The Donny & Marie Show Star Wars Special

Title:	The Donny & Marie Show Star Wars Special
Creator:	the producers/writers of "The Donny & Marie Show"
Date(s):	September 23, 1977
Medium:	video
Fandom:	Star Wars
Language:	English
External Links:	It can be seen on You Tube. If this link is gone, find another one.
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The Donny & Marie Show Star Wars Special was broadcast on September 23, 1977. It was a satiric tribute to Star Wars. Donny Osmond played Luke, his sister Marie played Luke's sister Leia (before fans knew the truth behind that relationship) and Kris Kristofferson was Han Solo. Other guests included Redd Foxx (from the planet Sanford, one "without a sun."), The Osmond Brothers, Paul Lynde, C3PO, R2D2, Chewbacca, Vader, and Ice Angels as sexy storm troopers.

It's length is about ten minutes.

It was made with the approval of Lucasfilm, and because of that some of the props were authentic and some actors reprised their roles.

Also see The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Reactions and Reviews

If you've sat through the Holiday Special, you probably think you've already seen Star Wars cheese, you've seen nothin' yet! Sure, the Holiday Special is bad, but it's "boring bad." You can get up in the middle of the Jefferson Starship number to fetch a beer and not miss a thing. But the Donny & Marie Show is jaw-droppingly, mind-numbingly, spine- shatteringly bad! Your eyes will be glued to the set. It's like seeing a train wreck — you can't bear to watch, yet you find you cannot look away.

I got a VHS copy 
of this seventies gem
 from a friend — I suspect it's been dubbed and redubbed a dozen times over. I'm not sure of its original air date, but I would guess sometime in 1978. [description of the 1970s snipped, scene-by-scene description of the show snipped] ... The saddest part of this whole sorry show is that they clearly had Lucas' approval. Chewie, Artoo, Threepio, Vader, stormtroopers, they've got all the authentic costumes. They also got genuine R2 beeps and Chewie growls, and even convinced Anthony Daniels to read Threepio's lines. Hey, if Lucas could approve this fiasco for the first movie, is a tie-in with America's Funniest Home Videos destined for the next trilogy? Only time will tell.

So is it bad? Of course It's one of the worst things I've ever seen in my TV-saturated life. But this thing is SO bad that it approaches "Plan 9 From Outer Space" bad, which means that, paradoxically, it's almost GOOD. Anything that can make the Holiday Special look like Citizen Kane deserves our simultaneous contempt and respect. Final grade? A solid F, but it's also a "must see."

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  first page of the "Blue Harvest" recap and review

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  second page of the "Blue Harvest" recap and review