CO said:

I do remember they would show marathons sort of like Spike TV does now, mostly over Holiday Weekends. I do remember watching a SW marathon sometime in the mid-90's on Christmas Weekend, it was still the originals, so it had to be before 1997.

I distinctly remember the first time I saw Star Wars on TV after 1997.

Up to that point, I'd enjoyed the SEs, mainly because it was nice to see the films in a theater and the changes were interesting in a "what if" way.

But then, they were showing Empire on TV. I was excited and sat down to watch it (even though I owned it on VHS, I still liked to watch them on TV, commercials and all). But then the wampa scene came ... and it was the Special Edition! They hadn't said that! I was sure it was a mistake. The SEs were for theaters only, right? And the VHS box clearly marked "Special Edition," right? They couldn't possibly just pretend the originals never happened!

Oh, how wrong I was...