The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first Star Wars film to hit theaters in seven years. So, as you can imagine, no marketing angle in the universe has been left off the table. Today, you can buy everything from Grogu popcorn buckets to “Bounty Hunter” body wash with fragrance notes of “solar woods” and “protective patchouli,” but when the original film arrived in theaters in May of 1977, the promotional machine wasn’t nearly as sophisticated. To get the word out about an upcoming movie, studios had to rely on you seeing a trailer or an ad in the newspaper, or perhaps a star dropping by the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This might help explain why we were collectively treated to some of the most deliciously awkward televised cross-promotional moments ever broadcast on the “big three” networks. It’s also likely the reason Star Wars is one of the most tightly controlled pieces of intellectual property today.In the summer of 1977, Star Wars had already racked up over $100 million at the domestic box office, a feat few films had achieved at the time. Still, to leg it out to its eventual $307 million haul, the Lucasfilm publicity team had to think outside the box to remind audiences it was still in theaters. Bringing Star Wars to TV This is where publicity pioneer Charles Lippincott, Lucasfilm’s VP of advertising, promotion, and merchandising enters the picture. It was his idea to approve the appearances of several Star Wars characters on two different TV variety shows, one featuring singing and dancing Stormtroopers hunting down Donnie and Marie Osmond, and the other inside a Mos Eisley-like cantina with stand-up legend Richard Pryor. Both are eerie precursors to the far more infamous Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978. Big fan of this part from The Star Wars Holiday Special where Harrison Ford awkwardly says goodbye to two Wookiees that just blankly stare back at him pic.twitter.com/9jqvrZpiMt— jacob (@jtimsuggs) February 26, 2026 Discussion about the CBS Star Wars Holiday Special has blossomed from a little-seen curio to a pop culture obsession in recent years. A big reason is the November 1978 broadcast remains one of the most bizarre and unintentionally funny two-hour blocks of television ever aired. The films’ main trio of stars (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and a visibly uncomfortable Harrison Ford) all appeared alongside comedy and variety show legends. These included Bea Arthur in torch song balladeer-mode and Harvey Korman as a cooking show hosting droid in a loosely plotted series of sketches centered around getting the shaggy Chewbacca back to his family’s home planet for Life Day, whatever that is. Despite how huge Star Wars was at the time, the special wasn’t even a ratings hit for CBS that night. In fact, it came in third place in the Nielsen ratings behind an episode of ABC’s The Love Boat. The Holiday Special’s infamy lives on now on YouTube thanks to Lippincott, a self-described science fiction fan whose promotional prowess behind Star Wars would be copied by studios for decades. Lippincott was the person who got the film’s stars and special effects team onto a panel at the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con and inked a comic book tie-in deal with Marvel. He made the merchandising deals that put Star Wars on lunch boxes, collector drinking glasses at Burger King, and he pursued the famously profitable toy deal with Kenner even after a 20th Century Fox executive decided the licensing rights were worthless. For as much of a trailblazer as Lippincott was, not all of his choices looked like winners at the time. Donny and Marie as Luke and Leia Mere months after Star Wars premiered on the big screen, the franchise ran an 11-minute cross-promotional push during the September 1977 season premiere of Donny & Marie. The reason was to remind folks that there was still plenty of time to go visit a galaxy far, far away at your local theater. Characters like R2D2, Darth Vader (voiced here by Thurl “Tony the Tiger” Ravenscroft), and C-3PO, with actual performer Anthony Daniels shuffling about inside the droid suit, join Donny’s Luke and Marie’s Princess Leia. The rest of the Osmond brothers also show up in Stormtrooper armor, singing a parody version of “Get Ready” by The Temptations in front of a live studio audience. But don’t worry, it only gets weirder: Redd Foxx grumbles his way through a conversation as the “force ghost” version of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hollywood Squares veteran Paul Lynde throws a musical snit as a Grand Moff Tarkin-like Imperial Officer for a number, and then outlaw country musician and movie star Kris Kristofferson lands on stage in a NASA-like rocket ship to stand in as Han Solo, complete with mirrored sunglasses. The segment is equal parts naïve, odd, and totally mesmerizing. In the 2023 documentary Disturbance in the Force, Donny Osmond openly wonders how they were ever able to get away with it. “There was a shot of Chewbacca with his arm around Darth Vader. How does that happen? But I guess on Donny & Marie, everyone was friends.” Richard Pryor bartends at the Star Wars bar The family-friendly attitude shifted when Star Wars popped over to the short-lived, but highly influential Richard Pryor Show one week later on NBC. The “Star Wars Bar” sketch mirrors the “den of scum and villainy” of the Mos Eisley cantina, complete with some of its iconic background alien characters: Momaw Nadon, aka Hammerhead, and the demonic-looking Labria. The camera doesn’t linger on them too long because none of the masks are articulated nor are the costumes complete. Most of the aliens can’t even stand up. Why? Because there was no budget for pants. Warning: This video contains strong language. The main difference from the NBC sketch is that Pryor milks genuine laughs from the scene, ranging from encouraging an inter-alien hookup to insulting one of the Modal Nodes musicians. The writers had the freedom to inject more adult-oriented humor into the proceedings, something one could hardly imagine the franchise doing now. Pryor even drops the N-word in the middle of it. And none of this was a mistake. Charles Lippincott explained his methodology behind the appearances years later in a 2015 Facebook post, stating, “… their selection was not an accident. I made a conscious decision to reach different audiences with these different vehicles.” The cultural footprint of Star Wars is enormous, but the initial push to get Episode IV: A New Hope onto movie screens—and keep people coming back for more—changed how films were marketed forevermore. And while these choices may come off as campy and “cringe” today, especially when listening to Donny and Marie croon about how their “goose is cooked unless we lift off of this star,” there’s also something oddly endearing about it in comparison with today’s rigid corporate synergy. The post ‘Star Wars’: How disco-dancing Stormtroopers and Richard Pryor changed movie marketing forever appeared first on Upworthy.