Hardware Wars (1977)

"Get us out of here!"
"Take it easy, kid. It's only a movie."
-Fluke Starbucker and Ham Salad.



Once it became clear that Star Wars (1977) was not only a classic film, but would forever change the course of movie history, fan films and parodies were inevitable.
The most famous of these is the Mel Brooks film Spaceballs (1987). I actually know people who saw this movie before Star Wars and thought the George Lucas film was a serious treatment of it. In addition, "Ludicrous Speed" has become as quoted as "May the Force Be With You."
But the first parody was Hardware Wars, which came out the same year as Star Wars.
This short film, while not as famous as Spaceballs, went on to win many awards and was even praised by Lucas as his favorite Star Wars parody.
It is presented in the manner of a movie trailer with narration by Paul Frees, who also narrated the Star Wars trailers.
Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews) receives a message from Princess Anne-Droid (Cindy Furgatch) after purchasing Tin Man lookalike 4-Q-2 and his vaccum cleaner lookalike Arty-Deco.
With the help of Red Eye Knight Auggie Ben Dogie (Jeff Hale), they recruit pilot Ham Salad (Bob Knickerbocker) and his Cookie Monster-esque sidekick Chewchilla, to fight Darph Nader (who is as incomphrensible as the adults in a Peanuts TV special).
It's a pity that this film's writer-editor-director Ernie Fosselius didn't make similar films about The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) the way Family Guy did.