WCBS-TV Ch 2. Star Wars - February 26, 1984 - Opening and closing segments and commercials 

When Star Wars was an EVENT a Special occasion. This is why having a vcr was fun! It just feels different watching with the nation even though it was on vhs by this point. This is a birthday present for anyone watching : )

1984. There was no end to the Cola Wars in sight. So many lost.

This is 40 years ago people! And it feels like yesterday! Incredible!

I like seeing the old commercials too

Back when life was so much more simpler and HAPPIER.....I love that you posted this. What a blast. My senior year in high school.

Anytime there is a classic 70's or 80's television show AND the commercials are included, COUNT ME IN! It's always nice to get that blast from the past. So many memories, childhood moments and memories that can come back by watching a 70's or 80's TV show or commercial. Now if you also include Star Wars? I am IN with a CAPITAL IN! Definitely got a subscriber here!

I actually remember watching this when it originally aired. I was 6 years old, and in kindergarten. I first got to see it 3 years earlier when my Mom's friend, who owned a bar that she played pool at, bought a laserdisc player and rented a laserdisc copy of Star Wars to play for everyone in the bar that evening. We didn't get a VCR in our house until 1989, so it was only tv airings when I got to see it. While we did have HBO, and so I did get to see it a multitude of times prior to this showing on broadcast tv, this was indeed a special occasion viewing.

Ah, the 1984 Mercury Topaz. A paragon of engineering and commercial excellence.

40 years ago and I remember it just being yesterday 😢

24:12 That print of Scarecrow and Mrs. King looks like it was run through a dishwasher and run over by a car.

That Mercury Cougar did the Kessel Run in 10 parsecs

Oh my…this actually made my teary-eyed reliving my youth, when times were less hectic and stressful. Thank you.

1984 on this day when this was on tv had to be a beautiful moment for starwars fans

I remember pausing and unpausing the VCR to edit out the commercials when I recorded movies, lol. It was a job! I had to actually watch the entire movie, lol 🤣

Classic TV compilations like this are precious gems that need to be backed up, that they never truly vanish, even if a RU-vid account gets deleted.

One thing in 40 years. The network's haven't forgotten to pump a TV special full of advertisements.

Man they milked the advertising for this premiere- so far I’ve seen about a lifetime’s worth of advertising

40th anniversary Monday February 26, 2024.

Sigh…please take me back to 1984 :)

Wowwwww..45 minutes of commercials and 15 minutes of content…. It was fun to see and reminisce about the commercials (the Grammy’s 2 days away from this airing when Michael Jackson took away how many? He was nominated for 12!). Unheard of, until then. Thanks for the reminisce!!

1984: Technologically backwards, but socially and emotionally more advanced and mature. 2024: Technologically advanced, but socially and emotionally less advanced and mature. If you could have lived in this time (I did) you would see what an amazing time the 80s was. It was a time of experimentation in music, space science, entertainment, and computer technology. And so many more things!! The minimum wage was $3.35 USD (About $8.35 USD now) per hour. A Big Mac meal was less than 3 dollars, meat was pennies on the pound, and people weren't out to be greedy or rob you at every corner. It wasn't perfect, but if you compare it to now? It was paradise.

Thank you for this!! Watching this 39 years and 364 days later and is jogging my memory like it was yesterday. Double Bonus, I few years later, my first car was that charcoal grey Mercury Cougar

Awesome! I remember watching this with my dad, who was almost never home due to his job. Lots of nostalgia as I just rewatched the original Shogun TV miniseries to get ready for the bastardized remake.

God, the Grammy Award commercial was a flashback in itself

This is a great little time capsule of television. It's interesting to watch the mini documentaries, stingers, news shorts and, of course, the commercials. It's also like a terrible fever dream were you're being constantly promised Star Wars but you never actually get it!

Wow! What a flood of memories from this one. The commercials, the soundtracks and effects. An amazing time from the best year of the 80s, 1984.

I just watched almost an hour of commercials and enjoyed it

I was 14 years old when Star Wars came out. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have seen it. I’d seen the movie trailer. It just didn’t interest me enough to go watch it. A family friend was the one who took my sister and I to the movies just about every weekend back then. That weekend, he decided that this was the movie we were going to watch. I remember sitting at the dining room table looking at the movie section in the newspaper. I don’t remember if we had to stand in a long line to get into the theater. What I’ll never forget, was looking up over my right shoulder and back to the projection room. I wanted to to see if the Star Destroyer that was chasing Princess Leia’s in the opening sequence was coming out of there. That ship was bigger than anything that I’d ever seen on screen and it went on and on…. In 1980, when Empire Strikes Back was released, I remember getting really angry at our family friend because we were late and he still stood in line for popcorn. We missed the previews and the first 10 minutes of the movie. 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

By this time , Jedi had hit the big screen and I was 7/8 yrs old. Mom was making popcorn on the stove, and I had finished my bath and the family was getting ready to watch. Sure we'd already seen it, but a big time movie coming on television was still exciting back then. "Fix the tracking!" 😂😂

Love looking back into a great past. Thanks for posting!!!

I Always call StarWars the *BIG BANG Of Creativity* Everybody in tech, film, design, computers, electronics, fashion, music got Energized and Enthused! ...ThAT's why the 80's were sO AMaZinG :)

Amazing Thank you so very much for posting this gem

I can't remember if I actually watched when it finally came on TV, but I do remember going to see it in the theater when I was 7. I can't recall how I got interested in it, but my parents got me the book before the movie came out. Mark Hamill was my very first crush. To this day, I still consider Star Wars one of the greatest films of all time.

Thank you so much for this.

Oh man. I remember watching this when it first aired and haven't seen it anywhere since. Thanks.

Thank you for this. 1984 is my favorite childhood year and my opinion the best year of the 80s.

Wow! Aired one day before my 18th birthday!

I remember watching Star Wars when it aired on TV and was angry when they kept showing these interviews instead of playing the reason my TV was on, Star Wars.

Oh, the blessed days when the original trilogy was all there was, and the OG fans were happy....

STAR WARS WAS EVERYTHING FOR ME in 77 AND THE TIME OF SEQUELS IVE LOVED IT EVER SINCE IM 52 NOW AND THIS IS SUCH A GIFT THAT HAS BEEN POSTED "TECH " hasnt really overrun us Its taken us back to SO MANY memories Ive been exposed to so many things that were before my time or during my time and i just didnt watch Wow

WOW! It wasn’t on network tv until after Jedi was released theatrically. Really was when network premieres were special. Now a movie is released in theaters and available to watch at home the next day.

BRILLIANT WATCH!! LOVED IT

Even though I had seen the movie a few times on the big screen, and even when it showed up on HBO, you still couldn't beat the feeling as a kid of seeing one of your favorite films debut on another format, in this case, network television. So seeing all those lead ups (torturous as they were to a kid anticipating this) to the CBS premiere of Star Wars takes me back to when I was that kid. Thanks for sharing this.

I was 14 in 1984. I'm currently finishing up my time machine.

We are just as close to 2064 as we are far away from 1984. That's makes me feel OLD.

My Dad taped this special for us on Beta, and then had a friend transfer it to VHS so the picture quality that I watched all 3 Star Wars movies in was worse than this until the THX versions came out in 1995😂

This was the first time I saw Star Wars. I had seen Empire and Jedi in the theater but never the original. I was an ecstatic 10 year old!!

Guaranteed I was sitting “too close to the tv” when this came on!

In the UK, Star Wars received its network TV premiere (on ITV) in October 1982. I had distain for such childish nonsense at the time, but my brother won a bet and I had to watch. At that moment I was hooked. The following week we rented Empire Strikes Back and a year later I queued to see Return of the Jedi. If you’re reading this Tom, you were right: it was fantastic and I did love it… I also loved Han Solo. xxx

The most fascinating thing to watch in this had nothing to do with Star Wars. Watching the Grammy commercials announce Michael Jackson’s nominations, knowing the world (and Jackson) would never be the same after that award show, is just fascinating to watch.

40 years ago, CBS aired Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) for the first time on network TV. It's from 20th Century-Fox and Lucasfilm Ltd.

Thank you for this!

I was 11 years old when this was broadcast. I am sure I was watching. CBS was the only channel we got where I lived.

I saw Star Wars 33 times a the theater. There is no movie that has come out in the last 10 years that I even considered seeing more than once. Why is that?

I remember it was aired against the miniseries Lace which actually beat Star Wars in the ratings and included the memorable line “Incidentally, which one of you bitches is my mother?”.

Forgot how great it is: life without commercials

Historic stuff. Did they really have 10 minutes of commercials between 60 Minutes and the movie?!

Incredible. I remember this day well; was a Sunday and was my sister's 10th birthday.

i also recorded it that night! but made sure to exclude commercials... it used to be an art anticipating the movie coming back from commercials. in the same vhs cartridge i had superman and an episode of reading rainbow

I was right years old,and remember when they played this. Could tell you exactly where I was at to!!

This is awesome, it was a good year when everything was simpler. I believe when the Star Wars special came out I was at my local arcade.

I remember watching this when it aired. I still remember the behind the scenes clips as well. Ironically, ‘Star Wars’ was not the highest rated movie that night. “Lace” on ABC had a higher rating. “Urban Cowboy” on NBC came in third

Love the classic vhs tape distortions. Gotta hit the tracking button 😁

Thank you.

7 years after being released in theaters, this was the network television debut. With most people not owning VCR’s (very expensive), this would be the first time they saw Star Wars in 7 years!

I thought it was weird to use Holst’s “Mars” in the Greystoke trailer at 14:55 but then I realized it’s a great ad for the people watching Star Wars, since it’s very similar to John Williams’ Star Wars music.

The ‘80s were the best!

I can testify to being Star Wars crazy! Movies, novels, music, and other collectibles.

This is truly historic. This is when the word "epic" actually meant something.

Its crazy to think that there was a time you couldnt push a button, swipe, and watch Star Wars anytime you want. I remember when they did the special edition VHS tapes for 20.99. It was a must buy.

This reminds me of Video stores, popcorn you burn on the stove and a bottle of store brand orange soda. I miss the analog days. think about how much work must have went into changing tapes every 15 minutes during breaks. The pressure of changing from National Feed to Local, airing the ads then going back to the national feed during a debut like this?

being born in 2002, things from that century look like an entirely different planet. Crazy.

You deserve more subscribers

I was 4 years old. Life was so simple.

Mark Hamill looked so young. I don't remember ever seeing the introduction part he did.

Edit: (I originally had the wrong time.) Whoever directed that Pepsi commercial at 28:21 should have been hired to make movies! He was trying to be like Steven Spielberg and he succeeded!

Seems like quite a bit of commercials. I imagine that it wasn't cheap for CBS to have this feature.

In glorious VHS quality 4:3 ratio! I remember the version we had was recorded off of TV as well. Good times.

Feb. 26, 1984 was my 16th birthday and I always considered the world television premiere of Star Wars George Lucas' birthdays present to me. It was a Sunday and that particular weekend we had rented a VCR because Empire had just been released on VHS and I wanted to see it for my Birthday. I think we also rented a James Garner movie called Tank and Ice Pirates. Such great fun back then.

There is no way my tv could have withstood that much baiting back in 84. Seeing this now I am so glad I was a Star Wars addict in the uk. My god you poor Americans. This explains a lot, I had no idea you had all been enduring extreme psychological abuse since this far back. Free or paid service I wouldn’t endure this level of advertising in 2024. I just won’t watch that level of abuse

AT&T logo looks a lot like the Death Star LOL

When I saw this at the time, I was hoping that cut scenes from the theatrical version would be restored for the TV showing (like other films). They weren't. 😥

Many yrs ago we have lost our way we must refocus trust in the Force We shall do better May the be with you always

that whole time on set, nobody bothered to adjust Mr. Hamill's bow tie hanging BELOW his shirt collar.

They actually put commercials between "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and the opening crawl. That's how you know the network was going to milk every possible dollar from the broadcast.

28:20 has to be one of the coolest commercials ever made!

Awesome! Mr Stubens looks THIS close to building a mountain out of those mash potatoes! Be careful !! 👽

Reagan telling the space shuttle "May the force be with you" sounds like the most 80s thing ever lol and controversial too, cant find ANY videos of that, probably due to the star wars program at the time they probly scrubbed it and back then, when shit got deleted it was gone hah

I recorded it onto our new Betamax VCR.

This is cool.

I'm sure I watched this, but I was only 10 and don't really remember it. But they sure didn't skimp on the commercials (although the Ken Anderson coffee ad was a gem).

I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♂️ - but these commercials make me miss whatever AMERICA 🇺🇸 was it the 1980’s, we sure as HELL aren’t in the 80’s anymore

Jesus, I feel old. 😂

47 years brahh

40 years ago, people have seen it 70 times. I have maybe seen it 30 or 40 times? I’m 46. I have probably seen Robocop more.

The lead-in ads to the movie were longer than the movie itself.

Interesting that the UK premiered Star Wars on television first; 24th October, 1982. But that's what George wanted...

Whatever 60 Minutes was running that night looks lit. Where can I watch THAT? 😂

Everyone was on the same page back then so events were much larger, nowadays Everyone has to many different opinions and options to a point that they now seem to hate everything. It seem to have started in 99 with episode 1 somehow

What's the name of the piano piece playing in the Alka-Seltzer commercial at 41:35 ? Driving me nuts.