History YMMV / TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial

* NightmareFuel: Say what you will about the Special itself, but it does portray the Empire in a very dark light. Family home viewscreens have a dedicated channel to receive Imperial announcements, Imperial Officers can harass and steal from private citizens, Martial Law can and is declared, entire populations are put under curfew, and troops can perform unreasonable search and seize of private property.

* UncannyValley:

* FanonDiscontinuity: If there's one thing all fans and creators of ''Star Wars'' can agree on, it's that this thing ''never happened''. Of all the things that Lucas himself declared [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]], well before Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the special was the only one that didn't contradict the Original Trilogy. [[note]](Technically, it was listed as "Secondary Canon"; despite the name, this was the fourth level of canonicity, as low as you could go without being outright non-canon. At the time, Secondary Canon was to be "used or ignored as suits the author". Basically, the special was adopted as canon by way of BroadStrokes - Luke, Han, and Leia all came to visit Chewie's family on Life Day, but they most certainly ''did not take part in a crappy variety show as they did so!'')[[/note]] It was also very deliberately excluded from the Disney canon, [[CanonImmigrant with the apparent exception of Chewie's family]] according to ''Literature/AftermathEmpiresEnd''. The four-armed chef woman played by Harvey Korman is also mentioned in ''Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook''.

** Harvey Korman crossdressing as the alien chef. His layers of makeup and ''very'' fake-looking hair make him look like an EldritchAbomination.

** Harvey Korman's outfit as the alien chef is quite the unholy abomination.

* UnfortunateCharacterDesign: The makeup on Harvey Korman as the chef makes it look like he's wearing {{blackface}}.

* FanonDiscontinuity: If there's one thing all fans and creators of ''Star Wars'' can agree on, it's that this thing ''never happened''. Of all the things that Lucas himself declared [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]], well before Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the special was the only one that didn't contradict the Original Trilogy. [[note]](Technically, it was listed as "Secondary Canon"; despite the name, this was the fourth level of canonicity, as low as you could go without being outright non-canon. At the time, Secondary Canon was to be "used or ignored as suits the author". Basically, the special was adopted as canon by way of BroadStrokes - Luke, Han, and Leia all came to visit Chewie's family on Life Day, but they most certainly ''did not take part in a crappy variety show as they did so!'')[[/note]] It was also very deliberately excluded from the Disney canon, [[CanonImmigrant with the apparent exception of Chewie's family]] according to ''Literature/AftermathEmpiresEnd''.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Leia singing the song for Life Day (the Wookiee equivalent of Christmas) might be {{Narm}}y, cheesy, and/or cringe-inducing, but it becomes ''brutally'' ironic after Creator/CarrieFisher suffered a heart attack two days before Christmas 2016, spent the next four days in a coma before dying, and [[Creator/DebbieReynolds her mother]] died (apparently of [[DeathByDespair despair]]) the day after that.

* {{Padding}}: One theory is that the special was originally to be one hour but [[ScrewedByTheNetwork CBS wanted to sell more advertising]], so they [[ExecutiveMeddling insisted]] that it be expanded to two hours. That would explain some of the more ludicrous scenes.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: While Ackmena is consider to be one of the few standouts of the Special, she still has a big portion of screentime in what's arguably one of the most infamous cases of BileFascination and some fans won't forgive her for that. The division arises over whether she's just the least awful part of the special but still bad, or a legitimate and enjoyable character in a segment of what's otherwise the worst piece of ''Star Wars'' media ever made.

** The animated segment as a whole - looking at you, [[EnsembleDarkhorse Boba Fett]].

* NarmCharm: Ackmena's song at the end feels a bit random and out of place in ''Star Wars'', but's a competent and moving song that most fans actually likes.

** While the premise was as silly as the rest of it, Bea Arthur's performance as Ackmena is actually somewhat moving. Sadly, it doesn't save the rest of the thing's horribleness.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Ackmena, Creator/BeaArthur's character, is considered to be the most interesting character created for the special. While she doesn't appear for very long, the Expanded Universe (both before and after Disney acquired Lucasfilm) took her along for the ride.

** Creator/BeaArthur, alone among all the big-name guest stars. To her credit, she's talented enough to elevate her sequence into something watchable and almost poignant. She was also no stranger to variety shows of the era, so she knew how to adapt her DeadpanSnarker mode to the role. Her own comment on the special years later was that she hadn't been keeping up with ''Franchise/StarWars'' and its massive cultural impact at the time, thinking of the gig as just singing a musical number to "a bunch of people with funny heads."

* TheWoobie: Krelman, Harvey Korman's character in the cantina scene. Yes, he's a bit weird with his head hole, but he's so sincere and so lonely, he evokes sympathy almost accidentally. Cantina barmaid Ackmena and her customers as a whole also fit the bill.

** Just about every dancer in every sequence they appear, as they all look like Las Vegas showgirls.

* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Creator/BeaArthur, alone among all the big-name guest stars. To her credit, she's talented enough to elevate her sequence into something watchable and almost poignant. She was also no stranger to variety shows of the era, so she knew how to adapt her DeadpanSnarker mode to the role. Her own comment on the special years later was that she hadn't been keeping up with ''Franchise/StarWars'' and its massive cultural impact at the time, thinking of the gig as just singing a musical number to "a bunch of people with funny heads."

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* BaseBreakingCharacter: While Ackmena is consider to be one of the few standouts of the Special, she's still has a big portion of screentime in what's arguably one of the most infamous cases of BileFascination and some fans won't forgive her for that. The division arises over whether she just the least awful part of the special but still bad, or a legitimate and enjoyable character in a segment in what's otherwise the worst piece of ''Star Wars'' media ever made.
* BileFascination: ''Infamously so'', thanks in no small part to its underground status and the hatred it has received from [[CreatorBacklash George Lucas]] himself and some of those involved. Those who've seen it no doubt consider it a miracle that the franchise survived this trainwreck.

* CommonKnowledge: Although almost universally considered such, this was ''not'' a ChristmasSpecial and is not, and has never been called the ''Star Wars Christmas Special''. It actually first (and last) aired the week before American Thanksgiving; more than six weeks before Christmas. Life Day does have some similar elements to Christmas and a few later international broadcasts did apparently air the special on Christmas, so this may have resulted in the association.

** The animated segment served as the introduction of Boba Fett, the biggest ensemble darkhorse of ''Franchise/StarWars'' in general. So much, in fact, that despite Lucasfilm wanting to forget about the special, the cartoon found its way onto one of the ''Complete Saga'' Blu-Ray discs as an EasterEgg.
** Ackmena, even moreso since Creator/BeaArthur's death. People who work on the ''Star Wars'' franchise loved her so much that they added her to the Expanded Universe, [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ackmena wherein she's stated to have gone on to join a group dedicated to freeing Tatooine slaves]]. She even made the transition to existing in the new canon after appearing in the ''Complete Locations'' reference book, and appears as a supporting character in the short story anthology ''Literature/FromACertainPointOfView''.

** The whole special is memetic in how awful it is. George Lucas' seething hatred of it is also rather memetic.

** The Wookiees congregating to celebrate Life Day all wear bright red nightgowns that make it look like they're all wearing ''Snuggies''....Or like members of a cult. Didn't stop Creator/BioWare from putting them into ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' years later.
** Harvey Korman's outfit as the alien chef is quite the unholy aberration.

** Just about every dancer in every sequence they appear, as they all look like Las Vegas showgirls.
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* BaseBreakingCharacter : While Ackmena is consider to be one of the few standouts of the Special, she's still has a big portion of screentime in what's arguably one of the most infamous cases of BileFascination and some fans won't forgive her for that. The division arises over whether she just the least awful part of the special but still bad, or a legitimate and enjoyable character in a segment in what's otherwise the worst piece of ''Star Wars'' media ever made.

* MisBlamed: Some fans blame Lucas for the quality of this, but in reality he had very little involvement due to working on ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' at the time. Whether he still deserves some of the blame, however, is hotly debated. According to writer Bruce Vilanch, the idea of the special focusing on Chewie's family, and ''not'' including subtitles, was all on Lucas. Lucas had one of his trusted former USC classmates, David Acomba, installed as director to make sure that the special would be at least somewhat faithful to the original film. Unfortunately, Acomba didn't really have much experience with multicam video production, and quit after disagreements with the producers. They replaced him with Steve Binder, whose specialty was light entertainment (his big career highlights were the 1968 ''Music/ElvisNBCTVSpecial'' and, later, ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse''). Binder says Lucas never really communicated with him about the show. On the other hand, writer Pat Proft says Lucas signed off on ''everything'', which is believable due to Lucas being a ControlFreak.

* BaseBreakingCharacter : While Ackmena is consider to be one of the few standouts of the Special, she's still has a big portion of screentime in what's arguably one of the most infamous cases of BileFascination and some fans won't forgive her for that, the division rises in whatever she just the least awful part of the special but still bad or a legitimate enjoyable character and segment in what's otherwise easily the worst piece of ''Star Wars'' media ever made.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** Itchy's "Holographic ''Wow''" features a "[[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} proton pack]]". Yep, you might say "[[ADateWithRosiePalms bustin' makes him feel good]]."
** Han's infamous stretched face in the animated segment became even funnier when, in the Sequel Trilogy, his son was played by the long-faced Creator/AdamDriver.
** Ackmena's refusals toward Krelman's advances and the shot of him offering the flowers to her can be a bit funnier now that in canon, she's been stated to have a wife, precluding her from being interested in him both by relationship status and likely [[AdaptationalSexuality her orientation]] as well. We never see how she reacts to this last attempt at wooing her, but it can now be assumed it didn't go well for Krelman.
** ''Film/{{Solo}}''[='s=] second trailer featured a shot of Chewie giving a HeadbuttOfLove to a (presumably) female Wookiee just like he does with Malla at the end of the special. Cue jokesters around the internet questioning whether this means that Malla (and presumably, the rest of his family) is now canon.
** Some aspects of Boba in the animated segment and even the concept of Life Day was made either referenced or made canon in the Disney+ Show ''Series/TheMandalorian'' much to the bemusement of most fans.
** Speaking of ''The Mandalorian'': the scene in the ''Holiday Special'' where C-3PO laments that he and R2-D2 aren't actually "alive" can feel a bit tasteless considering [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots their clear humanity and depth of character]] in the films - but it does oddly foreshadow a scene in the ''Mandalorian'' episode "Redemption", where IG-11 acknowledging that he is "not a living thing" results in a much more heartwarming scene.

* FanonDiscontinuity: If there's one thing all fans and creators of ''Star Wars'' can agree on, it's that this thing ''never fucking happened''. Of all the things that Lucas himself declared [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]], well before Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the special was the only one that didn't contradict the Original Trilogy. [[note]](Technically, it was listed as "Secondary Canon"; despite the name, this was the fourth level of canonicity, as low as you could go without being outright non-canon. At the time, Secondary Canon was to be "used or ignored as suits the author". Basically, the special was adopted as canon by way of BroadStrokes - Luke, Han, and Leia all came to visit Chewie's family on Life Day, but they most certainly ''did not take part in a crappy variety show as they did so!'')[[/note]] It was also very deliberately excluded from the Disney canon, [[CanonImmigrant with the apparent exception of Chewie's family]] according to ''Literature/AftermathEmpiresEnd''.

--->'''[[Podcast/{{Rifftrax}} Bill Corbett]]:''' Han, all the blood drained to your chin!
--->'''WebVideo/JonTron:''' As you can see, in this timeline, Han didn't make it out of the trash compactor in time.

--->'''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic:''' Who the hell designed that thing? He looks like a cross between Disney/{{Cinderella}}'s stepmother and that robot maid from ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons''!

* SnarkBait: Many, many opportunities for this. Did we mention Bea Arthur is the cantina owner?

* FanonDiscontinuity: If there's one thing all fans and creators of ''Star Wars'' can agree on, it's that this thing ''never fucking happened''. Of all the things that Lucas himself declared [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]], well before Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the special was the only one that didn't contradict the Original Trilogy. [[note]](Technically, it was listed as "Secondary Canon"; despite the name, this was the fourth level of canonicity, as low as you could go without being outright non-canon. At the time, Secondary Canon was to be "used or ignored as suits the author". Basically, the special was adopted as canon by way of BroadStrokes - Luke, Han, and Leia all came to visit Chewie's family on Life Day, but they most certainly ''did not take part in a crappy variety show as they did so!'')[[/note]] It was also very deliberately excluded from the Disney canon.