Well, I guess this was inevitable.  George Lucas himself couldn’t stop it.  We were absolutely going to get a figure sourced from the Star Wars Holiday Special. Avert your eyes, kids, this is horrible stuff!

Now in reality, this is actually the third such figure in the modern 3.75” line and all 3 are pretty low key in their approach to acknowledging the source.  In 2001, we got Zutton in the Power of the Jedi line.  It was labeled as Zutton, with no mention of the Holiday Special on the packaging, but the image of the character is that of fellow Snivvian Zutmore from that source.  A few years later, we got Boba Fett (Animated Debut) from the 2007 Thirtieth Anniversary Collection.  While it is clearly sourced from the character’s first appearance in the animated short that was part of The Special, no specific mention is made on the front of the card.  However if you read the fine print bio on the card back, it does mention The Holiday Special.  Recently, this 9 minute short was put on Disney+, but the rest of the horror show is still MIA. So now we get to 2023, 45 years after it aired, and Hasbro gives us VC Chewbacca (Life Day).  Nowhere on the card front or back does it mention The Holiday Special.  Even “Life Day” is now canon, as it was mentioned in passing in The Mandalorian.

The figure itself is pretty interesting.  Yes, it uses as the base the nearly 20 year old VOTC mold.  Personally, I think it’s survived this long because it deserves to.  Sure, it could definitely benefit from a modern update, but I think by some measures, this might be one of the all time greats.  It holds its own in various displays today, and Hasbro has done well with paint and head variants to fit into almost any scenario.  I have no problem with yet one more use out of this tooling, especially for a silly release like this one. 

While we are quite familiar with the base figure, you might think for a moment that the head is new.  It isn’t.  It was used for the Chewbacca that came with the Target Exclusive VC Millennium Falcon (Smugglers’ Run) along with Hondo Ohnaka.  But there are, nevertheless, a few things that give some newness here.  The most prominent are the new hands.  The right hand is now a large claw-like grip, which is necessary to hold onto the included Life Day Orb.  For some reason, the left hand was also resculpted a bit, as the fur lays a different way now. 

Another piece of newness is the included red robe.  It is made out of a thin, but nicely draped soft goods material.  The forearms hang very low, and are a bit reminiscent of Palpatine’s robes.  They fit Chewy perfectly, and don’t really hinder the range of motion of the arms or legs.  Perhaps if the figure had ball jointed hips, that might make a difference, but otherwise it’s very well done.  Also included is the aforementioned Life Day Orb, which fits perfectly in Chewy’s open right hand.  The bottom of the orb is flat, so that you can put it on a surface without it rolling away.  Finally, there’s an all new paint job, which is distinctive from most of the other variants in the figure’s 20 year history.

While Chewbacca’s family from the movie have not been realized in figure form (yet?), you can still set up a Life Day scene to reflect one of the common shots that you can find on Google.  It’s this figure along with Luke, Leia, Han, (all in their iconic ANH outfits), Threepio, and Artoo.  So you can set up a nice little vignette on your shelf to represent the Special.  This is a major reason why Hasbro must #MakeTheMains!  In all seriousness, if Hasbro does want to do more from this source, the Wookiee family would certainly make sense, but I think an Ackmena would be very well received by the community.  If we do ever get a Cantina HasLab that we keep demanding, an Ackmena would be a great tier unlock!  And maybe figures of Art Carney, Harvey Korman, and Diahann Carroll to boot.  A four pack of those characters would probably be the most insane release in the entire line’s history.  I’d be all in.

So it’s a pretty fun figure, whether you’re a psychopath and keep your figures in the package, or if you’re a contributing member of society and open them, either way it’s a pretty neat treat.  And the fact that it is unnumbered means even the OCD numbered completists can safely skip this one if they wished.  8/10 for no real reason.