Admiral Ackbar
Encyclopedia
Admiral Ackbar is a fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 in the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

science fiction saga. A member of the amphibious Mon Calamari species, Ackbar was the foremost military commander of the Rebel Alliance
Rebel Alliance
The Alliance to Restore the Republic is an interstellar faction of the fictional universe of Star Wars....

 who led major combat operations against the Galactic Empire
Galactic Empire (Star Wars)
The Galactic Empire is one of the main factions in the fictional universe of Star Wars. It is a galaxy-spanning regime established by the series' lead villain, Palpatine, to replace the Galactic Republic in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The Galactic Empire is introduced in Star Wars...

 and was later integral in the formation of the New Republic
New Republic (Star Wars)
The New Republic is a government in the fictional Star Wars universe.When the Rebel Alliance re-established the Old Galactic Republic after the downfall of the Galactic Empire, it became known as the New Republic, just as the original Galactic Republic had become known as the Old Republic by that...

. Ackbar played a supporting role in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...

, and later became a prominent character in the novels, comics books and other media of the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Star Wars Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the Star Wars universe, outside of the six feature films produced by George Lucas. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like Star Wars: The Clone Wars,...

.

With his distinctive salmon-colored skin, high-domed head and large fish-like eyes, Admiral Ackbar was realized in Return of the Jedi through the use of a half-body puppet and slip-on mask, depending on the camera angles used. He was portrayed in the film by puppeteer Timothy M. Rose
Timothy M. Rose
Timothy M. Rose is an actor and puppeteer.-Biography:Rose is best known for playing the role of Admiral Ackbar, the supreme commander of all space forces for the Rebel Alliance, in the sequel Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...

, who asked to play the part after he was impressed with a sculpt of the puppet. Ackbar was voiced by Erik Bauersfeld, who made up the voice he believed matched the character after looking at a photo of Ackbar.

The Ackbar character has been received positively by critics and fans. The line "It's a trap!", which he says during a scene in Return of the Jedi, was one of the most popular lines from the Star Wars films and became a popular Internet meme
Internet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...

.

Back story

Admiral Ackbar was designed for the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...

, the final entry in the original Star Wars trilogy. However, before the May 1983 debut of that film, the character made his first chronological appearance in a series of Star Wars newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

s by Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (comics)
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...

 and Al Williamson
Al Williamson
Alfonso "Al" Williamson was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western and science-fiction/fantasy...

, where he was portrayed as the leader of among the alien species Mon Calamari, who were allies of the Rebel Alliance
Rebel Alliance
The Alliance to Restore the Republic is an interstellar faction of the fictional universe of Star Wars....

 in their conflict
Galactic Civil War
The Galactic Civil War is a fictional war from the Star Wars galaxy. It serves as the setting for the original trilogy of films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, as well as many novels, comics, and video games in the Expanded Universe.The war was fought between the...

 with the Galactic Empire
Galactic Empire (Star Wars)
The Galactic Empire is one of the main factions in the fictional universe of Star Wars. It is a galaxy-spanning regime established by the series' lead villain, Palpatine, to replace the Galactic Republic in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The Galactic Empire is introduced in Star Wars...

. The Mon Calamari are a species of fish-like, amphibious humanoids with salmon-colored skin, webbed hands, high-domed heads and large fish-like eyes. Ackbar's back story was not explained in Return of the Jedi, but has since been established in Star Wars books and other media since the film was released.

Ackbar was born on the planet Mon Calamari, a world almost entirely covered by water, where his species built giant floating cities. The peaceful Ackbar was the leader of his home town, Coral Depths City, when forces from the Galactic Empire invaded and almost destroyed the planet. Despite the Mon Calamari attempts to make peace, the Imperial forces destroyed several of their cities, stole their technology and enslaved many of the aliens. Ackbar was one of the first to be enslaved, and was eventually presented as an interpreter and personal servant to Grand Moff Tarkin
Grand Moff Tarkin
Governor Wilhuff Tarkin or Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, appearing as the main antagonist of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, played by British actor Peter Cushing. A younger version of the character makes a brief cameo in the prequel film Star Wars...

, a high-ranking Imperial official. During this time Ackbar learned much about both the Empire and military tactics in general, and also learned of both the Rebel Alliance and the Death Star
Death Star
The Death Star is a fictional moon-sized space station and superweapon appearing in the Star Wars movies and expanded universe. It is capable of destroying a planet with a single destructive super charged energy beam.-Origin and design:...

, a moon-sized superweapon
Superweapon
A superweapon is an extremely powerful weapon by the standards of its time and its scale. Examples include the Tsar Bomba , various superguns and other various weapons employed to give a decisive advantage over opposing countries or forces. The given advantage is usually based on intimidation and...

 Tarkin was developing.

Ackbar was freed from captivity during a failed attempt by Rebel forces to assassinate Tarkin. Afterward he joined the Rebel Alliance and helped convince his species to support the cause, playing an integral part in persuading his people to contribute their massive starships, the Mon Calamari cruiser
Mon Calamari cruiser
Mon Calamari cruisers are starships in the fictional Star Wars universe. These starships were first depicted in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi as part of the Rebel Alliance fleet that attacks the second Death Star. Industrial Light and Magic designed the vessels to visually contrast the...

s, to the Rebel Alliance. Starting with the rank of Rebel commander, Ackbar helped design the B-wing
B-wing
B-wings are fictional Rebel Alliance and New Republic starfighters in the Star Wars universe. They first appear in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and subsequently in the Star Wars Expanded Universe's books, comics, and games...

, a powerful line of starfighter
Starfighter
"Starfighter" is a science fiction term used to describe small, fast, usually one-manned craft designed for armed combat .The appearance and use of fictional starfighters is often modeled on fighter aircraft, with little regard for the actual physics of spaceflight...

s, which prompted Rebel leader Mon Mothma to promote him to Admiral. Following events in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...

, including the destruction of the Death Star, Ackbar helped the other Rebel leaders establish new bases of operation and manage a Rebel mobile task force in starships spread across the galaxy. His responsibilities kept growing until Mon Mothma promoted him to commander of the entire Rebel fleet and head of military operations, as well as one of her top two advisers.

Return of the Jedi

When Rebel spies discovered plans for a partially constructed second Death Star, Ackbar and Mothma planned a surprise assault on the battle station as it orbited the forest moon of Endor. The attack, which became known as the Battle of Endor, involved General Han Solo
Han Solo
Han Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...

 leading a strike team on the moon's surface to destroy the Death Star's energy shield
Force field
A force field, sometimes known as an energy shield, force shield, or deflector shield is a concept of a field tightly bounded and of significant magnitude so that objects affected by the particular force relating to the field are unable to pass through the central axis of the field and reach the...

 generator, while Ackbar and General Lando Calrissian
Lando Calrissian
Lando Calrissian is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is portrayed by Billy Dee Williams in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...

 led a space battle against the Death Star II itself. Ackbar personally led the assault from his flagship, the Mon Calamari cruiser Home One. The attack did not go as planned, however, because the Imperial forces were expecting the assault and had in fact allowed the Death Star plans to fall into Rebel hands to lead them into a trap. The Imperials launched a massive counterattack against the Rebel fleet with TIE starfighters
TIE fighter
TIE fighters are fictional starfighters in the Star Wars universe. Propelled by Twin Ion Engines , TIE fighters are depicted as fast, fragile starfighters produced by Sienar Fleet Systems for the Galactic Empire...

 and Star Destroyer
Star Destroyer
Star Destroyers are capital ships in the fictional Star Wars universe. The Imperial Star Destroyer, which first appears in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , is "the signature vessel of the Imperial fleet"...

 capital ships. Ackbar initially called for a tactical retreat, but Calrissian convinced him to move forward with the attack. The Rebel forces suffered heavy casualties but ultimately succeeded in destroying the Death Star II, dealing a devastating blow to the Empire.

Expanded Universe

Although his role in Return of the Jedi was relatively brief, Admiral Ackbar became a prominent character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Star Wars Expanded Universe
The Star Wars Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the Star Wars universe, outside of the six feature films produced by George Lucas. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like Star Wars: The Clone Wars,...

, which encompasses all licensed stories in the Star Wars universe outside of the six main feature films, such as novels, comic books, video games and television shows. He was a signatory on the formal declaration of the New Republic
New Republic (Star Wars)
The New Republic is a government in the fictional Star Wars universe.When the Rebel Alliance re-established the Old Galactic Republic after the downfall of the Galactic Empire, it became known as the New Republic, just as the original Galactic Republic had become known as the Old Republic by that...

, the government which replaced the Empire in power, and was one of nine individuals to join the New Republic Provisional Council, the governing body of this new form of government. Ackbar retired before the beginning of The New Jedi Order
The New Jedi Order
The New Jedi Order is a series of nineteen science fiction novels, published from 1999 to 2003, set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The series revolves around the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy 21–26 years after the events depicted in Return of the Jedi...

series, but comes out of retirement to help fight the Yuuzhan Vong
Yuuzhan Vong
The Yuuzhan Vong are a group of fictional characters from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. They rise as a threat to the New Republic in the New Jedi Order series of novels....

. It is revealed in The Unifying Force
The Unifying Force
The Unifying Force is the nineteenth and final installment of the New Jedi Order series of books in the fictional Star Wars Expanded Universe written by James Luceno....

, the final novel of the New Jedi Order
The New Jedi Order
The New Jedi Order is a series of nineteen science fiction novels, published from 1999 to 2003, set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The series revolves around the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy 21–26 years after the events depicted in Return of the Jedi...

series, that Ackbar died of old age shortly before the war ended. The death does not take place within the prose of the book, but rather the characters are notified that it has occurred.

Conception

For Admiral Ackbar's appearance in Return of the Jedi, a combination of a half-body puppet and slip-on mask was used, depending on the camera angle required for the shot. In close-up scenes of Ackbar that required dialogue, puppeteer Timothy M. Rose
Timothy M. Rose
Timothy M. Rose is an actor and puppeteer.-Biography:Rose is best known for playing the role of Admiral Ackbar, the supreme commander of all space forces for the Rebel Alliance, in the sequel Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...

 sat inside the chest of the character and operated the head like a hand puppet from below. Rose moved the hand using his mouth, while Mike Quinn operated the eyes via cables. For wider shots that showed Ackbar's full body, Rose wore the mask and costume while Quinn operated the mouth via remote. Although the character was created with the best available puppetry technology at the time, Star Wars creator George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

 was not entirely pleased with the final result and felt it was a compromise.

During filming of the 2005 Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....

, Lucas was so impressed with the animatron
Animatronics
Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines which seem animate rather than robotic. Animatronic creations include animals , plants and even mythical creatures...

 mask used on the Mon Calamari character Menna Tills, that he briefly considered reediting Return of the Jedi and replacing footage of Admiral Ackbar with an improved mask, although he never did.

Portrayals

Rose was not originally hired to portray Ackbar, but instead to help build and operate the Sy Snootles puppet for the Max Rebo Band
Max Rebo Band
The Max Rebo Band is a fictional alien pop music band that appeared in the 1983 film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi as in-house performers for crime lord Jabba the Hutt. The original lineup consisted of the blue-skinned Ortolan keyboardist Max Rebo, a plump Kitonak woodwind player named...

, which performs at the palace of the alien crime lord Jabba the Hutt
Jabba the Hutt
Jabba the Hutt is a fictional character in George Lucas's space opera film saga Star Wars. Designed as a large, slug-like alien, his appearance has been described by film critic Roger Ebert as "Dickensian," a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat....

. While backstage at the workshop where several alien puppets were stored, Rose saw the sculpt of Ackbar's character on a display stand and asked Phil Tippett
Phil Tippett
Phil Tippett is a movie director and an award-winning visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design and character animation.-Early career:...

, who designed most of the creatures, if he could play the part. He did not know that Ackbar played a major supporting role in the film and only asked to portray him because he liked the look of the character. Rose had believed it would be a background character whose role had not yet even been determined in the film, and said he was "thinking he was going to be in the third row in a new Cantina
Mos Eisley Cantina
The Chalmun's Cantina is a fictional bar of the Star Wars universe located in the "pirate city" of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine...

 sequence or something".

The voice of Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi was performed by Erik Bauersfeld, a radio dramatist who also voiced Bib Fortuna in the film. He was cast after Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt
Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr. is an American sound designer who has worked on various films including: the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and WALL-E...

 approached him while Bauersfeld was producing a radio drama with Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Limited is an American film production company founded by George Lucas in 1971, based in San Francisco, California. Lucas is the company's current chairman and CEO, and Micheline Chau is the president and COO....

 sound designer Randy Thom. The recording session took one hour, and Bauersfeld made up the voice he believed matched the character after looking at a photo of Ackbar. Bauersfeld reprised the role in the 1993 LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...

 computer game Star Wars: X-Wing
Star Wars: X-Wing
Star Wars: X-Wing is the first LucasArts DOS computer game set in the Star Wars universe, as well as the lead title in the X-Wing computer game series. It simulates the experience of combat in the A-wing, X-wing, and Y-wing starfighters of the Rebel Alliance...

.

Critical reception

Admiral Ackbar ranked number 16 in 1998 list of the "Top 20 Star Wars Characters" featured in the magazine Star Wars Insider
Star Wars Insider
Star Wars Insider is the official Star Wars magazine. Its contents include stories, articles relating to the Star Wars universe, letters, and the fan newsletter "Bantha Tracks". It began in 1987 as the official magazine of The Lucasfilm Fan Club...

. Scott Chernoff, a writer for that magazine, called the character "one of the most visually striking and memorable characters introduced in the final installment of the saga". Scott Chitwood of TheForce.Net
TheForce.Net
TheForce.Net is a Star Wars news site. It has material related the movies and associated games, publications, and other merchandise ....

 criticized the fact that Ackbar's death in The Unifying Force was so abrupt and only mentioned in passing by the characters: "He deserved a little more attention. I would have liked to see him killed in action in the final battle, but I guess that’s asking a lot of a sickly old Admiral."

"It's a trap!"

Admiral Ackbar's line, "It's a trap!", which he says during the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi, became one of the most famous and beloved lines from the original Star Wars trilogy. Franklin Harris of The Decatur Daily
The Decatur Daily
The Decatur Daily is a daily newspaper serving Decatur and the Tennessee Valley in North Alabama, United States. As of September 30, 2006, it had an average daily circulation of 20,824 and a Sunday circulation of 23,840...

wrote in 2010, "As strange as it may seem, that simple, three-word exclamation still echoes through American pop culture 27 years later." More than 1,000 fan videos have been created on the video-sharing website YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 featuring or parodying Ackbar and that line of dialogue. Admiral Ackbar can be played as a hidden character in the Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

 Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

 version of the 2008 video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a multimedia project developed by LucasArts along with Dark Horse Comics, Lego, Hasbro, and Del Rey Books...

if the player enters the cheat code "ITSATWAP". Footage of Ackbar reciting the line was featured on both Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

 comedy shows The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...

and The Colbert Report on February 11, 2010. On both shows, it was intercut with footage of various Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 leaders describing an invitation to President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

's health care summit as a trap. "It's a Trap!", the 2011 episode of the animated comedy series Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...

spoofing Return of the Jedi, took its name from Ackbar's famous line; Ackbar himself makes an appearance in the episode, portrayed by the talking goldfish character Klaus Heissler from the animated series American Dad!
American Dad!
American Dad! is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane and owned by Underdog Productions and Fuzzy Door Productions. It is produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television...


Cultural references

Admiral Ackbar's full-sized costume from Return of the Jedi was featured in a 200-piece exhibition of Star Wars costumes, props and other memorabilia featured at the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

 called "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth". The exhibit opened at the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 museum complex in 1997 and later went on a national tour which lasted until 2002 and visited various museums, including the San Diego Museum of Art
San Diego Museum of Art
The San Diego Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California that houses a broad collection with particular strength in Spanish art. The San Diego Museum of Art opened as The Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego on February 28, 1926, and changed its name to the San...

, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a fine art museum located in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a campus that covers nearly 8 acres , formerly Morrison Park...

, the Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...

 in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....

 and the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....

. Ackbar was prominently featured in a sketch during Robot Chicken: Star Wars, a 2007 episode of the stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

 animated television series Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...

dedicated entirely to Star Wars parodies. The sketch is a commercial for "Admiral Ackbar Cereal", with Ackbar presenting the breakfast cereal to two children and declaring, "Your tongues can't repel flavor of that magnitude!", which was similar to one of his character's lines from Return of the Jedi. The character was also featured in a 2009 CollegeHumor
CollegeHumor
CollegeHumor is a comedy website owned by InterActiveCorp and based in New York City. The site features daily original comedy videos and articles created by its in-house writing and production team, in addition to user-submitted videos, pictures, articles and links. In early 2009, CollegeHumor's...

 video called "Ackbar! The Star Wars Talk Show", where he played the host of a talk show similar to The Jerry Springer Show
The Jerry Springer Show
The Jerry Springer Show is a syndicated television tabloid talk show hosted by Jerry Springer, a former politician, broadcast in the United States and other countries...

.

When the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...

 began a process to find a new mascot in 2010, some students started a campaign to have Admiral Ackbar selected. Although their efforts started out as a joke, some students began to seriously push for the idea, while others strongly opposed it and felt it was an embarrassment for the university. The campaign quickly went viral
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...

and received national news media attention, and Lucasfilm issued a tongue-in-cheek statement about the matter which read, "The last time we checked in with Admiral Ackbar he was leading the Rebel Alliance Fleet on a critical mission so it will be difficult for him to show up for the games!" Morgan Phillips, an independent hip-hop musician and disc jockey, included a song about the character called "Admiral Ackbar Please" on his album Star Wars Breakbeats, which included songs about certain Star Wars characters featuring a mix of dialogue, sound effects and hip hop music samples.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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