Answer: The Star Wars Holiday Special (TV)

For most fans, the first recollection they have of Boba Fett, the strong silent Bounty Hunter, was in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. That was not, however, the first time Boba Fett made an appearance in a Star Wars franchise property.

In fact, Boba Fett debuted to viewers across the U.S. not on the silver screen, but on the TV screen. In November of 1978, CBS viewers were treated to the now infamous two hour Star Wars Holiday Special. The special, a collection of short segments, features bizarre content like Chewie visiting his Wookie family and speaking only in their native language without any subtitles, Bea Arthur running the Mos Eisley Cantina, and a visit to the intergalactic Tree of Life to celebrate a type of space Christmas (but, you know, in a galaxy far, far away and long ago where they’d have no idea what Christmas was).

While most of the special is the kind of content both George Lucas and fans would like to forget, there is one notable thing about the broadcast (besides the oddity of it all): in an animated short within the special, we’re treated to the first on-screen appearance of Boba Fett—seen in the still here.

The animated sequence that Boba Fett appears in revolves around the bounty hunter meeting Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and their robotic companions when the Millennium Falcon crashes on a water planet known as Panna. Initially, Boba Fett wins their trust by saving Luke from a huge monster, but then later, when they head to the main city on the planet in search of help, he contacts Darth Vader and betrays Luke, revealing his true intentions. Everyone escapes the encounter, including Boba Fett (by jetpack, naturally) and the tone is set for Boba Fett’s role in future Star Wars stories.