Topic: First Appearance of Boba Fett - I've found pre-Holiday Special

I'm intrigued to when the character of Boba Fett was first developed and shown to the public.

Most evidence suggests the infamous Holiday Special of November 17, 1978.

However, 'The Star Wars Vault' (Sansweet, Vilmur) on page 28 shows a newspaper cutting from the San Rafael Independent Journal, which pictures a Star Wars parade in San Anselmo. The news story is from September 25, 1978 and clearly has Boba Fett to the left of Darth Vader who leads the parade.

This surely shows he was developed and shown earlier; the question now is when, what in, and where's the evidence?

Over to you guys!

I don't think anyone knew who he was during that parade (not including the Lucas guys of course). The costume is a PrePro 1 version I think (I've got a copy of the image around here somewhere!) so not what was finally used in ESB. I think it was a sneak peak in the years before teaser trailers became the norm at cinemas. I've got (and posted) images of the White Fett (sometimes called Supertrooper) and a video that was made that's before September '78, although the general public wouldn't have seen that at the time.
If memory serves correctly then the Boba Fett figure was released earlier that year to promote the expanding figure range and the coming film. This could easily have been to capitalise on that by showing the character in the flesh/armour so to speak

Othar is a wealth of star wars  knowledge, i am humbled.

isnt the progression...
parade, holiday special, promo figure, ESB, newspaper(frozen world of ota), marvel comics...
did i miss anything?

adam.mt, welcome and great topic!

Orthar, nice work.

Cujo, nice timeline. We should have this on BFFC somewhere... Maybe Fettipedia? http://bobafett.com/fettipedia/

I do know that Fett evolved from a early concept sketch for Darth Vader. This is interesting, though.

Thanks Orthar, I didn't know any of that so it's very interesting to know. Have you posted the White Fett images/video here (I'll search in a mo and post links if I find)?

I'll also scan the SW Vault article and post here for those eagle-eyed peps to confirm the costume version.

Albino Fett (courtesy of Orthar):

[EDIT: Link to kotemandos dot com /forum/index.php?showtopic=59 no longer works.]

Scan of the SW Vault newsprint (unfortunately detail isn't very clear):

Also from that parade:

Note the "tutifruiti" coloured jetpack, as seen in ROTJ not ESB and the triangular flame unit housing as seen on the Albino Fett.
And a larger look at the newspaper clipping:

adam.mt and Orthar, excellent work!

Great hustle, too, adam.mt. Usually multiple posts in a row throws people off, since you can hit the pencil icon (bottom right) to edit one post. But I see you were on the trail and added good value with each one. Very nice.

Thanks Orthar, great work.

With a bit of googling have found the official Lucas back history from StarWars.com (wonder why I couldn't find this earlier, doh!). Seems Joe Johnston was mostly responsible for the design, and the parade was indeed the first public outing for the character:
http://www.starwars.com/episode-v/bts/article/f20061019/index.html

That means the chronological history is:
Parade, 'Holiday Special' TV, toy, public appearances, 'Empire Strikes Back' film.

Yes, Johnston designed Boba Fett:

http://bobafett.com/manual/behind-the-mask/joe-johnston/

o yea, i saw that picture in the Vault today.

They actually had an article about this in the Star Wars Insider #99, with the parade pics, too.  Here's a supplement to the article they had.

http://www.starwars.com/episode-v/bts/article/f20061019/index.html

You're correct that it was one of the prototype costumes that they used in the parades.  It has a red left gauntlet and a yellow right gauntlet.  If you also look close at this left shoulder bell, you'll notice it's the skull design that looks like it's from a bird or something like that (the one on the far left, in the pic below), instead of the traditional Mandalorian skull from Jedi. 

This pic is from Boba Maker's webpage: http://www.bobamaker.co.uk/Decals.html