On May the 4th, let's remember the time NPR had a 'Star Wars' radio drama

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/04/ [login to see] /may-the-4th-star-wars-day-npr-drama
On this May the 4th, we want to take you back to 1981, when NPR turned its attention to Star Wars. That's right: Some of you may have forgotten (and some might not even know) that the network created three radio dramas based on George Lucas' original three movies.

NPR figured it could maybe get more listeners by reviving the radio drama, which had been out of fashion for some 30 years. So the network called Richard Toscan, then-head of the theater program at the University of Southern California. He remembers asking a colleague for advice on what story to dramatize: "There's this long pause, and he says, 'Create a scandal.' "

Toscan was at a loss. Then he mentioned the problem to a student. "And he said, 'Oh, why don't you do Star Wars?' " Toscan recalls. "There was the scandal."

See, Star Wars was a commercial juggernaut. And as Toscan puts it, "Folks working at NPR thought, 'Oh good grief, we're selling out to Hollywood.' "

But if this was selling out, it sure came cheap. George Lucas had graduated from USC and was a fan of the campus NPR station. So after a little prodding, he gave away the radio rights to Star Wars for $1 — a public radio budget if there ever was one.