Classics Did The Holiday Special seem like a good idea back in 1978?

I always thought that there must have been a reason other than money that justified the creation of The Holiday Special. Did it really seem like a good idea back then, or was it made purely because of money?

 

I honestly think it might have been a drunken George Lucas idea. Like, he got together with some producer and got smashed, and they got him to sign an agreement to make a holiday special.

 

It was made becuase they wanted to keep the hype going between ANH and TESB. George was not very involved in the project at all.

 

I think they were banking on keeping up the hype for TESB. The money trail would seem to be convoluted. CBS could not have done it without the permission of Lucas/20th Century folks so CBS maybe had to pay, but were relying on the popularity of SW to woo advertisers thereby recouping their costs.

OR- Fox/Lucas wrote it off and let them do it thinking it would keep the spirit alive between films and that would pay dividends on the back end.

The thing to remember is we are looking at this in the rear view mirror. There were no tent-pole franchises and sweeping phenoms before this so they managed it, for good or bad the only way they knew. They could have done nothing between 77 and TESB and it would have been just as big a hit and money maker.

 

Lots of coke and I dont mean the soft drink.

More seriously, I kinda liked the Holiday Special despite it was all over the place and crazy.

 

There's a superb behind-the-scenes piece somewhere out there on the origins of the Holiday Special I saw once. I can't find it off the top of my head, but from the sound of it a fair number of people did in fact have hopes for it that went beyond money.

 

I just showed my fiancée this for the fist time... I loved seeing it again, she got weirded out lol. I thought it was cool, but I am a fanboy to the max. It had to seem like a good idea though, my dad and grandma know all of the guest stars in it so they must have had to pay a pretty penny to involve them.

 

It would not be the worst thing ever if they had fixed the wookie bits.

 

Yes, before everybody saw it.

But I'm still waiting for my Blu-ray release with deleted scenes.

 

Extended directors cut right?

 

Extended complete final ultimate director’s never-before-seen special edition cut.

 

Wish I had a copy of the HS on blu ray.
It's a pretty neat show. We get to see lotsa cool stuff and Carrie sings us a lovely song too which is so wonderful.

 

I think that was shown during the tail end of the popularity of musical specials on TV.

 

The idea was to give a short special for the fans along the lines of typical TV shows of the time. It just ended up being a bit more corny than I think they intended it to be.