DVD Review
Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures!
 Official Synopsis:
From a galaxy not so far away come these hilarious animated adventures based on Spaceballs - the greatest sci-fi spoof of all time! Join Yogurt. President Skroob, Lone Starr, Barf, Princess Vespa and the dastardly, dorky Dark Helmet for a blast of interstellar insanity. Directed and voiced by comic genius Mel Brooks and featuring voices from the film's original stars Daphne Zuniga and Joan Rivers, Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures! pokes fun at everything under the sun, from pop culture and politics to megahit movies and reality show TV. Set your lasers on stunningly funny, and may the Schwartz be with you!
Our Take:
Nobody can ever accuse Mel Brooks of not trying to squeeze as much cash from his films as he possibly could (see: The Producers), and one of his latest money grabs is Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures!
The cartoon, which is presented on this DVD as a feature and in four individual episodes is a horrible, base, adaptation of the mildly funny Star Wars spoof, Spaceballs (1987). Spaceballs was the first Star Wars spoof to make audiences laugh at that galaxy far, far away, but then came The Simpsons, an intelligent satirical cartoon that was bound to get Star Wars eventually and they did in an episode or two. More recently, Family Guy has turned Star Wars spoofing into an event, taking it one Episode at a time and releasing them individually on DVD/Blu-ray. Hell, even Robot Chicken got in on the act. So, I can see why Mel Brooks wanted to get back in the game. He spoofed the holy trilogy first and now these upstart cartoons were getting in on the action to profitable effect. So we get this garbage. Spaceballs: The Animated Adventures is not even a Star Wars spoof. It is a Spaceballs spoof. It takes the characters from Spaceballs, animates them, then just puts them in random silly scenarios like going back in time ala The Terminator or going into a video game like Grand Theft Auto. This show was released in 2008, but the references feel much more dated then that as the show’s writers took a page out of the Family Guy playbook and loaded the cartoons with ‘80s pop culture references and gross out humor. There is nothing else here. Mel Brooks is not exactly Woody Allen when it comes to screen comedy, but his is at least the king of low brow…and it’s good to be the king. But, here, he lets his low brow instincts get the best of him and forgets to put in what makes his film comedies so good, subtle intelligent humor and more than vomit and fart jokes. Special Features: This single-disc DVD contains all four episodes of Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures! Apparently, the show got canned after this four episodes. The four episodes are all contained in the “Feature.” There is no extra content to be found on this disc. The extra scenes in the individual episode menus are simply the transition scenes used in the feature. Conclusion: Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures! is a base, failed attempt at humor that manages to degrade what was already a rather low-brow spoof film. Overall Picture:
Movie: F+
Extra Features: C
- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer
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