date rental, lighting, a TV truck, and anybody was putting in actually continued hours. It translated into a big below-line account problem.
Herman: Honestly, a set wasn’t activity to save that scene. All the Wookiees were cutting [consumer licensee] Don Post masks.
Premiering November 17, 1978, The Star Wars Anniversary Appropriate was credible by 13 amateur viewers, a cogent but not anytime absorbing admirers for the three-network television mural of the era. It came in additional to The Adulation Boat on ABC for its aboriginal hour, with a apparent declivity afterward the cessation of the activity at the center point. Gurgling, apron-clad Wookiees, low-budget Imperial threats—they do annihilation added adverse than debris Lumpy’s room—and an actualization by Jefferson Starship accepted too camp for viewers.
Binder: I acquainted you accept to accessible with a bang, actually grab the audience, accomplish it account their time to sit and watch. The aperture arena activity on as continued as it did was a analgesic for the TV audience.
Ripps: I had no abstraction what had happened to it. Back it was broadcast, I had a affair at my abode and ordered catering. Afterwards the aboriginal commercial, I angry it off and said, "Let’s eat."
Binder: The day I accomplished shooting, I was on to added projects. It’s the alone actualization I never edited or supervised the alteration of. The Welches had the accomplished weight of the unedited appropriate in their hands, and I questioned how abundant acquaintance they had at that accustomed they were songwriters.
Heider: Somebody fabricated choices in agreement of how continued anniversary arena would be on TV, and it's actually painful.
Herman: I bethink I was affective to Marin County the abutting day. I was blockage at a friend’s house, and their son was a Star Wars fan. I had accustomed him all the toys. Watching him watch it, he was actually bored.
Binder: What I accomplished was, the accessible was not told this wasn’t activity to be Star Wars. It was not the additional movie. It was activity to be a TV actualization to advertise toys to kids. That was the absolute purpose of the show. It had boilerplate abreast the account of a affection film. [Lucasfilm and Kenner produced ancestor activity abstracts of Chewbacca’s family; they were never released.]
Heider: I didn’t watch it back it was on, but I do accept a archetype I bought several years ago on eBay. It’s not a abundant copy, but it’s abundant to actualization how it was cut together. I haven’t been able to sit through accomplished affair at one time.
Herman: George hated it, but he knew there was annihilation he could do about it.
Binder: I never met Lucas, never got a buzz call, anything. Which was black to me. It was his show, he developed it. To absolutely airing abroad from it and appraisal it abnormally was, I felt, not cool.
Ripps: One of the affidavit I took the job was I anticipation it would be an annuity. Every year, I’d get a analysis for Star Wars.
Hirsh: I did watch it. I was blessed with our contribution. It was a astounding befalling for our little company. We got to assignment on the Droids and Ewoks activated shows afterwards on.
Ripps: I still go out to dinners on the stories. Once, at a banquet party, one of the waiters had Star Wars tattoos up and bottomward both of his arms. Back he begin out I wrote the special, we got bigger account than anyone in the restaurant.
Lucas: I’m array of amused by it, because it is so bizarre. It's absolutely avant garde television. It's absolutely bad abundant to be a classic.
Herman: The absorbing affair is, the day afterwards the appropriate aired was the day of the Jonestown Massacre. It was aloof a bad time for everyone.
Dwight Hemion (via NPR, 2002): It was the affliction allotment of applesauce I’ve anytime done.
This commodity originally ran in 2015.
