May 25, 1977 was the release date of the movie “Star Wars”. At the time, John Records Landecker was on the air at the Big 89, WLS. He created one of the most memorable bits of his career about Star Wars, a tale he tells in his book Records Truly Is My Middle Name…
RADIO STAR WARS
Star Wars was on the cover of Time Magazine the day we got a few of the movie’s stars to appear on our station.
The WLS morning man was on vacation, so Bob Sirott was filling in for him that day. Bob had a phone interview scheduled with Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia). I was filling in for Bob on the afternoon show, and had Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) scheduled as an in-studio guest. Since we had access to two of the biggest stars from the movie, I came up with an idea for a bit, and wrote a script featuring all of us. Everyone agreed to participate.
I showed up at the station early in the morning and recorded Bob and Carrie Fisher reading their lines. Then I spent all day with the production guy, adding R2D2 sound effects, a Darth Vader voice (mine), music from the movie, and timing everything out. All of the pre-recorded segments were ready to go when I got on the air that day. The plan was to do the last part of the script, my interaction with Mark Hamill, live on the air. I really thought it would be easy to do. I don’t know how many times I told the engineer the cue. All he had to do was hit a button at the right time, but when the time came, he messed it up.
We tried it again. He messed it up again.
It was messed up so many times I had to beg Mark Hamill to stay for an extra twenty minutes. We finally got it right and did a perfect take of the bit, and afterwards I edited it down even further, and it came out great. It was played on the air many times, and became a well-known bit. It really does feature the real actors from the movie, but if you hear the perfectly edited version, keep in mind that while we were actually doing the bit live on the air, it was a complete train-wreck.
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