What is it with Spaceballs?

SpaceballsI have been an unabashed Star Wars fan for 31 years now, saw Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein more than 30 years ago, and was therefore terribly excited back in ’87 when a crew of friends I’d made during high school and college assembled in Boston to see Mel Brook’s SpaceBalls. So what happened?

For us, it was a dreadful disappointment: the jokes fell flat, the dialogue and situations were juvenile, and the entire scenario of a Star Wars parody more than a decade after the initial release just felt irrelevent.  I mean, things had already gotten to the point where movies like Back to the Future a few years earlier could drop in a quick reference and everyone took away the whole meaning.  As we sat having a late-night beer and steak in Harvard Square afterwards, I was reminded of a line from Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories: “I like your movies, especially your early, funny ones”.

Since then I have seen it once or twice on cable, but I’m not sure I watched it again fully until our older son watched it on DVD at a friend’s birthday party a couple of years ago.  At his request we rented it and watched it as a family.  For me it had always been a mediocre movie whose only bright moments come from my love of the source material and echoes of the greatness of Brook’s earlier work.

The new viewing did little to alter that perception.  Not only that but I didn’t find that the years had been very kind to either the content or the presentation.  One thing that struck me immediately was the pacing: in Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles the story and characters provided enough depth and interest to carry you from joke to joke, so that although you knew it was a parody, it stood apart from the source material as something worth viewing.  Since then, the formula perfected in Airplane has tended to work the best in thin-story comedies – throw a dozen jokes a minute at the audience in the hopes that a few of them stick.  That way everyone in the audience will only remember that they were laughing nearly all the time, not that most of the jokes were lousy.

Unfortunately most of the jokes in Spaceballs are lousy – and they only come once or twice a minute.  And once they arrive they take too long to go away.  A great example of this is the scene where Colonel Sandurz calls for a tape of Spaceballs: The Movie to see what they should do next.  This time-altering concept must have looked great on paper, but in practice it takes way too long to play off, especially when paired up with a second-rate Abbot & Costello rip-off.

Another great example of this is the opening scene with the huge ship spending over a minute and a half crawling across the screen.  It is a spoof of the opening scene of Star Wars that had already been spoofed so many times in that previous decade that ‘over-used’ doesn’t begin to cover it.  Yet Brooks playing it for so long gets some humorous tension going for a bit, which then turns into a feeling of ‘just get to the punchline already’!  And when the punchline arrives, it is good for a chuckle at best – certainly not worth the wait.

The performances are equally flat-footed, with only a couple of reasonably funny scenes from Rick Moranis and Mel Brooks himself standing out in an otherwise lackluster showing of talented performers.  By paralleling the characters and many of the situations so closely to either Star Wars or Star Trek, both of which had been parodied to the extreme for years and years, Brooks gives his actors little room to navigate.

Spaceballs scene

So I think you get my point – the movie was not very good, felt like it should have been released in ~1981, and is even worse for the wear twenty years later.

Unless you are a kid who grew up with the Star Wars prequels, apparently.

Because my son loved it at the birthday party, both of my kids loved it when we watched it at home, and they both continue to enjoy it and rewatch it frequently a couple of years later.

The same is true with their friends.  That birthday party wasn’t the only viewing, as our kids bought the DVD for themselves and other kids own their own copies.  Spaceballs has been a feature movie at a number of parties and sleepovers and other events during the past couple of years.

As if to answer the questions in my mind, it seems that I have repeatedly found that this love isn’t just local among a group of kids ~9-11, but has broader reach in terms of age and geography.  I was reminded of this again last weekend after we drove back to Massachusetts for the kids’ Destination Imagination State Final competition.  They had watched in on the ride, and then the quotes came out all day long while at the competition.  There were about 5000 kids there, and every time the kids saied something about ‘The Schwartz’ or ‘Pizza the Hut’ or ‘Barf’ or whatever there was always another kid ready to chime in.

This has continued to be true as we’ve moved from Massachusetts to New York.  The kids only had three days of school before being on vacation this week, but they were already able to establish that there were plenty of other Spaceballs fans either in class or on the bus.

I guess to some extent it makes sense – the humor is definitely aimed at that age group, as it is laden with body functions, basic physical comedy, and obvious innuendo.  It also makes sense because Star Wars has gone from being something that was over-done by the time Spaceballs was released to a general part of our cultural history. 

It is no longer safe to assume that kids seeing this have seen Abbot & Costello or Airplane or the hundred Star Wars spoofs that polluted junk TV back in the early 80’s.  Nor have most of them grown up thinking of Mel Brooks as the guy who gave us Get Smart, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles and more.  They have no such expectations.  So for this new generation the context is quite different.  And apparently it works for them – which is great for them and perhaps for Mel Brook’s legacy, as we’ve watched loads of his work since together then and they’ve loved it all.  It is just interesting to see how our kids take stuff from our time and make it their own and somehow new again – just as momGamer said earlier.

14 Responses to “What is it with Spaceballs?”

  1. I got Spaceballs for Father’s Day last year. At the time, I was introducing Becca to Star Wars and my wife thought it would be a great gift that the whole family could watch.

    I’d seen Spaceballs in theaters on its original release, but we’d forgotten just how crude it was, at least for children. It’s not Knocked Up by any means, but when we got to the Major A**hole part we ended up turning it off in embarassment and chagrin and putting on Barbie: The Princess and the Pauper.

    Later I watched it with my wife. Or tried to. I remember LOVING it when it was in theaters, but now I find it horribly dull, painfully unfunny, and annoying. I dozed off repeatedly throughout and couldn’t wait for it to be over.

    There are some 80s comedies that we still love and find quite amusing – I’m particularly thinking of The Three Amigos, but Spaceballs sure doesn’t seem to have aged well.

  2. Even the greatest of men make mistake

  3. Spaceballs is awful – was awful – will always be awful.

    That said, it does feature vaudeville style comedy in a space setting. That’s something older folks are more familiar with (we know it’s bad borscht belt comedy) but to kids? It’s probably really novel and silly.

    The AV Club had a great line in a recent My Year of Flops where the author put forward that heinously bad serious movies often become beloved camp comedy classics once their “era” has passed and a new generation takes a look at it.

    So I get why kids like it.

    Mike, you’re dead on with your analysis here. The most glaring thing about Spaceballs (and that Robin Hood …thing… and well, everything since) is that Brooks doesn’t love sci-fi. He LOVED horror and James Whale, he LOVED Hitchcock for High Anxiety, he LOVED silent movies, cowboy films and the history of the world – part one anyway.

    So he took his formula and applied it to something he wasn’t a geek about and it showed. Another way of putting it would be to say that Spaceballs is a parody made by people who don’t take sci-fi SERIOUSLY. Parody works a lot better when the makers know what makes a genre tick.

    Oh, having Richard Pryor at his creative and career height (or close to it) to write Blazing Saddles was genius. Did you know the studio refused to let Pryor take that sheriff role. It’d be a different movie, wouldn’t it?

  4. Great analyses by both of you there. I was never a fan of Spaceballs, much preferring the little-known The Creature Wasn’t Nice for space movie spoof fun. So little-known that for years I couldn’t remember the name of it. Thanks, Google 🙂

  5. Btw. There’s an excellent book called World War Z (it’s a realistic account of how the world might react to a zombie invasion) and the sillier Zombie Survival Guide, and both are written by Max Brooks.

    Yep, he clearly opted to go a different route than daddy. Good thing is a good writer.

  6. I’m a 15 year old and I like Spaceballs. I hadn’t really seen the crappy starwars spoofs, but I saw Airplane as well as many of Mel’s previous comedies. I grew up on the original Star Wars trilogy and the books. I liked the prequels, but to me I still like the old ones much much more. There is really not evidence but I’m a big star wars guy at heart. I also love Mel Brooks movies. Any one of them really. I really liked this one and that spaceballs the video was one of my favorite jokes. That and the merchandising one.

  7. This is so cool. I thought I was the only person on the planet who had seen it. When I saw it, “The Creature Isn’t Nice” was called “Spaceship”. And it is one of my favorite films of all time. Among other gems it contains the classic song “I Want to Eat Your Face”.

    The real use for these films isn’t to enjoy them. It’s to enjoy not enjoying them together. Mystery Science Theater: The Home Game is one of the funnest ones out there. Your gang is a little short for it – just wait until they’re older and hormones start expressing the Smart Alec gene. You’ll get it whether you want it or not. 😉

    They also provide plenty of fodder for in-jokes and geeky reference. I enjoy their take on these things. I remember when we all watched Krull. Not only did they pick out Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane in performances I bet they both wish they could forget, the Harryhausen-esque glass spider led us off into some very cool old stop-motion flicks. And every time we all walk into the videostore past that Dark Sector poster with the guy who looks like Tom Cruise darkly menacing the whole sidewalk with his Glaive we all giggle and we all know why.

    That’s why Spaceballs. So when you two are practicing driving their you can tell your kid he’s gone to Plaid and needs to slow down to driving Ludicrous Speed. 😉

  8. Colleen! Yes! I thought I was the only one too! And I think it was called Spaceship when I saw it, and yes, “I Wanna Eat Your Face” is the only thing that stuck with me. Considering I’ve only seen the movie once (I will watch it again now that I know how to find it) and I’ve remembered it for 20-odd years, I think that’s pretty cool.

    Of course, I think the same thing about Gotcha! too.

  9. OK, Colleen, so maybe we’ll get a few quotes out of the deal … I already have them saturated with Veggie Tales, Real Genius, Willie Wonka (the *real* one) and Better Off Dead … just so long as they don’t pull a Back to the Future and say “when this baby hits 88 MPH you’re gonna see some serious stuff” when they are driving!

  10. Exactly! It’s a moral imperative you watch these movies!

    And I hear you on Willie Wonka. :shudder:

  11. I know right? The new Willy Wonka was more acurate to the book but it doesn’t have that whimsical sense the original did. And the oompa loompas were awful.

  12. DJ, you mean the one oompa loompa. But yeah, i didn’t like the new one even though it had Depp in it.

    As for spaceballs, I’ve loved it though the years, granted, I’m only 22 though. So, i may not be an old fart like some people, but I’m loving it. You say though that it its because of the innuendo or body jokes in spaceballs, but i dont see very many of them in there. Not nearly as many in those horrible “scary movie” parodies.

  13. Well, the the guy was repeated. We can assume they’re clones I guess…

  14. I’m 12 and HATED this movie. One day I was bored so I popped an old copy that was lying around into the VHS player and sat down. I’d heard from my classmates that it was hilarious. So I watched. I’m not an easy laugher in movies but sometimes I’ll smirk or think that something’s funny. That didn’t happen ONCE in Spaceballs. I waited half an hour for something funny to happen. Nothing did. I ended up dragging myself through and entire hour but then I gave up on it.

    However, I’m clearly a minority because I constantly find myself hearing all of these Spaceball references (like “Pizza the Hut”). Whenever I express my hatred towards the film I find that I generally hurt someone inside. I was recently talking to one of my friends, he’s 13 and I think of him as mature for his age and a Spaceballs reference was uttered. I said that it reminded me of a movie that I hated and he asked if it was Spaceballs. I said, “Yes” and he was instantly quiet. So I asked him if he liked the movie and I think he felt like I was testing him because he said, “It was ok.” So of course I felt bad about that since I’d sort of pressured one of my peers into not liking a movie.

    Unfortunately, I guess I have a slightly “off” sense of humor for my age-group. I like to think of it as being slightly more sophisticated (More Sophisticated (a): Having NOTHING to do with Bodily Noises or Body Excretions) than average but I do find that it can hurt other people’s feelings. Not that it’s offensive or anything but sometimes I find that I have more influence than I’d like to think because whenever something slips and I let my feelings on movies like Spaceballs and other things like Epic Movie, I get this feeling like other people feel kind of taken aback. However, I’m going to stop here because I realize that I’ve gone on a tangent.

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