Merry Christmas from R2D2, C3PO, and a Special Guest

Star Wars hype was in full effect in the late 70′s and early 80′s. The original movie (which you won’t catch me calling anything other than Star Wars) had generated huge box office numbers and legions of dedicated fans. George Lucas was busy coming up with new and creative ways to separate them from their money, so the market was flooded with merchandise featuring all of the movie’s major (and minor) characters. Action figures, costumes, shampoo, you name it. Pretty much anything that could be molded into a character or have a character printed on it was fair game for the marketing machine. But that just wasn’t enough.

In addition to the thousands of kitschy products available, Lucas saw fit to create new material to add to the Star Wars canon. The results were fairly horrendous, as evidenced by the Star Wars Holiday Special. Another of these ill-fated efforts was Christmas in the Stars, a 1980 album featuring R2D2 and C3PO working in a droid-operated Christmas toy factory. While they’re not making toys they introduce Star Wars-themed Christmas songs. Song with titles like “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)” and “The Odds Against Christmas”. Sounds like something that probably should have slipped into the mists of time and never resurfaced, right? Maybe, if not for a certain singer on one of the songs.

Producer Meco Monardo knew in order for the album to work the songs had to be performed by professional singers, not the droids themselves. Co-producer Tony Bongiovi recommended his cousin, who worked at the studio sweeping floors, for one of the songs. “R2D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is a fairly terrible song, but it’s notable for being the first professional recording for John Bongiovi, who you may know better by his stage name Jon Bon Jovi.

“R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas”

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And that, my friends, is the story of how R2D2 and Jon Bon Jovi became inexorably linked to Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!