As much as people might like to look into last night's Star Wars placement on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition as the first signs of corporate synergy between ABC and Disney-owned sister company LucasFilm, that would have required a lot of Jedi magic in the editing room.
The minor furor, which included a flurry Tweets and blog posts calling out Disney for shenanigans, stems from several volunteers on the philanthropic series dressing in full Storm Trooper garb and one of the children getting a Star Wars branded bedroom. (The Zdrojs, a family whose original home was destroyed in a wild fire last year, are apparently fans of the franchise.)
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At first glance, it does seem more than a little conspicuous, but it's also virtually impossible for the new corporate partnership to have had any effect on the episode that aired.
For one, the events of the Christmas special were filmed more than a year before Disney's Oct. 30 purchase of George Lucas' Star Wars empire and its announcement of new installments in the franchise. The Zdroj house was destroyed in September 2011 and rebuilt shortly afterwards, as sources close to the show confirm to The Hollywood Reporter.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was technically canceled in December of last year, and all of the ensuring episodes that have recently popped up are specials that taped quite some time ago.
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There's also the not-so-small matter of neither ABC or Disney owning Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The series, created in 2003, is owned and produced by reality juggernauts Endemol USA -- the same studio responsible for Wipeout, Big Brother and Fear Factor.
Needless to say, Endemol has no stake in Disney and likely weren't party to Lucas' earliest talks with Bob Iger.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ended its official run in January of this year after ratings dipped significantly from their heyday in 2004 and 2005. Those lagging numbers have not rebounded in this latest spat of specials. The episode in question averaged a middling 1.0 rating with adults 18-49 and under 4.5 million viewers.
