Futurama Hid A Hard-To-Spot Reference To One Of The All-Time Rarest Star Wars Toys
In this brave new world of "Star Wars" fandom, it's almost unfathomable that there exist elements within the various films, novels, comics, and TV shows that don't have some sort of backstory or origin point. While obviously this stems from the huge fanbase for "Star Wars" loving the fictional universe so much that they wish to study and know absolutely everything that's in it, this trend also originated out of an inherent idea popularized by creator George Lucas with the very first movie in the franchise back in 1977 — the implication that we're seeing a small part of a larger world, and every planet, ship, and creature we see (whether in the foreground or background) has its own history and story.
It's a powerful implication, and one that's essential to constructing a wholly fictional universe. Yet, of course, it's mostly hogwash — or at least it used to be. While Lucasfilm and those making "Star Wars" media now have entire groups of people dedicated to keeping the lore of the universe neat and tidy, in the more rough-and-tumble early days of the original trilogy, a lot of fans and professionals just had to guess when it came to the names of background characters, let alone their stories.
One of these characters is an alien who appears very briefly in 1983's "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi," a denizen of Jabba the Hutt's sail barge who eventually was given the very enticing name of Saelt-Marae. Before that, however, he was known by the much less suave name of Yak Face. Thanks in large part to his status as a hard-to-get action figure, that bit of Saelt's history turns up, of all places, as a hard-to-spot Easter egg gag in an episode of the animated series "Futurama."
Futurama makes yuks out of Yak Face
In the first season episode of "Futurama" entitled "Fry and the Slurm Factory," man-out-of-time Philip J. Fry (Billy West) is enthralled when the galaxy's favorite drink, Slurm, opens up a contest for any of its customers to be awarded a free trip to the Slurm plant. All one need do to win the contest is find the golden bottle cap inside a can of Slurm. (To underline that last point: a bottle cap, inside of a can.)
As Fry desperately drinks tons of Slurm in order to find the golden bottle cap and the rest of the episode parodies Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (along with 1971's film adaptation of Dahl, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"), fans were stuck on the episode's opening Slurm commercial, which featured some fine print in the form of an alien language. As it so happens, this was an early instance of the shows faux language that was later dubbed Alienese, a language the series often uses to hide Easter eggs and other gags.
Sure enough, there was a gag hidden inside the Slurm ad, one which actor John DiMaggio and writer Lew Morton (along with series producer David X. Cohen) pointed out on the episode's DVD commentary track:
John DiMaggio: There's a freeze frame here, and it means, 'The following species are ineligible: space moths, space beavers, any other animal with the word space in front of it, space chickens, and the elusive Yak Face.' And the Yak Face is what, David?
David X. Cohen: That's Lew. What Lew?
Lew Morton: It's a very rare Star Wars figure only released in, like, Korea or something.
DiMaggio: Okay.
Cohen: Nerd!
DiMaggio: There it is, and welcome to Futurama!
Morton: Yeah, I write for Futurama, I've been exposed, now, as a nerd. [Laughing]
A brief history of the elusive Yak Face
As the "Futurama" reference indicates, Yak Face was indeed elusive back in the day, especially in action figure form. According to an article in an issue of "Star Wars Insider" detailing the inhabitants of Jabba's palace, Yak Face (in his pre-Saelt-Marae years) was made into a Kenner figure in 1985 that was never released in the United States, thereby making him an ultra-rare collectable. Supposedly, his original figure (with the backing card still intact) had an asking price of as much as $2,000 at one time.
Yak Face was also elusive on-screen in "Return of the Jedi"; according to legend, the character (played by Sean Crawford in the film) was to have an altercation with another alien, Ree-Yees, and their fight was allegedly shot but cut from the movie. Although the fight scene did turn up in prose form in the "Jedi" official novelization by James Kahn, Yak Face was replaced in the novel by another alien, Ephant Mon. Clearly, when your name is Yak Face, you get no respect.
It's likely in that spirit that West End Games, in their 1997 "Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook, Special Edition" which was to be used with the official Star Wars roleplaying game, renamed Yak Face Saelt-Marae. Now, the new and improved Saelt-Marae had a background, a species name (the Yarkora), and a respectable story involving marriage, children, and a dashing life of crime throughout the galaxy. Sadly, however, the legal situation involving the Slurm contest probably means he was still disqualified from it, but if Fry and the Planet Express' adventure at the plant is any indication, ol' Yak Face wouldn't have wanted to win, anyway.
For more about the animated series, check out our list of the 27 best "Futurama" episodes.