Star Wars in the 70s: the early years of an icon!

I missed seeing A NEW HOPE in the theaters in the 70s. My first exposure to Star Wars at all was through our high school band. They had become enamored with the iconic music of John Williams and were, totally , caught up in the Star Wars craze of the times. It was one of the few band concerts I went to at school. But, I HAD to go. They made a working R2D2 and had a full Chewbacca costume! Without seeing it in the theaters, I already knew most of the story and was in love with it already. But listening to the music and seeing the band put such love into the performance sold me on the cool of this new scifi sensation.

The Star Wars Holiday Special: Chewie's family

All of society was caught up in the craze. I remember watching a Star Wars Thanksgiving special featuring Chewie's homeworld. I remember the strange singing by Bea Arthur and cameos by the Cantina aliens. Add Harvey Coreman and you get a weirdly disfunctional Holiday special where the old school yearly variety show meets the geek culture in a crazy way. It was as though the old heads of society were trying to come to grips with this sudden shift in the culture. Or cash in...I can never tell which. But, at least we got a ten minute animation starring Boba Fett!

Marvel peaked my imagination with an expanded universe!

It wasn't long before the toys broke out and Marvel started producing comics. The comic ran from 1977-1986 and, after a long hiatus, has come back to the brand for a new run in 2015. I loved the expanded universe feel with new and interesting aliens. One of my favorites from that series was a six foot green Jackrabbit alien named JAX! It didn't hurt that he had a hottie hanging on his arm!

(MECO-Star Wars Theme....You have to see this to believe it! Gotta love the 70s!)

I also loved the Meco disco version of the Star Wars themes and so did millions of other people! It sold 130,000 copies in a single week! It slowly helped Star Wars become one of those things that permeated our culture and brought back scifi in a big way!

Oh, how they tried...

Years later, mid eighties, we would finally see some animations hit television. Ewoks and Droids were a part of the big producers and television show makers to try and get a grip on what they had here. Unfortunately, they were made for a younger audience. Proof that the entertainment industry hadn't understood the attraction at all for they were still looking at it as kiddie stuff. No surprise. The industry was doing that with most of nerd culture at the time. They tried. But mostly failed.

Rocket ahead to 2016. Being old-school like myself, it's hard to get my head around the way Nerd culture has been accepted by the masses. Episode VII: The Force Awakens has reignited the Star Wars fever. Yes, I may have missed A NEW HOPE in the theaters, but I've never missed one since! It never gets old. And, in my estimation, there will always be a place for the space opera that changed the way culture dealt with us nerds.

NEXT: THE FORCE AWAKENS: Old School ramblings