Monday 23 August 2010

DARTH VADER: SEVENTIES TV CELEBRITY!


DON POST MASKS staffer Kermit Eller was a very busy man playing the then ultimate persona of evil- Darth Vader - in the late seventies-officially partaking in everything from appearing on the hilariously bad DONNIE AND MARIE SHOW to opening BLOOMINGDALES department store with his own poster range (with a little artistic help from Ralph McQuarrie, I might add!).

I'm assuming the above image is from a US TV show appearance but, being in the UK, I have no idea which show it is, when it aired exactly (1977?), or who the celebrity is that Vader is posing with.

Can anyone out there in STAR WARS cyberspace help with any info?

UPDATE 4/9/2012. The STAR WARS ARCHIVE website had the following info for the above pic: Sept 9th 1977: Darth Vader helps Marty Allen host "The Wacko Saturday Morning Preview and Other Good Stuff", which aired at 8pm Thursday on the US Channel 7. It was a program looking at then new children's show for the fall. 

1 comment:

Regularjoe said...

It's NOT the show but in the 70's I stayed up late one evening to watch 'SOUL TRAIN' because they were doing Star Wars and what can I say but even then I was a shameless junkie.

So, if memory serves right, they did the Meco Star Wars music, which was intro'ed by Don Cornelius and someone in a Vader suit. All I remember of the scene was Don Cornelius asking Vader about the buttons on his breastplate & asking, 'What happens if I touch this one?" and Vader responding 'You die."