Steam Wars Holiday Special

To honor Star Wars Day, Four Color Holidays has trotted out a rare treat from Antarctic Press published in 2013.

Steam Wars Holiday Special is a parody of the Star Wars Holiday Special – if that’s possible.

Instead of Wookies, readers receive bears. Instead of Life Day readers get A Day of Life. More importantly readers only waste a few minutes of their life rather than two hours as with the 1978 television follow up to Star Wars.

Gone is the variety show format that dominated prime time specials of the 1970s. Steam Wars sheds the dead weight of Harvey Korman in his multi-role embarrassment, Bea Arthur as the barkeep, Jefferson Starship in their shoe horned performance and – maybe most importantly – no Diahann Carroll giving new meaning to patriarch Itchy’s name.

The Steam Wars Holiday Special is more action oriented focusing on a family surviving the holidays during occupation.

Granted there’s no first appearance of Boba Fett or cameos by the franchise principles. Those are offset with a hail of bullets and violence not permitted by CBS in ’78. The bears are much cuter in their page portrayal than Chewbacca’s family; cuddly as they go about readying for the big day.

Steam Wars Holiday Special

The inspiration for the television special was originally created to sate appetites between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. George Lucas’ vision had become a merchandising monster. Creator and licensees did not want the franchise to fade from memory, so Lucas sketched an outline and network executives took over the reigns.

Since it aired Nov. 17, 1978, the special has become a much maligned black eye for Lucas who has disclaimed any participation. The one association that seemed to bear fruit was Nelvana’s. The company responsible for the Boba Fett short, “The Faithful Wookie,” was later tapped to animate Droids and Ewoks.

The one downside to the printed special is it may be harder to find than a fourth- or fifth-generation copy of what spawned it.