SKot

Zion said:

So it appears the HTTPS version of the URL gets redirected but the HTTP URL still works. Weird.

Yes, the site got hacked recently and corrupted by malware due to an exploit in WordPress…I always disliked WordPress for websites, and this doesn’t help my feelings about it.

The site is broken as well I believe in that all links from the first page give a 404. Except the link to the old (non-WordPress) Holiday Special site, that works fine still!

I will try to get it all fixed. It’s sort of halfway fixed now, but there is still work to be done to get the whole thing working again.

—SKot

DarthSmaul said:

There’s actually a good number of lost Kenner SW commercials out there. It’s unfortunate not much effort has gone into finding them. Here’s a more complete list: https://lostmediaarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Kenner_Star_Wars_Commercials_(Lost_Commercials_Of_Toy_Line)

Considering the total number of Kenner commercials (somewhere around 100), there’s actually very few that are missing. We were lucky that a lot of the original ones turned up as 8mm/16mm films that were scanned by collectors and shared. There was a fantastic fan-made DVD that collected all of those with a great menu and cover back around 2007. It had about 99% of the total commercials all on one disc, and was only missing a few.

• On SWCA, there is a “Destroy the Death Star” board game commercial that is listed as a 16mm. I am checking to confirm that this actually exists, because it was not on the DVD collection and I’ve never seen the commercial. There is, however, an “Escape From Death Star” board game commercial - maybe it was mixed up here?

• The Anakin Skywalker mail-away one I’ve never seen. It sounds like it existed (based on recollections), but never surfaced. So that one’s lost for now. But all it takes is one person to upload the right VHS rip and hopefully that one will surface again.

• The POTF toy line commercial with a flyover of the toys is well and truly lost for now, since I haven’t seen that turn up anywhere. Again, hopefully someone posts a VHS rip.

• The POTF coins commercial was lost for ages, but was the most recent commercial to resurface when it showed up on YouTube. It is partly incomplete, so hopefully someone posts a better copy someday.

• The DROIDS toy line commercial has been around a long time in that slightly incomplete RetroJunk commercial. It was posted in what looked like pristine quality on StarWars.com, but was not saved by anyone we know of yet.

• The Ewoks toy line commercial I think is the one featuring the Ewok Battle Wagon plus the Ewoks figures. It was also posted on StarWars.com but not saved. Like the DROIDS commercial, this can’t be considered truly lost - just not publicly available.

I’m surprised that these later ones haven’t turned up more widely, since quite a lot more people had VCRs by 1985. Maybe they just weren’t shown much before the line ended.

–SKot

pufnstuf said:

I do recall seeing people posting some of the Hyperspace content on USENET way back then. Have you looked into seeking if that might be in the old alt.binaries.starwars group?

That would be a possibility - you’d definitely need someone extremely savvy at extracting those videos back then, and the posters on a.b.sw might have been just the right people to have done it.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had access to Usenet in many years now. I’m not even sure where I’d start with that one.

–SKot

pufnstuf said:
Any luck finding this Skot? I distinctly recall seeing these on the sight and I was fairly good about trying to save off any multimedia content, but I’ve been unable to find these in my stuff I saved off. I’ll keep looking for it through. Forgot how much good stuff they used to have out there.

No, unfortunately nothing has changed on that since my original post. I still have my WMV file of the DROIDS collection commercial as shared by RetroJunk long ago in pretty low quality. But I’ve still never been able to dig up the Ewok Battle Wagon commercial, or the DROIDS commercial in any better quality.

I think the short period where those commercials were hosted was the period when it was very difficult to save videos from that site due to the formatting used. I believe they may have been in a secure Adobe Flash video format.

–SKot

Sideburns of BoShek said:

That actually looks interesting and fun trip down memory lane. You’re right, these recent documentaries for the older lesser known stuff is good to see.

It may even be better than the original content itself if this’ll be anything like A Disturbance In The Force!

Definitely looking forward to seeing what they come up with!

When official channels fail to provide, fans will do it for themselves.

–SKot

KeatontheKoopaTroopa said:

Does Dargaud or Disney own currently own the rights to the show?

That, I don’t know. It was always Saban I think who owned the rights to the cartoon originally, and then Jetix I believe had it or licensed it. Where it sits now is anybody’s guess.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if a channel like Disney+ was actively showing them again?

–SKot

SkinnyV said:

I do know Iznogoud, I’m pretty sure it used to play on Canadian-French tv when I was a kid. Didn’t really comment since I didn’t really sense any question in your original post.

If this is true, what I wouldn’t give to find someone who managed to record all the episodes there. Although I’m not sure whether they’d have English audio or French - most likely French, I’m guessing.

–SKot

Sthunderrocker said:

Just a bump to see if anyone has done any cleaning of the footage?

I went back and watched my BDs again recently, and felt the same disappointment I did when I got the discs originally. Maybe slightly lesser so, just because it was great to see the deleted footage again.

But I haven’t heard anything about any further preservation efforts, unfortunately.

–SKot

Darth telly said:

You know what I think we need to do, list everything out that was once on starwars.com and search for it all because there should be a record of this stuff.

We lost a vast treasure trove of resources and material there when the plug was pulled on that stuff. What’s worse is that it sounds like starwars.com lost it as well, or at least no longer has any kind of access to it.

You know, the modern version of Fahrenheit 451 is not books being burned anymore - instead, it’s vast amounts of information, stories, and knowledge being destroyed when it all got deleted due to uncaring corporate bureaucracy.

–SKot

Just popping in here to encourage the project, and I thought I’d mention a couple of things: the Swedish version and the French version of the Holiday Special are both edits, but different edits. They are both shorter than the original. So if you plan to have audio tracks of those two versions, you will need have video playback match the shorter edits.

–SKot

MattMahdi said:

SKot, there have been so many commentary tracks for this thing, some good and some bad but all with some degree of misinformation.

You’re someone actually qualified to do a commentary track.

I can dream…

That’s actually something I’ve wanted to do for a long time…I hope I can have the opportunity at some point. Steve Kozak would be good to get on that as well, either separately or together.

–SKot

MattMahdi said:

I know it’s wrong, but I keep seeing this advert in my Facebook feed. (No edits made to spelling or punctuation.)

Star Wars Holiday Special 1978 Blu ray Edition. Never Released - $18.00

1978 Star Wars holiday special now on Blu Ray ! DVD version doesn’t even come close to the quality of this Blu ray. Many special features even subtitles in Wookie ! This is a hard to find copy of the unreleased special from 1978. Don’t miss your chance to own a copy before they are all gone ! You will receive the movie on a BDr disc with artwork in a Blu ray case with artwork. These are made on demand not pressed .

Wow, in your FB feed eh? That may be an ad worth reporting to FB…if they even care.

I know there’s a new “5K” up-res of the Holiday Special that may look nice on Blu-ray. But I’m pretty certain that’s not what this is…most likely just a BD copy of the EditDroid version, or at best another earlier attempt at an up-res.

–SKot

none said:

The Holiday Special documentary “A Disturbance in the Force”:
https://www.disturbanceintheforce.com/
Is being show in some theaters soon. See if it is in your neighborhood.

Got a ticket to one of the Q&A shows so if you have a question to ask, post it up.

Wish I could be at that one! I’ll be doing the Q&A at the Kiggins Theatre showing in Vancouver, WA on the 29th.

The film should be available for streaming as well soon, for those of you who don’t have a showing in your area.

–SKot

Perseverant said:

Would someone please PM me a URL for the best version that includes the commercials?

Thanks to everyone who has invested their time and energy preserving this!

The best version without commercials is the Editdroid version, since it is sourced from a master copy. It does not have commercials, however, because it’s a pre-broadcast version.

The best version with commercials is probably a hybrid like Zion’s version, which is sourced from the Editdroid version but includes commercials from one of the better broadcast sources.

There are no URLs for this, however, and no websites to go to - any such hosting would get taken down pretty quickly. Your best bet is to search places like Usenet and torrent sites.

–SKot

Sthunderrocker said:

I purchased this reel. It appears to be reel 1 as it starts with the gorn. I don’t have a film scanner unfortunately.
Stephen

Would you be willing to get it to someone who does? There are people on this forum who do.

–SKot

Thought I might mention that this documentary grew legs and is having its world premiere at SXSW 2023 in Austin this Saturday. I actually connected with Steve via this thread and became a co-producer on the film, working with him mostly remotely over the next 5-6 years on this. It’s become the definitive documentary on the subject, with interviews conducted with nearly every living person who had anything to do with the Holiday Special, as well as a few who didn’t.

Here’s a link to the SXSW site for the film:

https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/films/2079025

–SKot

MattMahdi said:

Is there any mention of the SWHS in Taschen’s The Star Wars Archives, 1977-1983?

It would make the book that much easier a purchase, especially at the 40th anniversary price which can almost fit my budget.

There is, in fact - there’s a section for it that’s 5 pages long with some great text and photos.

Of course, there are two versions of the book now: the giant landscape-oriented coffee table book, and the much smaller portrait-oriented version that came out after. The large one is huge and a bit unwieldy, but the photos are gorgeous at that size. I have the large version, but I am tempted to get the smaller one just for ease of reading and photo scanning.

It’s actually the reason that I kept the copy of Star Wars Year by Year that I was gifted years ago.

I never picked that up. I think I was disappointed by the skimming over of the SWHS in that, but I can’t remember…what was actually in it?

–SKot

digitalfreaknyc said:

The Paley Center here in NYC has a copy in their archives from KNXT in CA. Is that copy in the wild?

https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=&p=1&item=T:87211

It is in the wild, although not widely distributed.

I’ve looked at the copies of the KNXT at both the NYC Paley Center and the L.A. one. This version is okay but not a great recording - it has a lot of noise on the screen with heavy ghosting issues. I don’t think it would be very valuable as a preservation other than for historic value, and possibly for the commercials, some of which will be local.

–SKot

nobodybutjarjar42 said:

is this the best quality WCBS broadcast copy with commercials?
Star Wars Holiday Special - WCBS w/o/c “Frizzies” on myspleen

It might be. I think it’s the best one I’ve got. There are a ton of low-quality copies of WCBS out there from way back; that one got a lot of mileage. But I have seen very few decent quality copies. Someone out there is probably sitting on the original broadcast recording all these came from.

–SKot

MattMahdi said:

Not an idiot.

It’s one of the earliest DVD transfers IIRC. Rikter distributed two versions: WMAR (that was the one with the commercials, right?) and another whose callsign I forget. I think it was too early for KCCI, but even if it wasn’t the video quality is definitely surpassed by more recent transfers.

(KCCI was seen as the gold standard for many years and it was distributed in a variety of forms. Seemed like everyone had their own menuing over the KCCI content. That was the second and last version I purchased, that one from OCP Movie. I then learned about this community and started zealously turning in sellers on eBay (whence came my first version).)

I really shouldn’t be answering a technical question without checking my information at home but I’m at a Super Bowl party and kinda bored…

I know Rikter distributed the KCMO (Kansas City) version, without commercials, as well. Not sure if he did a version of the WMAR broadcast; I don’t seem to have one with his menus on it. But for sure he did KCCI (Des Moines) and KCMO.

The other probably most common broadcast that made the rounds was the WCBS (New York) broadcast. That’s the one with the famous bumper with the newscaster saying “Fighting the Frizzies at eleven!” that South Park parodied.

–SKot

oojason said:

I wish I had them mate - love watching the old commercials for old Star Wars toys and the like.

This Droids & Ewoks site http://droidsandewoks.weebly.com may be of some help and worth asking the people who run it. They seem pretty knowledgeable and good people - perhaps they know of someone who may have them?

That’s a possibility, if I could reach them. Love that site, but unfortunately it seems to suffer from what nearly every modern site suffers from: no way to contact the owner(s)! I really miss the old days when people actually contacted each other through websites and shared information.

It maybe worth reaching out to the people who wrote the old article on the official site - Pete Vilmur, Gus Lopez, Duncan Jenkins - see if they are on social media, and are contactable?

I think Pete Vilmur is still at Lucasfilm - it maybe worth asking them to include the videos again on any future Ewoks and Droids articles and content up on the official site or social media pages?
 

Good luck with it SKot - hope you find them. 👍
 

Thanks! I’ve been in touch with Pete about it, and unfortunately he thinks the material on the old server was probably never saved/archived.

–SKot

It came to my attention recently that a once-live web page on on StarWars.com had posted two Kenner commercials in apparent good quality back in 2010. Unfortunately, because StarWars.com revamped the whole site around 2012 and threw out pretty much everything from the old site, the content is long gone. It can’t even be accessed through the WayBack machine at Internet Archive (the page is there but the commercials are not!), though here is the link so you can see what I’m talking about:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110617035821/http://www.starwars.com/vault/collecting/droids_ewoks_25th_anniversary/index.html

There were two commercials on the page: one for the DROIDS line, and one for the Power Of The Force/Ewoks Ewok Battle Wagon. The DROIDS commercial I have in low quality with RetroJunk watermark, and that’s the only copy that’s ever surfaced to my knowledge. I never even knew about the Ewok Battle Wagon commercial, and it has not shown up anywhere else. They really need a preservation.

Did anyone manage to save these two commercials before they disappeared into the ether?

–SKot

Yes - that is an excellent site, and one of the best arguments for archiving old sites that have fallen off the internet.

Some of the incorrectly-named films I’ve found were named that way because they are shorter excerpts of the original films that were made available for the home market. So they would change the name, usually to match the main skit featured in the film excerpt.

Definitely interested in seeing what could turn up from the Japan connection there. I know that Japan has a particular affinity for Felix, and there have been Felix releases there that were available nowhere else.

–SKot

SilverWook said:

Good question! It’s been murky if Fox/Lucasfilm ever had the film elements or Nelvana had them. They lost some stuff in a vault fire some years ago, and the workprint of Rock & Rule was a casualty.

The sound and film elements are apparently in the Lucasfilm archives…there was a photo of a pile of that material posted once on StarWars.com in 2008.

The Story Of The Faithful Wookiee? I have never heard the animated segment called that before…
https://twitter.com/CBR/status/1371966955305963522

Yep - it’s what the title card says at the beginning of the cartoon, and you can almost kind of read it if you squint.

–SKot

Well, sounds like we could have the best preservation of part of the Holiday Special yet: apparently the cartoon is coming to Disney+…

The Ewok movies, Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars, and part of the Holiday Special are coming to Disney Plus

If they actually HD scanned the original film elements for the animation (and they were the only part of the Holiday Special that was shot on film), then we could be in for a real treat here!

–SKot