Review: Spaceballs: The Animated Series

Mel Brooks' Star Wars Parody is Now an Animated Saga

Oct 13, 2008

The Spaceballs Saga continues in animated form, but it still stays true to Mel Brooks' love of parodies. And in this series, no big franchise is safe.

Mel Brooks produced Spaceballs: The Movie in 1987 as his parody of the last three episodes of Star Wars -- the only installments in existence at the time. Now close to twenty years later, Spaceballs makes its way to the TV screen in an animated form, but still has all the Mel Brooks magic of the original movie.

Typical Mel Brooks Parodies

In true Mel Brooks fashion, every episode is a standalone parody of a famous franchise. The series picks up where the movie left off, and parodies the first three episodes of Star Wars to tell the background story of Dark Helmet. The next episodes tackle other large franchises -- and not all are movies -- including The Lord of Rings, Grand Theft Auto, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter. One thing is definitely certain for this animated series: no movie franchise is safe from parody.

As another major ingredient in Mel Brooks' formula, each episode has a plethora of bad puns. Brooks is infamous for his bad punnage, and each episode has so many bad ones, the characters even make fun of how bad they are. For example, in "Lord of the Onion Rings," Yogurt rescues a collapsed Barf Baggins off the slopes of Mount Lardor with a "Schwartz cut" (he carries him with the power of the Schwartz).

Also in true Mel Brooks fashion, he goes out of his way to offend everyone. The easily offended should stay far away from this series, and well, every other Mel Brooks movie in existence. From Nazi jokes to feminist cracks, Brooks is an equal opportunity offender.

Brooks recruited a fairly reputable voice-acting cast for his animated parody outlet. A few are original voices from the Spaceballs movie. Mel Brooks supplies his voice for President Skroob and Yogurt, Joan Rivers comes back as Dot Matrix, and Daphne Zuniga makes another Princess Vespa appearance. The only thing that could make it more complete would be Rick Moranis returning as Dark Helmet, but that's probably too much to hope for. Instead, Dee Bradley Baker, a very talented voice actor found in popular animations such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Ben 10: Alien Force, Avatar, and American Dad, takes on Rick Moranis' nerdy dark lord.

Fans of Mel Brooks Movies Will be Fans

As humorous as the show is, only Mel Brooks fans will tolerate this series. Viewers must love parodies, clever and yet horrific puns, and dark, offensive humor. In essence, viewers must love everything Mel Brooks. Haters of Mel Brooks classics such as Blazing Saddles, Young Dr. Frankenstein, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and of course, Spaceballs: The Movie, will hate Spaceballs: The Animated Series too.

The copyright of the article Review: Spaceballs: The Animated Series in Animated Films is owned by Keri Honea. Permission to republish Review: Spaceballs: The Animated Series in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Dec 31, 2008 3:18 AM

Guest :

I'm a fan on the original movie and I have to say, this series falls way short. It feels like Brooks isn't even trying. I'd like to think that they're just using his name and that he doesn't have full control over this project. The jokes are old, tired, and not even close to clever. I'm not sure who this was made for but it sure wasn't for fans of Mel Brook's greatest works.