More Early Star Wars Fan Audio
in Classic Bantha Tracks
(source: Official Star Wars Website, 03-09-05)

Daniel Contreras has continued his investigations into early Bantha Tracks issues and found even more evidence of early Star Wars fan audio productions. This time, the information dates back to 1981 (two years before the previous evidence of early fan-made "radiodramas," and, yes, that's one word, not a typo). This new evidence includes what amounts to early Star Wars fan audio parody materials, a full 12 years before the production of what we'd thought was the first "known" venture into that arena, The Adventures of the Galactic Star Force Power Squad.

The new evidence is in the form of a winner list for the 1981 Creativity Contest. In the contest, there was a "Music and Sound" category that was judged by Ben Burtt himself. Among the winners, one can find (in the print version) Terri Black's Satirical Musical Interview, Joey Parisi's Imperial Advertising Agency, and Jonathan Maurice Bell's Narration of Luke Skywalker's Adventures, along with (in the online version in StarWars.com's Hyperspace area) Jim Bob Anderton's creation of eight original sound effects. (Another winner, David Takis' Star Wars Boogie is included as well, but we'd not consider that something under the "fan audio parody" genre in our "comedic skits" use of the terminology here at Fanworks.)

An online version of the issue can be found for Hyperspace subscribers at the link below. Again, thanks to Daniel for the information.