Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane explained the rationale behind making an all-Star Wars episode the best way possible: “We were doing so many Star Wars jokes that some of the network people were worried about getting sued by George Lucas, so we set up a meeting with him.” As it turned out, Lucas was a nice guy who loved the cartoon and got on board with the Blue Harvest concept pretty quickly, apparently.

Family Guy: Blue Harvest is the big, hour-long Star Wars retelling the show opened the season with last fall. There are several guest voices that range widely and even include such obscure celebrities as radio host Rush Limbaugh, who basically plays a version of himself as a pro-Alliance, pro-Darth Vader establishment-loving radio talk show host. Other cameos are more mainstream, like Judd Nelson, Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo, among others.

The show adds some gags they were unable to fit into the one-hour episode that aired on Fox, mostly stuff that was cut due purely out of time constraints. All the familiar Family Guy cast members appear, with mostly obvious takes on their Star Wars alter egos. For example, Stewie is Darth Vader, Quagmire and Cleveland are C3PO and R2D2, and Lois is Leia and so on.

What’s amazing about the episode is that it packs just about the entire two-hours-plus plot of Star Wars: A New Hope into about 40 minutes of satire without cutting much. The obligatory screen-crawl gag-text to open the episode had grown old by now, but McFarlane punches some freshness into it by getting about as nasty as network censors would allow, including talking an awful lot about Angelina Jolie’s kissing habits in general, and in the movie Gia especially.

But anyone who’s seen the episode already knows what it contains, basically; what’s added is what makes the DVD presentation special, and that includes a hilarious commentary track led by McFarlane, a making of documentary, a “conversation” with George Lucas himself, and a load of other, minor features. Special collector’s edition disc are also available that pack in some Family Guy/Star Wars-related collectible goodies, like t-shirts, 3D glasses, trading cards and the like.

While hardly an original concept, it is how the episode was pulled off and melded with the Family Guy characters that makes this one unique. If you’re not into Family Guy, this might not be the episode to convert you – unless you’re a Star Wars fan, perhaps. Loaded like most Family Guy episodes with lots of pop culture references, from a Deal Or No Deal tribute to nonsequiter punchlines about seemingly random topics, like small business phone systems or the lke, Blue Harvest – like most Family Guy video releases – has it’s trademark humor intact, as well as plenty of extras and features to make the purchase well worth it.