From Iwatchstuff, "The G4 network, in a move that would help it diversify from its idiot-hosted gaming news lineup, has acquired the rights to a new animated series based on the Mel Brooks comedy Spaceballs. The show will feature a one-hour pilot and 13 half-hour episodes, making it the most anticipated cartoon of 1988.
Brooks and Thomas Meehan, who co-wrote the movie with Ronnie Graham, have written the one-hour pilot, and Meehan will supervise the writing of the 13 half hours. Brooks will do two of the voices, President Skroob and Yogurt. Germany's Berliner Film Companie will provide the animation.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure Mel Brooks is too old to have any grasp of what's funny anymore. I mean, I know he cranked out the superb Dracula: Dead and Loving It just 11 short years ago, but will he really be able to make a decent cartoon at this point? Does he even know what animation is? Demanding "something like the ol' vaudeville-style lightning sketch, but brought home to the picture tube" doesn't count.
NOTE: Even with this and the recent showings of Arrested Development, the remainder of G4's programming still makes it wrong to watch."
4 comments:
This is rather flummoxing news. If Spaceballs is good at anything, it's coming out too late. This cartoon seems to be following that tradition nicely.
You know what it is? It's the kids a half-generation back from us who watched Spaceballs on cable a hundred million times like we watched Poltergeist and Rocky III. They're the ones artificially inflating the appeal of this movie. Their nostalgia works past the fact that the jokes are 99% un-funny. I'd rather read a Mad Magazine parody, it's about the same thing.
Yup. Spaceballs is lame, lame, lame. Is the humor outdated or was it simply never funny? What comedy has been beaten down by time more than any other? I'd go with Wayne's World. Whenever I hear him say "Not!", I feel shame.
I can't handle when they sing that damn Queen song.
I think Austin Powers is well on its way to outdated humor.
Spaceballs was never funny; Brooks had already lost it and most of the movie is a tired, tired retread of Brooks's older stuff, which is itself a cinematic version of old vaudville/Catskills comedy, which isn't a guaranteed sell anyhow.
Don't get me wrong, I love Young Frankentstein, Blazing Saddles and History of the World, but most of those jokes totally worked and the shticky, obvious ones were delivered by good actors who felt like trying. In Spaceballs you've got actors like Bill Pullman and Daphne Zuniga trying to make this stuff real on these crummy little sets and nearly all the jokes are complete crap. The good ones are largely funny because of the overwhelming relief from the cringing awkwardness you've been feeling from the bad ones.
And remember, most of the movies and music from the late 80's sucked.
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