The Star Wars Special That Aired Once and Vanished

On Friday, November 17, 1978, between 8:00 and 10:00 PM Eastern, CBS aired ninety-eight minutes of Chewbacca's family on Kashyyyk waiting for him to come home for Life Day. The show pulled around 13 million viewers and then disappeared. CBS never ran it again. Lucasfilm has never put it on a tape, a DVD, or a streaming service.

George Lucas didn't direct it. Steve Binder did, a variety-show veteran whose biggest credit was Elvis Presley's 1968 NBC comeback special. Lucas pitched the basic premise (Han and Chewie trying to make it back to Kashyyyk for a holiday) and then stepped back to focus on what became The Empire Strikes Back. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford were contractually obligated to appear, and it shows.

Most of the runtime is Chewbacca's wife Malla, his father Itchy, and his son Lumpy grunting at each other in untranslated Shyriiwook. No subtitles. Cameos include Bea Arthur as a cantina bartender, Art Carney as a smuggler, Harvey Korman in three different comic roles, and Jefferson Starship performing inside what is implied to be a piece of Wookiee pornography Itchy watches in an armchair.

The one part of the special that survived is an eleven-minute cartoon in the middle, animated by Toronto's Nelvana studio. It's the first onscreen appearance of Boba Fett, four months before The Empire Strikes Back started shooting. Disney quietly added that segment alone to Disney+ in 2021 as "The Story of the Faithful Wookiee." The other eighty-seven minutes are not there.

Lucas's later comment is now its own piece of Star Wars lore: if he had the time and a sledgehammer, he'd track down every copy and smash it. He hasn't, because the bootlegs are everywhere. The special survives the way a lot of pre-streaming TV survives: only because someone hit record.