Skeleton Crew has embraced nostalgia for 1980s coming-of-age adventure movies, for the original Star Wars trilogy, and for being a kid who’s getting in trouble on their adventures. But while nostalgia can often ignore the less-than-ideal parts of the past, Skeleton Crew isn’t afraid to bring back elements of Star Wars that most fans would rather forget, as a key shot in the new series’ first episode canonizes one of the franchise’s most absurd moments in the perfect way.
In that first episode, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) visits the home of his friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) but doesn’t see him in the living room. Instead, he sees Neel’s younger siblings watching a hologram of a circus performance. The shot only lasts a few seconds, but it’s a notable one, as that hologram was previously watched by Lumpy, the young Wookiee at the center of the 1978 TV catastrophe, The Star Wars Holiday Special.
The holiday special is in no way canon, and has become the subject of countless jokes within the Star Wars fandom. But it’s still a key part of franchise history, and its weirdness has stuck in the brains of fans, including Skeleton Crew showrunner Jon Watts. “That is easily one of my favorite parts of the whole show,” Watts said to Entertainment Weekly. “And I'm glad that it's in the first episode just so we can get it out of the way. I've just always been fascinated by that weird little circus hologram.”
It’s a quick throwaway gag, but it took more effort than you’d think, as all those space circus performers needed to be cast and filmed. “We recreated it,” Watts said. “We initially wanted to see if we could get the original footage, but it's so low resolution because it was a TV special.”
Now that the Holiday Special — or at least a minor part of it — is Star Wars canon, it implies that not only are these holograms considered home entertainment akin to television, but that this circus performance is iconic enough that kids are watching it on a random day after school. Maybe this is the Star Wars version of Bluey, a kid-focused series that keeps children entertained, be they blue or fuzzy. Now Star Wars just needs to find a way to reference Bea Arthur’s cantina and Harvey Korman’s cooking show.
