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"Hey all, Star Wars reference here."
[Homer fighting with some gangsters]
Mark Hamill: [strained] Homer, use the for...
Homer: The Force?
Mark: The forks! Use the forks!

Many shows have a few references to Star Wars. It's a popular film series, so the majority of the audience is likely to understand it. However, some shows go a step further, and have an entire episode that revolves around references to Star Wars, Luke, I Am Your Father scenes, Big NOOOOOOOs, and thinly-veiled Captain Ersatzes of Darth Vader. The focal or point-of-view character usually plays the part of Luke Skywalker, since episodes frequently take most references from primarily A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (primarily the former).

The episode need not be a parody, and in many cases is an Homage, and sometimes a full Whole-Plot Reference.

Compare Where No Parody Has Gone Before, Jurassic Farce and Charlie and the Chocolate Parody.


Examples:

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    Advertising 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Crayon Shin-chan did this. The English dub added more in-jokes, but the episode itself is already riddled with sexual and toilet humor.
    A long time ago, before Family Guy and Robot Chicken, in a land far, far away if you tried to get there by swimming...
  • Gintama has not only one, but two entire story arc based around a Star Wars parody. Ironically, it got the basic idea of the films down: Japanese samurai (what the Jedi were based off of), a vaguely retro-futuristic setting, and quirky aliens.
  • The little-known series Dotto! Koni-chan has an awesome parody of the three movies.
  • The opening of To Love Ru is blatant. And then subverted: TIE fighters don't have missiles. And they don't hit the heroes.
  • The copyright-content laden opening for Princess Jellyfish has a brief Star Wars sequence as well.
  • Fujiko F. Fujio:
    • Happens in Doraemon—though, in this case, all of the characters involved are about the size of mice, and the day is saved not by the Force, but Gian and Suneo accidentally breaking the Imperial Star Destroyer-equivalent while playing baseball.
    • In the short manga ある日…… (Aru Hi…… "One Day……"), four amateur filmmakers showcased their amateur films. One of them showed Star Walk, a collaborative effort of him and his son who was into miniature models.
  • One episode of Urusei Yatsura had Lum and Ataru home alone. Lum wanted to take the opportunity to sleep with Ataru. When Megane and the rest of Lum's Stormtroopers tried to prevent this from happening to protect Lum's virginity from the lecherous Ataru, she told them to stuff it and that she wanted to sleep with Ataru. Cue a freakout from Megane that ends up being an extended, two-minute parody of the then-current Return of the Jedi.note 

    Comic Books 
  • "May The Farce Be With You", a Donald Duck / Mickey Mouse comic.
    • Zé Carioca of all people also had one of these.
    • There's also a 1991 Italian Mickey comic which basically retells the story of the first movie, with Mickey and Goofy both taking the role of Luke, and getting dragged into a war between an evil empire and a small rebellion.
  • Jinggo, a Malaysian comic series, has one of the stories spoofing Star Wars. You'd get the impression that Jinggo's creator, Kenny Chua, isn't a fan of the prequels (or at least, doesn't hold it high in regard) considering he have expies of Darth Maul, Janggo Fett, Jar Jar Binks and Padme Amidala killed off! (Meanwhile, no such thing happens to parodies of the original trilogy)
  • Monica's Gang had Star Warp (in the original Portuguese, Coelhada nas Estrelas something like "Star Rabbit-beating"), followed 11 years later by an Empire parody, O Feio Contra-Ataca (Fraydernote  Strikes Back), and 2 years later by O Retorno de Jedito (Return of the Jedito). Then just in time for Episode VII, came the first of the prequels, A Trapaça Fantasma (The Phantom Mess-Up, as in a swindle).
  • Spider-Man: One Spidey Super Stories featured Doctor Doom as the obvious Vader and involved a giant metal planet. For some reason.

    Comic Strips 
  • FoxTrot had an arc where Jason sent a script to George Lucas that had him inserted into the series as Luke's Marty Stu younger brother. A later FoxTrot arc had Jason stuck inside his Darth Vader helmet until his dad rescued him. When Jason marveled at how his father was able to open the helmet, his dad commented that he had that problem with his Vader helmet during the original trilogy.
    Jason: Wait, you mean that you were a Star Wars fan before I was?
    Dad: Search your feelings, you know this to be true.
    Jason: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
  • Bloom County once had an extended dream sequence that parodied Star Wars, with Binkley as Luke Skywalker and other cast members playing various Star Wars characters. Notably, this sequence parodied academic discussions of Star Wars more than the films themselves. Darth Vader was a pompous film scholar who decried the Star Wars films as "intellectual Jell-O" fit only for the slow-minded masses. Binkley (as Luke) responds by slicing him in two with a lightsaber, and quipping "Jedi Knights aren't fond of critics."
    • Even better, the very next comic has George Lucas telling Binkley that they have six more films, and should get to them by 1998. In the collected edition, Berkeley Breathed remarks "I was one year off."
    • While Cutter John and the animals usually rode around in his wheelchair playing Star Trek, one Sunday strip involved them playing a variation of Star Wars (with Opus wearing "Luke" on his helmet) to take a shot at the recent breakup of the Bell System, with a reminder that the former parent company, AT&T, was still out there. The strip helped to codify the Saul Bass-designed AT&T globe logo's nickname, the Death Star.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Fan Works 

    Literature 
  • Space Brat: Book #4 (Planet of the Dips) spoofed this. Among other things, there is a Yoda-like hermit with a similar-sounding name (Old Bebop Kenoobie), and his advice to the main character is "Use the farce, Blork!" During the climax, Blork does indeed use the farce: when he loses his trial by Skwishifroot, he also loses his temper and throws a massive tantrum. The resulting skwishifroot fight causes the Dips to have more fun in one day than they have in years, and they offer him anything he wants — except his Poodnoobie back. Blork realizes this was the farce that Kenoobie had told him to use, and he figures out a reward that, once it's achieved, lets him keep Lunk after all.
  • Star Warped, by British comedy writer Adam Roberts, which parodies the first six Star Wars films. The same writer also wrote parodies for The Silmarillion (called The Sellamillion) and The Matrix (The McAtrix)
  • VeggieTales did a book called Frog Wars. Larry is Cuke Sandwalker, and also including names like Sweet-Pea-3-0 and Achoo-Bless-U and Dark Visor.

    Live-Action TV 
  • An episode of That '70s Show was set when Star Wars was first in theaters (It wouldn't become A New Hope until years later). Eric worries about losing Donna to another guy, resulting in a dream sequence that puts the cast in Star Wars. The best part is Red as Obi-Wan: "Jedi Knight? More like Jedi dumbass." (As a result it became one of Eric's defining gags.)
    • Then there is this scene where Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian himself) plays a pastor who is into Star Wars just as much as Eric.
  • "May the Source be with You" from Quark is pretty much this.
  • The dodgeball episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide includes Cookie joining The Dark Side and gaining a roboticized voice and heavy breathing from his dodge ball face shield, an Image Freeze echoing the end of the master-vs.apprentice fight in A New Hope, and a dodgeball called The Force, among others.
  • Spaced also featured numerous shot-for-shot parodies of moments in the Star Wars movies. They were particularly cutting about the prequel trilogy — but ironically, because they had been so complementary about the original movies, they were granted the rights to use original music, etc in their parodies of the trilogies.
  • The Muppet Show got in on the act when Mark Hamill was a guest on the show. He showed up as himself and Luke, with R2D2, C3PO and Chewbacca along for the ride, while Piggy played Leia and Gonzo played Vader.
  • The 1977 revival of Laugh-In ended with the tagline "May the Farce be with you."
  • Community episode "For a Few Paintballs More" portrayed the GCC paintballers as the Rebels against the Empire of City College.

    Magazines 
  • The Trope Namer is MAD Magazine, who naturally created parodies for all the movies in the Star Wars franchise, listing them under the "May the Farce be With You Department".

    Radio 
  • Lo Zoo Di 105 has Merde Stellari, "Star Shits".
  • The Burkiss Way is an early example, parodying the first film shortly after its British premiere in 1978. Star Wars [Episode IV] is announced as "The biggest thing to hit America since Gerald Ford fell out of his plane" and "more expensive than building real spaceships".
    R2-D2: (bleeps)
    C-3PO: If I could walk that way I wouldn't need the Castrol.

    Princess Leia: Ben! Are you hit?
    Obi-Wan Kenobi: It's all right, I just have a small cut.
    Princess Leia: A small cut? Two and a quarter per cent? You jammy devil!
  • The Bob & Tom Show skit "Star Warts" was a Real Trailer, Fake Movie for a porno version of the original trilogy.
  • Bleak Expectations: Series 4 episode 6 turns into one when Mr. Benevolent pulls the Luke, I Am Your Father routine (via time-travel. "Your father liked to delegate. A lot.") and then pulls Vader's We Can Rule Together offer... and Pip Bin accepts.
    Mr. Benevolent: Join me, Pip Bin, and together we can rule the world as father and son!
    Pip: ... yeah, okay. That sounds like fun!

    Tabletop Games 
  • The classic Paranoia module Alpha Complexities was chock full of Star Wars references for the Game Master, though it wouldn't become apparent to the players until relatively late in the adventure.

    Video Games 
  • Final Fantasy:
  • One module for the Game Maker Megazeux was titled "Oh No, Not Another Star Wars Parody!" It had a few other sci-fi parody references thrown in, like basing the personality of their C3PO expy on Marvin the Paranoid Android.
  • Interstate '82 has a level based on the trench run from A New Hope, only with weaponized cars instead of spaceships. Taurus even encounters a villain who speaks with Vader Breath and is apparently about to tell him he's Taurus' father before his radio cuts out.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The series has this across Master Xehanort's incarnations, but Xemnas is strikingly like a Sith Lord with dual crimson Ethereal Blades and a nearly pitch-black hooded cloak. Much like a powerful Sith Lord, he can bend the laws of physics to perform jaw-dropping feats and similar to Darth Sidious, Xemnas is only one of the host bodies that Xehanort has to simulate immortality.
    • Vanitas portrays an Evil Counterpart version of both Sora and Ventus, being the darkness of Ventus and having the likeness of Sora. His air-tight mask and Red and Black and Evil All Over outfit conjure Darth Vader's own battle suit and mask, while his pain is used as an advantage to fuel his power to summon The Unversed.
    • From the same game as Vanitas, Terra's character arc can best be summarized as "homage to prequel trilogy Anakin Skywalker", complete with resentment over not getting named Master in an order of magic space knights. Xehanort acts as Terra's Darth Sidious and seduces Terra to the dark side by assuring him that it is alright to dabble in dark arts. While it is indeed possible to use darkness while maintaining a disciplined outlook, Terra is being played by Xehanort and eventually suffers for it.
  • The entire LEGO Star Wars series of video games could be seen as an officially licensed Star Wars parody.
  • The Space Quest series has a number of Star Wars references, including a desert planet reminiscent of Tatooine which you crash your Escape Pod on after your ship is captured by aliens, a defective R2-like droid, a Bow Tie fighter from the Cologne Wars on the garbage freighter in the third game, Imperial Probe Droid-like sentry bots, a Roger, I am Your Son revelation, Obi-wan and Darth Vader dueling in the back ground, et. al. The box for SQ 4 even says "May the farce be with you!".
  • The MS-DOS port of Space War! says this when the player quits the game.
  • The last level of Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! is an extended Star Wars parody, referencing a specific episode of the series — see Western Animation, below.

    Webcomics 
  • User Friendly did an arc "a long time ago, in another incarnation" parodying A New Hope, with the Dust Puppy in the Luke role and the Crud Puppy in the Vader role. The Dust Puppy, however, takes a backseat to Eric S. Raymond ("May the Open Source be with you!") and Lan Solaris, cocky pilot of the Millennium Bug.
  • Diary of a Crazed Mimbanite
  • The initial setting of Worse is a very Star Wars-esque universe.
  • Darths & Droids is a Campaign Comic based on the premise of a group of tabletop gamers playing out the Star Wars movies as a campaign in a generic science fiction game system, in a world where the actual Star Wars movies never existed. (As of early 2020, they've completed all six Lucasfilm movies, Rogue One, and the above-mentioned Muppet Show episode; and are about to start the Disney sequels.)
  • Blue Milk Special is a direct parody of the original trilogy. It is currently up to Return of the Jedi.
  • The Animated Adaptation of Ctrl+Alt+Del did a two-episode homage to Star Wars.
  • Arthur, King of Time and Space's second movie parody arc.

    Web Original 
  • Unix Wars is a retelling of the first half of A New Hope with as much names and terms as possible substituted by Unix and programming jargon, i.e. Obi-Wan becomes PDP-1 (a kind of 1960s computer, mostly but not totally obsolete by 1977note ), the Death Star is the rm-star (after the Unix command to erase everything).
  • Super Console Wars is a three-episode Flash series which retells the events of A New Hope from the beginning to the Millennium Falcon's escape from the Death Star, but replaces the established characters with ones from video games. Examples include Lukeegi and Darth Mario, Princess Zeia, Moff Bison, and Obi-Wan Shinobi.
  • The soundtrack album cover for the Scott The Woz special Borderline Forever evokes Star Wars, with the enemy ships in the background and Scott's Pepto-Bismol shooting out a pink stream that resembles a lightsaber. The movie itself isn't a Star Wars parody, though; the album cover is drawing attention to the climax, which takes place in space.
  • Space Janitors is set in a serial-numbers-filed-off version of Classic Star Wars, seen from the perspecive of a bunch of nobodies from the lower decks working for The Empire.

    Western Animation 
  • The B plot of the Big City Greens episode “Clubbed” features Bill and Cricket watching Bill’s favorite movie “Constellation Battles”, a quite thinly veiled parody of all the Star Wars movies. It also includes some Marvel Comics references with the galaxy crystals, which seem to be a parody of the infinity stones.
  • The CB Bears episode "Disappearing Satellites" takes a number of stylistic cues from the first film. It has a villain loosely inspired by Darth Vader, who flies a spaceship that resembles the Millennium Falcon. His henchman is a beeping robot named X-9 heavily based off R2-D2, although he does speak actual English between his beeps. CB Bears was one of the first cartoons to do this; the episode debuted on December 3, 1977, barely six months after the first Star Wars premiered.
  • The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, in which each episode was a parody of a well-known film, never actually did a Star Wars episode, but there was a few seconds of Star Wars in the title sequence, with Alvin as Luke, Simon as C3PO, Theodore as R2-D2, and David as Darth Vader.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door has one episode revolving around it. There is a parody of the Darth Vader fight on a catwalk and they even parody "Use the Force" with "Use the soup." Another episode stole the trench run from A New Hope, and another episode had a parody of the Death Star scene in Episode 4. On a gigantic cake, no less. The episode's climax was a parody of the Super Star Destroyer's destruction — it really cut a slice into Father's plans. Plus the School Bus Imperial Walkers and the Sled Snowspeeders in a giant Hoth/Snow Day battle.
  • DuckTales (1987): "Duckworth's Revolt" begins with a parody of the Star Wars opening crawl, "A long time ago, in a garden far, far away . . . ."
  • The Fairly OddParents! is littered with Star Wars references: one was when Timmy was trying to win the "Dimmy Awards". One of the scenes he filmed was a parody of the scene where Skywalker was trying to blow up the Death Star. Butch Hartman is a huge Star Wars fan.
    • There was an episode that combined original trilogy references with allusions to Attack of the Clones when Timmy wishes for a copy machine that makes things real. One of the things brought to life was Darth Vader parody Dark Laser, who would go on to become a recurring character.
    • The "Abra-Catastrophe" special had a limited example in the opening dream sequence, parodying the Luke, I Am Your Father scene while also being a Take That! towards Jar Jar Binks.
    • The "Wishology" trilogy had the Cantina scene with Timmy as Luke, Dark Laser as Darth Vader, Vicky dressing up as Leia, Mark as R2-D2 in a metal suit that squeaked to imitate R2's beeps, and Crocker as Chewbacca, imitating the latter's growls due to his sinuses acting up from his fur parka.
    • Also done in the episode where Poof went to Spellementary School. Foop and Poof got into a "wandsaber" fight with Foop as Darth Maul and Poof as Young Obi-Wan.
  • Family Guy did Family Guy Presents: Laugh It Up, Fuzzball, a series of double-length specials that managed to cover the entire Original Trilogy.
    • With a Take That! to the Prequel Trilogy at the end, where Peter breezily dismisses them with "Eh, I think The Cleveland Show is doing them."note 
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends combined a parody of Revenge of the Sith with a superhero spoof—the villain turned Bloo into a Darth Vader lookalike and made him fight Mac on a catwalk with a dramatic "unmasking".
  • Futurama has been known to do this from time to time, the first reference being Hanukkah Zombie's preferred mode of transportation being a TIE Fighter whose wings are shaped like Stars of David. Bonus points in that Hanukkah Zombie is voiced by Mark Hamill.
  • Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater featured an episode based on Star Wars. Instead of lightsabers, it had fleasabers.
  • LEGO Star Wars didn't just stop at video games. They have two half-hour episodes that aired on Cartoon Network as well. The episodes are full of comedy that takes full advantage of the Lego settings and in-jokes about the series, including the famous "Han shot first" debacle.
    C-3PO: I don't believe it. Han shot first!
    Han: Of course I shot first. Why wouldn't I?
    C-3PO: That is a topic of great debate.
    • The Padawan Menance involves a young boy named Han Solo sneaking his way into a group of padawans touring the Galactic High Senate. Hilarity Ensues as he soon gets involved with Yoda to recover Secret Battle Plans from Ventress. Meanwhile, C-3PO has to take care of the padawans, but soon finds himself in trouble with Jabba the Hutt. Darth Vader frequently interrupts the production by breaking into the scene, only to have George Lucas tell him that he doesn't show up in this episode.
    • The Empire Strikes Out takes place immediately after the end of A New Hope. Before the Rebels have time to celebrate, Han and Leia head off to Naboo to ask Boss Nass for help in fighting the Empire. They both soon get washed away by waves of slobber. Luke heads to the capital city on Naboo, but finds himself getting chased by an army of fangirls. Meanwhile, Emperor Palpatine decides to go ahead and rebuild the Death Star, inviting Darth Maul to help out Darth Vader in building it. Hilarity Ensues again as Darth Vader soon finds himself the Butt-Monkey for the majority of the episode, including getting zapped by Jawas, repainted, and sold as a used droid.
      Vader: Not one of my better days.
  • Done as part of the "Gonzo's Video Show" episode of Muppet Babies.
  • In "The Mega Mall Problem" on Peg + Cat, when Peg complains about not being able to see to dance because she's wearing a zebra mask, Cat goes Yoda on her: "Your eyes can play tricks on you. Trust them, do not." (Though, technically, "Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them." was actually Ben Kenobi's line in the original film.)
  • In the wake of buying out Lucasfilm, Disney created Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars, featuring the plot of A New Hope from the perspective of the show's characters with the characters from the film interacting with them at certain points.
    • Before that, there were plenty of other Star Wars references sprinkled throughout. Most notably, in "Backyard Aquarium", where Perry and Doofenshmirtz have a bratwurst/hot dog fight that mostly mirrors the Dooku/Yoda fight from Attack of the Clones. At one point, Doof stretches out his hand as if he is about to use The Force, and Perry looks at fixed light. Then Doof says, "No, I was just kidding, but I made ya look, didn't I?"
  • The final episode of Pinky and the Brain was a Star Wars parody featuring the cast of Animaniacs, the show that it spun off from.
  • One story in an animated series of Popeye that ran from the late 1970s to the early 1980s was based on Star Wars as well.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Boogie Frights", the Boogie Man launches a giant disco ball to eclipse the sun so that his fellow nightmare creatures can party in the daytime as well and terrorize humanity forever. The Powerpuff Girls fly out to the disco ball in a dead-on parody of the attack on the Death Star. In the end, Buttercup flies out of the sun like the Millennium Falcon, winging two demons on Bubbles' tail with her heat vision, allowing Bubbles to fire a heat-vision blast that destroys the Death Star disco ball.
  • Retarded Animal Babies episode 13: "Abandon all Hope."
  • Robot Chicken has had three Star Wars specials building on skits from previous episodes.
  • Samurai Jack does this a lot, although the line between parody and Homage is often hard to determine. Two episodes where this plays important parts of the plot are "The Scottsman Saves Jack" and "Jack and the Flying Prince and Princess".
  • The Simpsons:
  • The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! did one of these parodies, actually called 'Star Koopa'. It actually had Bowser as Darth Vader, the other characters as other Star Wars characters and 'Lightplungers'.
  • Teen Titans (2003) has a Trapped in TV Land episode where Control Freak, using his remote, drags himself and the Titans into the world of television, ending with a final confrontation in a Star Wars-esque spoof where Control Freak takes over the show's main villain role by knocking a Darth Vader lookalike into a Bottomless Pit before telling the Luke Skywalker expy, "I Am Your Father…" said episode notably references the prequels as well, when the Titans accidentally runs into a bunch of Mecha-Mooks resembling B1 Battle Droids, that Beast Boy attempts to fool before suddenly remembering the Jedi Mind Trick doesn't work on robots.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures did this in "A Quack in the Quarks", its first regular episode in syndication. It was later brought into one of the SNES games.
  • Each of the first three Toy Story films has some parts that correspond with the original trilogy:
  • The Venture Brothers loves throwing in Star Wars references, but the second season episode "Love-Bheits" really takes it over the top and almost becomes nothing but a Star Wars parody episode.
  • Wander over Yonder is filled with this, being a science fiction series and all. Particularly notable examples include Lord Hater’s storage station resembling the Death Star, Sylvia’s old partner Ryder being a more shady and self serving Expy of Han Solo, Dominator’s ship resembling a red and black Star Destroyer, and her minions vaguely modeled after droidekas. And that’s only the tip of the sci-fi parody iceberg.

Alternative Title(s): A Very Star Wars Parody

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Sesame Street parodies Star Wars.

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