In the storyline that ties the special together, following the events of the original film, Chewbacca and Han Solo attempt to visit the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk to celebrate "Life Day".

The program also features the rest of the main Star Wars characters, including Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader and Princess Leia, all portrayed by the original cast (except R2-D2, who is simply billed as "himself").

The program includes footage from the 1977 film and a cartoon produced by Toronto-based Nelvana featuring the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

The special was very poorly received, and has never been rebroadcast nor officially released on home video in any format in its entirety (save for its more favorably-received cartoon segment).

It has been viewed and distributed in off-air recordings of the original 1978 CBS television broadcast by fans as bootleg copies, and it has also been uploaded to content-sharing websites.

Hoping to find the Millennium Falcon, his wife, Malla, runs a computer scan for starships in the area but is unsuccessful.

Saun arrives with Life Day gifts for everyone, including a virtual reality fantasy program (featuring Diahann Carroll) for Itchy.

While the Imperials are searching downstairs, the living room viewscreen activates, announcing that Tatooine is being put under curfew by the Empire because of "subversive forces".

The video is announced as required viewing for all Imperial forces and much of it features Ackmena (Bea Arthur) running the Mos Eisley cantina.

[3] Because James Earl Jones was originally uncredited in Star Wars, the special marked the first time he was credited as the voice of Darth Vader.

[2] According to Charles Lippincott, who was head of marketing of the Star Wars Corporation, CBS brought the idea of doing a TV special to him and Lucas, although there is some internal dispute about this claim.

[11] Acomba, a classmate of George Lucas at USC film school, was unfamiliar with a multiple-camera setup, which caused some problems.

Acomba also felt that there was a divide between himself and the producers, and chose to leave the project after finishing only a few scenes, including the cantina and Jefferson Starship.

[13] The special was broadcast in its entirety in the United States only once, on Friday, November 17, 1978 (the week before Thanksgiving), on the television network CBS from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (EST), pre-empting Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk leading to the latter shows' episodes to be aired that day to instead be shown a week later.

[16] He also performs two solo routines: one as Chef Gormaanda, a four-armed parody of Julia Child[16] (the four arms allow her to work much faster than Malla can keep up with) and one as a malfunctioning Amorphian android named Dromboid in an instruction video watched by Lumpy.

Art Carney has a more integral role in the story,[16] playing a trader named Saun Dann on Kashyyyk who is a member of the rebellion and helps Chewie's family.

His segments are also largely played for laughs and at one point includes a scene alluding to his character Ed Norton from The Honeymooners, where an Imperial officer demands that he "get on with it" while Carney dallies with a prop, thus introducing the Jefferson Starship performance.

The high point of the special is generally considered to be the animated segment known as "The Faithful Wookiee",[17] which is the first official Star Wars cartoon.

[29] Writing for Fatherly, Nathan Rabin says the cartoon segment is singular compared to the rest of the special in that it "feels worthy of being canon and not a hypnotically insane aberration.

[36]In 2006, Harrison Ford made an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and jokingly did not even acknowledge its existence at first when asked about it, then saying that he had never seen it.

[43] Despite only airing once on television, bootleg recordings of the special uploaded to the Internet led to it becoming a cult classic among Star Wars fans.

[14] The cartoon segment appeared as an Easter egg on the 2011 Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray set, making it the only portion of the special to be officially released in any home video format.

Toronto CTV station CFTO-TV aired the program at 7 pm, an hour earlier than seen on the nearest American outlet, WIVB-TV in Buffalo, New York.

These placed all elements referred to in other works, such as Life Day and Chewbacca's family members, in an intermediary level of canon.

[61] A hologram circus similar to the one used by Lumpy was used in "This Could Be a Real Adventure", the first episode of another canonical live-action series, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024).

After being introduced by the special, the character Boba Fett and the planet Kashyyyk have gone on to play integral roles in the franchise, making their first film appearances in The Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith, respectively.

[85] In the 2006 music video accompanying the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "White & Nerdy", the main character is seen buying a bootlegged version of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

[86] In 2007, the comedy troupe RiffTrax, which is composed of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy and Michael J. Nelson, released a parody commentary on the special including the original commercial breaks.

The same day, io9 announced that Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak were directing a documentary about the making of the special titled A Disturbance in the Force.

It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and director James Gunn has cited the Star Wars special as its main inspiration.