There's no other way to look at the notorious The Star Wars Holiday Special except with humour.

The lore about the existence of the Christmas 1978 variety show is as well known among entertainment geeks as the content on screen, and this film contains all the talking heads you expect (Seth Green, Kevin Smith, Weird Al Yankovic, Mick Garris) but plenty you don't know or don't remember had anything to do with the business back then, like a gratifyingly self-depreciating Donny Osmond, Steve Binder (one of the directors) and several of the writers behind it all.

It's a very funny but nevertheless informative look at the whole shebang, and because it's within living memory, a lot of the artists who helped put it together are still around to tell their side of the story, so you'll indeed come away with a deeper appreciation for it.

But in asking several modern day writers and comics how they reacted to it and its legacy, there are a couple of laugh out loud moments that are better than any scripted comedy (like the guy who asks what galaxy it's acceptable in for your grandpa to sit in the middle of the living room watching VR porn).

I already had an unshakeable thought about the SWHS going in. As much derision and (ironic) fan love it's had over the years – fuelled by cultural touchstones like Carrie Fisher saying she always put it on when she had guests and wanted them to leave – back when it was coming out the entirety of Generation X (myself included) were going to eat up anything even related to Star Wars.

Thankfully, it's something the documentary and many of the speakers credit it with. We'd had one movie we'd seen once (maybe a couple of times) in cinemas, it hadn't played on TV, VHS wasn't mainstream yet, there was no internet, and we were starving for anything related to it.

Not only that, Star Wars wasn't anything like the established brand it is today under Disney or even LucasFilm's stewardship. Lucas had made a single film and was deep in planning for the next one (hence his dismissively telling CBS to do whatever they wanted, far too busy to be involved in quality control).

Darth Vader showed up in silly TV skits and ads with none of the menace and evil of the movie, but until then he'd had less than 10 minutes of screen time altogether. Nobody in the world – apart from Lucas – knew what do to with him.

It's a very well put together story about one of the most curious pop culture artefacts of our time, and if you love Star Wars, it will take you right back.

It's also a celebration of fan culture inasmuch as the Special has taken on a life of its own far bigger than the quality merits (or maybe because of it) in the years since. If you're over 40 and under 65 as I write these words, it's essential viewing.

It also reveals some of the coolest trivia about the project you'd long forgotten. Kris Kristofferson played the Han Solo role in some other silly variety show musical numbers alongside a bunch of dancing stormtroopers, and Pat Proft – the 80s-era comedy writer who started with the Zuckers/Abrahams and went on to make some iconic screen comedy with creative partner Neal Israel – was a credited writer.