It was the most highly anticipated event of 1978. It promised a new Star Wars story written by George Lucas and several new characters, with a few musical numbers thrown in for fun. When 13 million people eagerly tuned into CBS to watch The Star Wars Holiday Special the Friday before Thanksgiving, they were shocked - but not in a good way! It has lived on in infamy ever since.

Despite having  “Episode IV 1/2” above its title crawl, making it a canonical addition to the Skywalker saga, it manifested more as a variety show than a Star Wars adventure. It focused on Chewbacca and his family celebrating Life Day, a Wookiee holiday for giving thanks, with visits from the original cast, Imperial patrols, bizarre new aliens, and Bea Arthur. For decades, The Star Wars Holiday Special existed only in bootlegged VHS copies, but thanks to the wizardry of the internet, you can find high-quality copies of it available on Youtube. Lets see if you’re an uber fan with 10 things you didn’t know about The Star Wars Holiday Special.

IT WAS AN UNUSED PLOT GEORGE LUCAS ALREADY WROTE

The draft for the original Star Wars went through several different adaptations before George Lucas settled on the story audiences got in 1977. Something that was cut from the plot was a story Lucas had thought up in 1973, involving the planet of Kashyyyk and a family of wookiees.

In this version, the story of Luke, Han, and Leia taking on the Evil Empire as part of the Rebel Alliance was being told to a Wookiee child by its parents. Eventually the child, known as Chewbacca’s son Lumpy, would wander away from home forcing his famous furry father to find him in time for Life Day aka Wookiee Christmas.

THE TRADER WAS ALMOST LANDO

In Lucas’s early draft of Star Wars, a character like Lando Calrissian already existed. Eventually, when he realized the story was too large to be contained in one film, he wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Lando was introduced in that film, but he was based on the chatty trader we see in The Star Wars Holiday Special.

He was intended to have a good heart, but ever watchful for ways to make a buck, including gambling. Some of these traits were later passed on to Lando who, before his days as an administrator of Cloud City, was a smuggler partnering with Han Solo.

JAMES EARL JONES FINALLY GOT CREDIT FOR VOICING VADER

There have been rumors for some time that James Earl Jones didn’t want any credit for voicing Darth Vader in Star Wars, feeling that it would take away respect for the physicality of David Prowse’s performance in Vader’s costume. If you look for his name in the end credits of the 1977 film, you won’t see his name mentioned anywhere.

He did finally receive a screen credit however for lending his booming baritone to The Star Wars Holiday Special. It marks the first time he was recognized for his contribution to the Star Wars Universe, which continued in The Empire Strikes Back.

IT WAS THE DEBUT OF BOBA FETT

Casual Star Wars fans may believe that the bounty hunter Boba Fett first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, but his debut in the Star Wars Universe was actually in The Star Wars Holiday Special. He appears specifically in the special’s only animated sequence.

Initially, Boba Fett’s Mandalorian armor was going to resemble the black and white color scheme of Imperial stormtroopers, but Lucas later decided on a multi-colored look, especially given that he would be appearing in a very colorful animated portion of the show.

IT CONTAINS A WEAPON FROM THE MANDALORIAN

Jon Favreau has included all sorts of Easter Eggs for Star Wars fans in his incredibly popular series The Mandalorian. The epic space western, exclusively available on Disney+, follows a lone Mandalorian in the Outer Rim several years after Return of the Jedi.

One of the main weapons the Mandalorian uses in the series will look familiar to Star Wars fans that remember the animated sequence involving Boba Fett. The pronged Amban sniper rifle is utilized as both a long range weapon, a combat weapon, and as a means to eavesdrop on conversations. There’s even a mention of “Life Day” in the first episode!

THE CANTINA BAND MEMBERS ALMOST PASSED OUT

For the unexpected and raucous musical sequence in the Mos Eisley cantina, the band from Star Wars was rounded up to perform. Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes, the bald-headed Biths from the film once again played “Mad About Me,” over and over again.

With the silicone masks and the gloves on the musicians as they played, a full day of shooting was hard work. This meant that the musicians were prone to feeling so light headed and woozy that an oxygen tank needed to be passed around between takes to prevent them from passing out.

KENNY BAKER WASN’T INSIDE R2-D2

Though Kenny Baker had famously fit himself inside the R2-D2 costume in Star Wars and brought life to the plucky astromech droid, he wasn’t inside the R2-D2 that appeared in The Star Wars Holiday Special. Instead, R2-D2 was played by a member of the prop crew using a remote control.

The budget for the special was notoriously low, as evidenced by the state of the sets, the costumes, and the amount of matte paintings that stood in for locations. Surprisingly, they were still able to get Han, Leia, Luke, C-3PO and Chewie to be played by the original cast, despite their misgivings about the abysmal script.

CARRIE FISHER AGREED TO DO THE SPECIAL IF SHE COULD SING

Think that the idea for Princess Leia to sing was just the midi-chlorians influencing some imaginative writer? Carrie Fisher herself insisted that she be allowed to sing somewhere in The Star Wars Holiday Special, so the hymn “A Day To Celebrate” was written for her.

While Fisher’s singing is an unexpected highlight of the special, you may cringe when you realize the melody that the lyrics go to. Yes, that’s the Star Wars main theme song by John Williams, but instead of a triumphant march, it’s a schmaltzy Life Day carol.

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ANNUAL EVENT

In the negotiations with George Lucas and 20th Century Fox, CBS decided ahead of its 1978 release that The Star Wars Holiday Special would become an annual event. Each year, Lucas would oversee new further adventures in the Star Wars Universe between the films he was making.

Unfortunately for CBS the special bombed hard, and it may have had something to do with the fact that Lucas wasn’t around enough to oversee it come to fruition. He was off doing pre-production for The Empire Strikes Back in 1978, and the final version of the special strayed very far from his original writings save the focus on a Wookiee family.

IT HAS A LEGACY IN POP CULTURE DESPITE NEVER BEING OFFICIALLY RELEASED

For most Star Wars fans, if you didn’t catch the event in 1978 on CBS, you didn’t see it. It wasn’t until bootleg copies got distributed that future generations ever got to witness it, as George Lucas never allowed any form of The Star Wars Holiday Special to be released officially.

Some toys and merchandise actually exist for it, but they’re more “promotional” than anything else. Still, certain aspects from it can be seen in pop culture such as The Simpsons, and even in further Star Wars adventures, like the dwellings on Kashyyyk Lucas utilized in Revenge of the Sith.