CLASSIC IMAGE: BEACH BABE PRINCESS!

Even Princesses like to have fun once in a while, as our favourite heroine from 'A Long Time Ago...' is transported to Earth during the fifties, at a time when beach parties, bikini babes and 'Surf's Up!' were the in-thing! A great shot of a pre-'Slave Girl' outfit Carrie Fisher in prime bikini style alongside top comedienne Gilda Radner, during the classic NBC TV's Saturday Night Live sketch/parody - 'Beach Blanket Bimbo from Outer Space' - which aired 18/11/78. Making the most of her quirky side, Miss Fisher even got to sing as Leia once again after her memorable Holiday Special cameo, this time with the classic 'New Kid on Earth'.

SATURDAY NIGHT LEIA!

As part of their SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE 70's weekend, SKY ARTS Channel One HD in the UK are showing tomorrow night (Sunday) at 9.10pm the famous 1978 Carrie Fisher edition (originally airing in the US, I believe, a week prior to another STAR WARS comedy event: THE HOLIDAY SPECIAL!), which saw her in character as Princess Leia for several classic sequences/sketches (including her opening audience monologue pictured above) with the likes of comedy greats like Bill Murray and the late Gilda Radner.

Though it's been commercially available on Region One DVD as part of an expensive series box set, it will finally be nice to see the programme in the best quality possible on regular TV, and, if anyone out there can correct me on this please get in touch, I don't recall that episode actually being shown by the UK's ITV channel when it had seventies repeats very late at night in the early eighties...