Never underestimate the power of the Swartz!
- We've stacked up a lot of 30th anniversaries this summer in the cult
classics department.
And we're adding to that stack with another one today.
Technically, this anniversary hit back in June, but
we had to do our 'Shawn of the Dead' episode that week.
Because 'Baby Driver' was coming out, we wanted to do a whole "Edgar Wright" thing.
You know what, I'm not going to walk your through the inner workings of why we do
what, when.
That might not have been English.
Here are 7 things you didn't know about 'Spaceballs', probably, watch out!
(Sound) 'Spaceballs' is a spoof of the space movie genre as a whole.
But most will agree that it's biggest source of spoofication
would have to be 'Star Wars'.
"Spoofication", who wrote this?
- (Sound) I can't breathe in this thing!
- Anyway, despite the fact that 'Spaceballs' is a parody,
they definitely didn't skimp on the effects.
They're pretty good, and for 1987, they're crazy good.
And that's because Industrial Light & Magic did them.
That's right, not only did "Mel Brooks" get "George Lucas's" blessing before
doing 'Spaceballs', he hired "Lucas's" company to do all the bells and
whistles in post-production.
In the end, "ILM" did somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million worth of
effects on 'Spaceballs'.
- Holy (Bleep).
- To give you some perspective, that's roughly one-fifth the overall budget for
'Spaceballs'.
Which, with a little of basic math, is, boom, a bonus thing you didn't know.
In fact, the escape pod launch was originally created for 'A New Hope'.
But was never used, so they managed to work into 'Spaceballs'.
Boom, another bonus thing, boom, moving on.
(Sound) "George Lucas" okaying 'Spaceballs' didn't come without any
strings attached.
In fact, there was one pretty huge string.
'Spaceballs' was not allowed to do any merch whatsoever.
That's actually the main reason there's the running joke about 'Spaceballs'
merchandise throughout the film.
Fact is, if they did make 'Spaceballs' toys,
they'd look way too similar to 'Star Wars' toys.
So "Lucas" vetoed all 'Spaceballs' merchandising from the start.
In fact, some of the fake merch in the movie is real merch from other properties.
Like this, this lunchbox and 'Spaceballs,
The Coloring Book' are really a 'Transformers' lunchbox and coloring book.
You can even see that "Optimus Prime" is on the cover.
I guess the property master just said, (Bleep) it,
I am barely going to change these props.
Sounds like he had some real 'Spaceballs' of his own.
(Sound) Ugh, that was horrible, I'm sorry, guys.
We got a new writer or something, what's going on?
- (Sound) May the Schwartz be with you!
- Next thing.
- Adorable.
(Sound) - Here's a little 'Star Wars' Easter egg
you may have missed.
It's nothing much, just, I don't know,
the "Millennial Falcon" parked outside of Gus's Galaxy Grill, for (Bleep) sake.
It's just another way for
'Spaceballs' to tip its cap to the franchise that inspired it so heavily.
Not to mention all of the fan theories that put a rise from this bit of
information.
Because this is basically confirmation that 'Spaceballs' and 'Star Wars' are,
in fact, in the same universe.
I mean, is Han Solo somewhere in that diner?
We may never know unless they finally get around to doing 'Spaceballs
2' after all these years.
In a related story, please don't ever do 'Spaceballs 2'.
- 'Spaceballs 2', the search for more money.
(Sound) - "Pizza the Hutt"!?
- Well, if it isn't "Lone Starr" and his sidekick, "Puke".
- That's "Barf".
- Despite having relatively little screen time,
"Pizza the Hutt" is one of the most memorable characters in 'Spaceballs'.
But it was so miserable being inside that costume,
you almost literally couldn't pay people to play him.
Most people know that "Pizza the Hutt" was voiced by "Dom DeLuise".
But he wasn't the guy who was actually in there.
That job went into a guy from effects crew named "Richard Karen", at first.
Problem was the costume was made largely from actual pizza.
Which they had to rig with heaters to melt and look the way it does in the film.
They didn't get very far along in the shoot before "Karen" started crying out
for help because the costume had gotten so hot, it actually started smoking.
Rather than getting burned alive, "Karen" refused to get in the costume again.
Another guy from the FX team, named "Rick Lazzarini" had to take his place just so
they could finish everything.
- You're delicious.
(Laugh) - Ciao, boys.
- Good on "Lazzarini", though, taking one from the team.
(Music)
"Dot Matrix" was played by the ionic "Joan Rivers", rest in peace.
But, much like with "Pizza the Hutt",
"Joan" was spared ever having to get inside of the costume.
In fact, "Joan" was almost not a part of 'Spaceballs' at all.
A mime named "Lorene Yarnell" was in the costume.
And she was also going to voice 'Dot Matrix' at first.
But "Mel Brooks" felt that her performance just didn't hit the mark he wanted, so
he called "Joan".
- Here I am, I'm sorry, I had to make a pit stop.
I'm so excited, I couldn't hold my oil.
- He asked her if she could come in to do the voice and write some jokes.
And she agreed without even knowing what 'Spaceballs' was.
Obviously, she said yes, and everything worked out great.
Well, maybe not super-great for the mime lady.
Anyway, quick bonus thing, they made six "Dot Matrix" suits to use in the film.
And they wound up needing all six because the suits kept breaking.
- Hey, stop looking up my can!
- Even so, hers still wasn't even the most challenging costume on set, segue.
(Sound) - I'm a mog, half-man,
half-dog, I'm my own best friend.
- The dearly-departed "John Candy" truly brought 'Barf' to life.
The character, not actual barf, obviously.
- Funny- - But he didn't do it alone.
There were guys from the effects department who were in charge
of controlling 'Barf's' ears.
One guy for each ear, in fact.
And "John Candy" was responsible for the tail,
using a control that was hidden in his palm.
He also had to wear a battery pack on his back that weighed
around 30 pounds to power the animatronic parts of his costume.
Because "John Candy" was the absolute best,
odds are that he never complained about it once.
(Sound) - Wistfully moving on.
(Sound) - Dear me,
what are those things coming out of her nose?
- 'Spaceballs'!?
- (Bleep), there goes the planet.
- 'Space Balls', it's about as goofy as a movie title can get.
But you probably didn't know that the original title of the movie
was 'Planet Moron'.
But "Mel Brooks" felt that the movie needed to have the word
space somewhere in the title.
He knew it needed to be 'Space-something'.
While brainstorming titles with the other writers "Thomas Meehan" and
"Ronny Graham", "Brooks" accidentally spilled something on himself and yelled,
balls, in frustration.
"Meehan" and "Graham" realized right away that what "Brooks" had actually spilled
was inspiration.
(Sound) - What?
- Ugh, seriously, "spilled inspiration", who wrote this, somebody new?
No, I don't like it, no, it does matter what I think.
I'm the one that's gotta read it, yeah, whatever.
All right, so yeah, off of "Mel Brooks" yelling the word balls,
they finally filled in the blank space in their space movie title.
And thus, 'Spaceballs' became the name.
(Sound) That's going to do it for us today.
But good luck getting the 'Spaceballs' theme song out of your head for
the rest of the day.
It's very difficult, and hit the thumbs up if you want to see a part two.
Thanks for watching, and subscribe to 'Cinefix' for
more true-ish things about movies and sometimes 'Spaceballs', watch out!
Right here on Things You Didn't Know.
- How many assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?
- Yo!
- I knew, it I'm surrounded by assholes.