With Friday’s release of the trailer for the latest film in the Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I thought it was a good time to go through the connective history of two landmarks of American pop culture, Star Wars and Saturday Night Live.
Unfortunately, a lot of the SNL/Star Wars sketches are unavailable or difficult to locate online because of SNL’s reluctance to fork over royalties for the songs used in sketches they post online, but I did my best.
Star Wars: A New Hope was released in May 1977 and quickly became a worldwide phenomenon. By Nov. 1978, when Carrie Fisher hosted SNL — just in time for the Star Wars Holiday Special — the film was still a smash. Sadly, Fisher’s monologue where she is dressed as Princess Leia and receives joke advice from Obi-Wan Kenobi (Dan Aykroyd) is not available online. In fact, the entire episode — including a Leia “Beach Blanket Bimbo From Outer Space” sketch — is only available through Hulu Plus or on DVD.
Preceding Fisher’s hosting gig by a few months was an appearance by Bill Murray’s “Nick the Lounge Singer,” who gave us one of the greatest renditions of the Star Wars theme in history.
While the original trilogy didn’t get spoofed much on SNL while the movies were initially in theaters — most likely due to the fact they were released while the show was on summer hiatus — they were used from time to time for comedic effect. When Luke Perry hosted in 1993 the show used a similar concept as the Fisher episode from 1978, but with Phil Hartman as Obi-Wan this time around giving joke advice.
Once George Lucas announced the release of the original trilogy special editions and the prequels, interest in Star Wars began to grow and SNL began referencing the saga a little more frequently. In 1997, SNL aired the now classic “Star Wars Screen Test” sketch which gave to the world Kevin Spacey’s Christopher Walken impression. Since this sketch aired the “movie audition” sketch has become a popular sketch, and has included Back to the Future and 50 Shades of Grey.
Also in 1997, Mark Hamill became only the second original cast member to make an appearance on SNL. Hamill was sold for $80,000 on a home shopping show sketch to Harrison Ford (voiced by Darrell Hammond).
With the release of the prequels between 1999 and 2005, Star Wars became an easy target to spoof. “Weekend Update” had a review of The Phantom Menace from Billy Dee Williams (Tim Meadows) and a song from Jimmy Fallon. Also, a 2005 sketch starred Lindsay Lohan and several cast members as Star Wars cosplayers who buy tickets to Monster-In-Law because Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is sold out.
Finally, Amidala herself, Natalie Portman, appeared on the show. She hosted in March 2006 to promote V for Vendetta, but used her monologue to answer a few questions from the Star Wars fans in attendance. Portman is only the second Star Wars star to host SNL after appearing in any of the films.
With the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens next December, SNL will have ample time to spoof the newest trilogy before next season ends. Hopefully we’ll see one of the film’s stars like Oscar Issac or John Boyega host an episode, and maybe a second edition of Star Wars auditions.
