In years to come, people will be able to pinpoint Spaceballs as the exact moment that the career of Mel Brooks took its first nosedive; Spaceballs wasn't as funny or clever or crude as anything that came before it.
Luckily for Mel Brooks, though, the success of the musical version of The Producers has meant that he can look back on all his old work and mash it up into different forms. There's already a Young Frankenstein musical planned on top of The Producers, and now Mel Brooks has announced that there's also going to be a Spaceballs cartoon TV show coming out soon. And we're excited. Not for the Spaceballs cartoon – that we can take or leave – but the way Mel Brooks is going, it's only a matter of time before our dream of seeing a constantly-touring Dracula: Dead And Loving It Punch And Judy tent is finally realised.
There comes a point in most people's lives where they suddenly realise that their best is behind them, and nothing they will ever do for the rest of their time on earth will better it. The Rolling Stones have realised this, and now only churn out disappointing albums so they can keep their insanely lucrative nostalgia wagon trundling around the world. And Mel Brooks seems to have got the message, too. Sure, he's realised it 20 years later than everyone else, but so what?
Mel Brooks has discovered that, instead of churning out chronically unfunny movies like Robin Hood: Men In Tights and Dracula: Dead And Loving It, he can simply remould his older films – the ones that touched on greatness – over and over again for new audiences and make a gigantic wedge of money. The Producers kickstarted this, of course: the fantastically successful movie was turned into an even more successful Broadway musical which was toured around the world and spawned a movie remake of the musical.
Then there's the plans Mel Brooks has for a Young Frankenstein musical, which – seeing as how Young Frankenstein is Mel Brooks' best film – should be well worth going to see. However, when we reported the Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein musical, we noted that:
"The logical progression from a Young Frankenstein musical is a Spaceballs musical, and we really don't think we could stomach that."
How close we were: Mel Brooks has announced that his mostly rubbish 1987 Star Wars spoof Spaceballs is going to be turned not into a musical but a cartoon series airing on the G4 channel in America next year. Reuters reports on the Spaceballs cartoon:
Mel Brooks is developing an animated TV series based on his comedy feature "Spaceballs. Like the 1987 movie, which parodied well-known science-fiction movies, "Spaceballs: The Animated Series" will spoof current blockbusters as well as every genre of entertainment from movies and reality TV to culture and politics. It is set to debut on cable network G4 in fall 2007. Production has already started on an initial batch of 13 episodes. Brooks, who will voice two characters in the show, co-wrote the pilot with longtime collaborator Thomas Meehan, who will oversee all writing for the series.
So the Spaceballs cartoon is basically going to be Family Guy: The Galactic Years, then. But that's something – and it means we're all one step closer to erasing the original Spaceballs movie from our minds, which will be nice.
Read more:
Brooks Dusts Off Spaceballs For TV Cartoon – Reuters
[story by Stuart Heritage]
Brian says
I don’t mean to sound like an A$$hole but are you out of your damn mind? How could you think that Spaceballs sucked? Let me guess, You’re a militant Star Wars buff who feels that cracking any jokes and spoofing Star Wars is blasphemy and should be punishable by death. Spaceballs was by far funnier than the original “The Producers”. All of Mel’s films were comic genius. “Blazing Saddles”, “Young Frankenstein”, and “History of the World: Part 1” were just a few of my favorites. And for future reference, the word is REALIZE not REALISE you illiterate bastard. If you’re going to insult a great movie by saying it sucked and trying to relate a Genius to a band that sucked to begin with, atleast have the courtesy to spell every word correctly. The Spaceballs movie was great! And its cartoon counterpart has been just as funny. It had great humor, loveable characters and great casting for that matter, It had a great use of effects, music, and there was nothing wrong with it’s directing and camera work from what I could see. Don’t ever try to compare Spaceballs to the horrible “Family Guy”. Every man is entitled to his own opinion but I recommend that you keep your opinions to yourself. Your judgement sucks, you lack a decent sense of humor, and you seem to me like the kind of guy who dressed up as Han Solo at his wedding and had his bride dress as Leia. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re still single because your ex-fiancee refused to tie the knot dressed as Chewbacca. Please come back to reality. Your full replica light-saber is never going to magically take a man’s arm off, you are never going to choke someone with your mind, and the closest you are ever going to get to flying the Millenium Falcon is by dropping that Scaled Model that you passed up getting laid to build out of your second story window. Star Wars was a great movie but it too deserves to be made fun of and Mel Brooks has been the only one to properly do it. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to get to this but it had to be said.