Transcript

Intro Clip

Sir? What is it? Can I talk to my aunt lewis, sir? Well, you don't need that, Private. We're right here. Now what is it? Now what is it? I'm having trouble with the radar, sir. What's wrong with it? I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the sweeps and I've lost the creeps. The what? The what and the what? You know, the bleeps, the sweeps and the creeps. That's not all he's lost, sir. The radar, sir. It appears to be jammed. Jammed. Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare. Give me the raspberry. Lone Star.

Steve

It's two Dads one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are going to talk about Mel Brooks's classic sci fi parody satire spoof movie, Spaceballs from 1987. One of my. Honestly, one of my favorite movies of all time. Easily like a top 10 comedy for me. But Nic, this was new for you, right?

Nic

Yeah, I'd never seen it before and I wasn't sure how it would go. Sometimes you see something that you kind of miss the boat on and sometimes it just doesn't click at all. Sometimes it clicks in a way where you say, okay, at the age that I should have watched this, I would have really liked it.

Steve

Right?

Nic

And sometimes you just realize, oh, there's a reason why everybody likes this. This is very funny and very good. And it was definitely the latter for me. I really enjoyed it. Really excited to talk about this one.

Steve

Very cool. Let's run down some facts on Spaceballs real quick. Released on June 24, 1987 with a running time of 96 minutes. Directed by the great Mel Brooks. Written by Brooks along with his writing partners Thomas Meehan and Ronnie Graham. Starring Bill Pullman, John Candy and Rick Moranis. Although also with a ton of other people who you'll recognize as we go through it. Here we go. This is what I love. The scores only a 52% on rotten tomatoes. So not fresh. Very rotten. Or not very rotten, but rotten for sure. However, IMDb when the people speak, a 7.1. A well earned over 7 from IMDb for Spaceballs. It won an award. Oh, the 1987 Stinker Awards.

Nic

No.

Steve

Gave Spaceball's worst picture of the year.

Nic

I'd like to look at their track record.

Steve

It's ridiculous. I've never even heard of the Stinkers. It's like, it must have been like a Pre Razzies, I guess. But, yeah, that's apparently thing. It was not a box office success. It would cost about $22 million to make, which is kind of amazing, about 1987 and over $20 million. But with special effects and everything you do, it got expensive and it earned about 30. A little over 38 million at the box office. So only about one and a half times its money. And so that would definitely be considered, if not a flop, a disappointment as far as the box office goes. But that's okay because this isn't the kind of movie that necessarily, you know, needed to be a theatrical hit. This is a movie that I am confident Mel Brooks has more than made money on over the years on home video sales, DVDs, and streaming and all kinds of stuff, because it's fantastic. So I guess let's just jump into it, like.

Nic

Yeah, Actually, before we start, I do. I do have a question because, and I should know this as a guy with a movie podcast, the way that the Rotten Tomatoes score functions is that an average of critics giving it a score of 1 to 10, or it's either them either saying, yes, it's good. No, it's not bad.

Steve

Yeah, so it's a combination. It's basically like whatever a given critic does for their own scale, it kind of looks at like 60% as like the barrier. So if you do a one out of five movies that you give a three, four, or five to will get fresh. And movies you give a two or a one to will get rotten. If you're Siskel and Ebert, thumbs up, thumbs down, then that's the fresh or rotten. Okay, if you're a 1 out of 10, you got to give at least a 6 to it to get it fresh. If you give, you know, five or lower to it, it'll get rotten. And then the average of all those added up, you know, average together to a percentage. 60% is that bar. So anything that gets a 60% or higher is considered fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and anything at 59% or below is rotten. Okay, so anything in the 50s, you know, you're still saying, you know, basically on average, it was a little better than half liked, I guess. You know, but that's sort of rotten Tomato scale. And it is based on critic reviews, and they do have some kind of a vetting process where it's, you know, it is not anybody with Like a comment, you know, commenting on Facebook. But I think if you have like a reasonably established blog or something, you'll get, you can get included and it will update over time. It's majority of it is from the time it came out because that's generally when most of the professional reviews would have been written by it. But if somebody goes in and writes, you know, a professional review, looking back at a movie, you know, 25, 30 years later, I do believe that will factor into Rotten Tomatoes sort of critics score, and then I think it works similarly. They do a fan score. I don't include it when we talk about the facts. I like the IMDb number for a general sort of fan pulse.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But Rotten Tomatoes does do this like popcorn score where it's like the same kind of idea, but it's more about people leaving ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, you know, the general public sort of doing it. Okay, but to me, that's like a little bit of a less interesting metric. I like Rotten Tomatoes as sort of like, well, this is what the critics think. And then I like using IMDb to sort of look at. Well, this is what the people think. Yeah. And for a lot of the movies we've done, there's been disparity, you know, it's not really lined up.

Nic

Yeah. And I guess now kind of understanding the way it works, it makes sense that you could end up with a 55% rotten tomatoes score and a 7 point something IMDb if it's a movie where the people who didn't like it would give it a 4 out of 10, but the people who liked it would give it a nine out of ten.

Steve

Right, Right.

Nic

So it would. It would skew up that way.

Steve

And IMDb is also. That's like a living sc. That is, people continue to leave ratings on movies on IMDb and it is an average over time. So that will move. You know, that's a snapshot, Right. You know, I looked it up earlier this week. Technically that was the score. Then in a month it might be different. I don't know. I don't know.

Nic

We need a stock ticker in the 2 Dads 1 Movie offices here at the penthouse floor of our skyscraper that we've just built. We need that stock ticker with live IMDb scores for the movie we're talking.

Steve

About here in our Million Dollar Studio.

Nic

All right, well, sorry for the diversion, but I. It helps me to kind of re. Understand and that was a great explanation of the way these scoring systems work.

Steve

Well, thank you, sir. Cool. All right, so this Movie obviously, is at its heart, a spoof of Star Wars. They reference lots of other sci fi movies as well, and it definitely kind of, you know, goes around the genre a bit. But the majority of this movie is about Star wars and spoofing Star wars and the characters are sort of based off that. So of course, we begin with a very Star wars thing, which is the crawl of text. And I have to admit, there is a joke in that first moment that I did not get until this watch through. I have seen this movie over 40 times, and there was an element to the joke that I didn't get until this time. So as the movie scrolls up, it says, like Spaceballs and It says chapter 11. And the part of that joke I've always understood is that when you first watch Star wars, if you were in 1977, you're watching it, it would have rolled up and said, Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope. Which is like, how weird. They're starting in the middle of the story, right? And now this is not quite as funny in that way now because we've had so many Star wars movies and TV shows and we all kind of understand that concept. And there is an Episode one and whatever. I totally didn't catch the joke about Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, I noticed that it said that they were squandering all their resources and everything that was good, that the scrolling text had a few bangers in it. And this is why I appreciated this movie so much, is they fit anywhere they could find a joke unbeknownst to the princess. But notes to us, it's just so good. Oh, beautiful. That's what most of my notes are, just jokes that I liked the classic Mel.

Steve

As sort of a bit of an aficionado of Mel Brooks as I am, my father is a huge fan of Mel Brooks and so he raised me that way. That's the kind of joke Brooks really, really nails is taking turns of phrase that exist in English language and in American society and making them ridiculous and turning them into the absurd version. So, like, unbelievable. Unbeknownst is a word. He's basically probably the first person to ever make the joke that you can't be whelmed, Right? You can be overwhelmed or underwhelmed. That's a Mel Brooks joke for sure, right? Is that you can't be whelmed. And so, yeah, known to us is brilliant. So, yeah, so the Kraal goes, gives us our basic plot, which, you know, look, it's not a complicated plot. Basically, the people of planet Spaceball have squandered their resources. They have no air left. Or are they running out of air? And their neighboring planet, they don't really say how far away they are. A neighboring planet, Druidia, has thousands of years still of fresh air because they're, I guess, not insane, and they're able to maintain it. They also somehow have some kind of an airlock system around the entire planet. Comes into play later. But the people of Spaceball, Planet Spaceball, want that air, and they are willing to kidnap the King of Druidia's daughter. So King Roland of Druidia has a daughter named Vespa, and she is going to get married. And the Spaceball's plan is when she leaves on her honeymoon, they're gonna kidnap her, hold her ransom, and steal all the air from Planet Druidia. That's your plot. That's the setup. That's all the information you need to know. That's it. So if I take you back to 1977 for a second, for 10 years before this movie came out, the opening sequence of Star wars, the original New Hope, whatever, Episode four is Princess Leia's cruiser flying and then getting shot at. And then the Star Destroyer kind of comes across the camera, the shot of the camera, and it's an enormous ship. So it takes, I don't know, probably seven or eight, maybe 10 seconds to actually pass by the camera.

Nic

I love the scene in this one.

Steve

I timed it. Do you know how long?

Nic

No, how long was it?

Steve

How long it takes 96 seconds, a minute and a half for Spaceball 1 to pass completely by the camera at the beginning of this movie.

Nic

The patience to put that in, just knowing it's going to pay off. Because the experience of watching that is. Okay, this is funny. Oh, this is funny. It's kind of longer than normal. What the hell's going on here? I really hope this pays off. Oh, this is funny again. He's really going for it. And I loved it. I loved it.

Steve

If you ever needed proof that Seth MacFarlane grew up a Mel Brooks fan, that's it right there. Because Seth MacFarlane exactly is the king of the joke that goes too long but then is funny because it's gone so long, it's now back to being funny. And Mel Brooks, obviously, you know, was big on that as well. So this is the movie, like you said, it's sort of just chock full of gags and jokes and little bits. And I, too, like my write down here. My notes are a lot of just kind of commenting on the jokes that worked or were funny or still made me laugh. I think for me, in this watch through, it was particularly about what still makes me laugh. What after I've seen it a hundred times, or not 100, but a lot, what still makes me laugh. And early on, one of the first things that happens is that. So we've come to Spaceball 1. They are traveling to Druidia because they're going to kidnap the princess. And we get to the bridge where you come inside, and they're being told. One of the radar people or something says to Colonel Sanders, who's sort of the second in command, or maybe I guess he's the captain of the ship, but, you know, oh, sir, Planet Druidia's in sight. You want to let me know? Okay, great. Let Dark Helmet know. Right. So this is Rick Moranis. He's the Darth Vader character with this incredibly enormous helmet with a kind of Vader like mask, but that slides up so he's able to talk to us and we're able to see it's Rick Moranis. It's a good gag. But he goes to call President Scroob, who's kind of their emperor character, right. And he puts the little phone, or whatever the little walkie talkie thing is, to the outside of his helmet, like, up against his head. And it's just this moment of, like, ridiculousness that I think is hilarious. And, you know, we move on from it very quickly because. And you can see. And you can see his face and his ears and his head. He could easily have put it inside. No, no, all the way on the outside of the helmet.

Nic

They do love playing up that helmet.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

It's a nice prop throughout the movie. President Scroob, I really enjoy his mustache. It's just a really funny mustache. It's again, one of those things behind the scenes. You could picture him saying, no, thinner, curlier, smaller, closer to my nostrils. Until they got the perfect amount of funny mustache.

Steve

Yeah. That character is also just so very much, in some ways, very much like Governor Lapidimane from Blazing Saddles. And he's sort of like Mel Brooks taking that character into space. And I feel like that mustache was a snidely whiplash sort of reference. I mean, Lapida May did not have a mustache in that movie, but. But it felt very similar. It felt very like, you know, one informed the other sort of thing.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

This movie is pg in retrospect. I have thought for years that I'm kind of. I'm surprised that at its PG ness. And I think if we're released today, it would be PG13. I think it's pretty easy. And one of the main reasons is language. There's just a lot of kind of foul language in the movie. We get our first utterance of the word shit at 5 minutes and 20 seconds into the movie. And I counted a total throughout the film eight times that movie, that word is said in the movie, including five times in the first half hour. So if you are going to let your kids watch, just, you know, be aware like that's, that's coming for you. Yeah, you know, that's definitely part of it. I just thought it was funny in a PG movie to be able to count, you know, eight utterances of the of shit is kind of surprising for a pg.

Nic

That used to be kind of the delineation is a PG movie could say ass and hell and damn, but it couldn't say shit. Maybe one. Yeah. And this was after the PG13 rating already existed.

Steve

Yeah, the PG13 rating existed at this point. Yes. And so yeah, it just, I think because there's no nudity, there's no violence to speak. I mean there's like laser blasts, but there's no real. There's no blood, there's no gore, there's nothing like that. Apparently it was just determined that like that's not that bad to have just the bad language. Whatever. They have one very well placed fuck at the end of the movie, which I think is super. I appreciate that. But yeah, it seems like today those would all be the markers of like, yeah, you're PG13, not R. You say that F word one more time. Now we have to give you an R rating.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

Which would have been ridiculous. This is clearly not an R rated movie. But. But yeah, the fact that it didn't garner the PG13 is very surprising.

Nic

Dark Helmet's way of punishing his subordinates is very funny where he does kind of the, the Darth Vader choke thing, except it's targeted at the testicles or testicle representation of the person he's going after. So there are a lot of funny scenes throughout the movie. Every time he get upset, everybody puts both hands over their nuts. And it really reminds me of being around any kind of little kid that's horsing around with you or having a cat or anything. You just gotta get a stay, keep your nuts on a swivel.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Early in this movie, one of my favorite characters of the 1980s shows up in this and that's the radar guy who's there making all of his radar sounds. And this is Michael Winslow, who we know from the Police Academy movies and so many other things.

Steve

A national treasure.

Nic

A genius with the sound effects. And I don't know if you've ever heard him do that Led Zeppelin whole lot of love. Oh, my God, that's incredible. He. I wrote down here that Michael Winslow in the 80s was kind of like a lefty one out guy.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Just one of those specialty relievers that, you know. He's going to go in, he's going to deliver two thirds of an inning and he's going to carry the time that Michael Winslow is on the screen in this movie. He's doing everything.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So it's nice that you bring somebody in there kind of for a guest spot. He just does his thing and you don't hear from him again. But he really serves his purpose there. So I like seeing a little Winslow.

Steve

Yeah, they let him cook for sure. And when he calls Sanders and Helmut over to talk about the radar and how he lost the beeps, the sweeps and the creeps when he takes the microphone, the thing away from his mouth and still, he's still doing that really good. And dark helmet just kind of throws himself over the desk and just unplugs things. It's like, stop it. He's so frustrated. He could not be so beside himself with frustration is a super classic moment.

Nic

Oh, the other thing I want to point out early is Lone Star, the Bill Pullman character, every other character has a similarity to a Star wars character. And then the Bill Pullman character, who's kind of supposed to be a Han Solo Luke Skywalker hybrid, is just dressed like Indiana Jones. And that's. It's just a really funny way to do it where it's just, okay, this is Harrison Ford, right?

Steve

Exactly. This is generically Harrison Ford with a tiny bit of Luke Skywalker sprinkled in. Just to. Just because it's Star wars and somebody has to use the Force on the good side. But yeah, no, you're right. He's got the khaki pants and the leather bomber jacket and he looks very much like a hatless Indiana Jones. Very much. And so the first time we see him, we see him and his compatriot Barf, played by John Candy, who's clearly sort of the Chewbacca character. Originally Brooks wanted to cast Candy in the role, but also wanted to do more of a mask like Chewbacca, more of a come up. And the studio actually pushed back on him and said, no, no, if you're gonna put John Candy in this movie in 1987, we have to see John Candy. Like, we can't. You can't hide him behind a mask, like, whatever. And so I think they really, really did a great job. They've got this, like, tail that's clearly, like, somehow, like, robotic or mechanical that wags everywhere. He's got these ears that do little perky things and kind of, you know, like a dog's ears. And they'll perk up or they'll. They'll cower a little bit, whatever. And then some simple makeup. And it really got the point across that he's a mog, a half man, half dog. But we get to see John Candy.

Nic

And he's just John Candy.

Steve

He really is.

Nic

He's just same inflection, same voice as the every other John Candy character. Yeah, I did really like that. It would have hurt the movie if they covered his face up. Same with. If you had dark helmet operate behind the helmet the entire time. It's funnier seeing Rick Moranis's face.

Steve

Well, there's a couple of great gags with the mask, right? So one, when he first arrives, you know, backing up just a bit, dark helmet first comes on the Bridge of Spaceball 1. And he's, you know, it's that breathing noise. Yeah. Like Darth Vader. But then you realize he's sort of struggling, and he has to, like, throw the mask up. He's like, I can't breathe in this thing. It's just a very funny moment. And then later on, and I don't remember exactly how far, but later in the movie, he's drinking a cup of coffee through the little holes, the little breathing holes on his mask, which. His face is 2 or 3 inches away from that thing, and yet he's. Little sipping noises, you know, through the. Just great little gags using the mask. But, yeah, the little choices like that, that really helped drive forward that this is a com. Obviously, it's a comedy starring very funny people. And at the height of sort of their comedy. Right. I mean, Rick Moranis and John Candy in the mid late 80s, this was. This was their time.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

And they were both wonderful in this. And I think there is an understanding of what you're doing that is required of making a spoof. And you obviously can't take yourself too seriously, but you also have to, like, give respect to the source material. And I feel like letting Candy and Moranis cook in the way that they did is exactly that. And really is made making it so that, you know, the. The source material is shown with respect. But then let these guys just be wild and be crazy and do their thing. And it's. And it's. It's very funny.

Nic

Yeah, Yeah. I. I think everyone was really great in this. They rescued the princess. They. They got Princess Vespa and her sidekick, who is the C3PO look like, named Dot Matrix.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Good name. Voiced by Joan Rivers. Good choice. Joan Rivers is great.

Steve

Hold on a second. Yeah, something on that. So there. Joan Rivers was not. I mean, shouldn't be a surprise. I think Joan Rivers was not in the costume. She was not. She did not wear the Dot Matrix costume during filming. A woman. I do not remember her name now. I apologize. She's a professional mime. Was actually the one in it. And she also did the voice initially for Dot Matrix, which I found surprising to learn because I felt like the look of the Dot Matrix head was kind of Joan Rivers inspired. Yeah, but it wasn't. Mel Brooks brought Joan Rivers in in post production after he realized he just did not care for the performance of the woman who init voiced Matrix. And so he thought, well, who. Who else? I mean, you could have brought in Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers or Phyllis Diller, I feel like those have been the two appropriate women at that point. Right. Age. Right. Right. Hilariousness, you know, at that time to do that. And, you know, yes, we brought in Joan Rivers well after the fact, which I thought was an interesting little bit. I want to back us up in the movie just a second, because before they get rescued, Will Lonestar and Barf have to be told about it. Right? And so they are contacted by King Roland, played by Dick Van Patten, and are told about this. They go, and she's under attack by Spaceballs. And they're both just like, nope, we're not doing it. Spaceballs. No, I'm out. Too dangerous. Right. Well, I'll give you anything I want, you know, Anything you want. And they asked for a million space bucks because they owe money to notorious gangster Pizza the Hut, who is the grossest, just disgusting thing voiced by Dom DeLuise, a longtime Mel Brooks collaborator. He says they owe him a hundred thousand space bucks. And he goes, oh, no, no, it's. You forgot late charges. It's a million. Yeah, it's like, what kind of vig is that where you're getting a million? But anyway, they need a million space bucks. King Roland offers them the million to go save Princess Vespa, and if at all possible, try to save the car. But yeah. So they go and they kind of pull them out of the tractor beam situation and. Yeah, that's how. That is how our princess and our Lone Star, our captain, meet each other in this rescue scenario.

Nic

Right. This movie came out, I think maybe the same year, right around the same time as Weird Science.

Steve

Sounds about right. Yeah.

Nic

And there's a scene in Weird Science where the brother character, Chet gets turned into some kind of.

Steve

I don't know if it's a big pile of shit.

Nic

Big pile of. Right. And it's disgusting and there's oozing and all that. And I would like to side by side that with Pizza the Hut because I thought that was the grossest practical effects I'd seen in the 80s. But I think Pizza the Hut just with the continual flow of cheese, kind of garlic cream sauce, I mean, you got to go. Marinara pepperonis are like falling off terrible.

Steve

And then his little. His little metallic henchman Vinnie goes like. Starts eating pieces of him.

Nic

And it's like a Mafia Max Headroom.

Steve

Robot type character, essentially.

Nic

When Lone Star, or when Barf goes to rescue the princess, when the ships link up, when he goes to her ship, they're just loose in space. Right. Every time it shows up in space, I like that and that they don't address why they can breathe or anything. And the whole point of the movie is that there's no air on this planet, but everyone's just fine just out in space.

Steve

I like to thank my headcanon for that. I don't know this for sure is just that they. Mel Brooks and the writers and whoever he had with production design got together and they were looking like, well, how do we do this? We want to make it, like, obvious that they're walking between the things, but they're going to need, like an airlock or a tunnel or whatever. And they just couldn't figure out, you know, how to make it look good and how to, like, do it on the. And so he's like, fuck it, just whatever. It's a ladder. And they just are like, just move on. Just move on.

Nic

Funny choice. Funny choice. During their escape, they end up. They're having trouble with their craft, which is a flying Winnebago, basically a Breaking Bad shape style. And they have to crash land on this desert planet. When they end up walking through the desert, Lone Star says, okay, everybody, just take it. Only what you need to survive. And of course, it cuts to the great scene of them lugging all of the princesses matching luggage. And it's good to see John Candy pulling a big trunk, a big steamer trunk, because it reminds me of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I think he had a trunk clause. He had to pull a trunk around in every movie. Pretty sure Uncle Buck's got a trunk scene, so I'm gonna check on that probably.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And they find out that this giant heavy trunk that they've been dragging through the desert has a giant hair dryer inside of it. And that's what they've been carrying around. Good gag.

Steve

And before they even crash land, they have to get away From Space Bowl 1, right. Because they've done this rescue. The tractor beam is still pulling the Mercedes in, but they're not there. They've jammed the radar so they can't be seen, but they have to get away now. And so they go into hyperactive, right? Which is sort of like light speed. So they go off in order to chase them. Dark Helmet is not satisfied with light speed or whatever. Hyperactive or anything. Light speed's too slow. Light speed's too slow. Yeah, you gotta go all the way past ridiculous speed to ludicrous speed. And this is one of my favorite gags in the movie is, is Colonel Sanders starts calling out all the things that need to be like, you know, strapped down or closed, or he's like, you know, close the Three Ring Circus. Close all the shops in the mall, like, you know, whatever. Secure the animals in the zoo, like all the different stuff that's on this ship. Right. Dark Helmet won't even sit down. He's just going to be like, no, like crisp speed, go.

Nic

Right.

Steve

So, of course, you know, not that it works like this because space is a vacuum and etc. We're not going to get into it. But it's like momentum is keeping him, you know, almost airborne as he's holding on to something. And I love this moment because they end up stopping the ship with an emergency brake. And that, of course.

Nic

And it says, do not use.

Steve

Yes, do not use. And he flies forward and crashes into. The helmet's all dented and stuff. Stuff. And this moment where he. He gets up and they kind of help him up. Oh, you know, sir, are you okay? He goes, yeah. He sounds exactly like Lewis Tully from Ghost. Yes.

Nic

I was thinking that the broken glasses.

Steve

The broken glasses. The sort of higher pitched voice like, oh, we stop yet? Oh, okay, good. Like it's very Louis Tully. Yeah, super hilarious. I don't know if he was deliberately sort of pulling that out, but it, but it certainly worked. But now the. Now the Spaceballs have to find Them. Right. So they crash landed on a desert planet, and the Spaceballs need to figure out where they go. They actually zoo zoomed past them, we're told, because ludicrous speed is so much faster than light speed. And so Colonel Sanders has this great idea. Well, let's check the tape of Spaceballs the movie. And Dark Helmet points out, rightfully, we're still making the movie. How is there already? Oh, there's instant cassettes. Now, first of all, I love the idea that in this, you know, galaxy far, far away, and it's like the future or whatever, VHS is still, you know, the name of the game.

Nic

Light speed and vhs. So those are two things.

Steve

Perfect. Exactly. And so they do find. This is great, too. They go to Mr. Rental.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

Because there was a Mr. Coffee and there was a Mr. Radar before, and now they go to Mr. Rental. And the top two rows of things are all Mel Brooks movies. Literally in, like, chronological order, you know, like Silent Movie, the Producers. Everything's there, you know, Blazing Saddles and whatnot. And they're looking. And of course, the last one is Spaceballs because that would have been the newest he made. But did you see what was below those two?

Nic

No.

Steve

So there's a. There's a big row. There's actually multiple more rows of VHS tapes, but they're turned to the side. You're just seeing the spawn instead of. Instead of the COVID But it's one side is rocky one through 14, and the other one is Friday the 13th one through 14. Now, they were a little over on the guess on how many Rockies would be made.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But there have been 12 Friday the 13th movies. Wow. Overall. So they were not that far off. Mel Brooks had a pretty good idea. That's actually the first of two. There are too many Rockies. Rocky movies. Jokes in this movie.

Nic

Oh, yeah. I wrote down the other one.

Steve

That comes later.

Nic

Okay. I didn't notice that.

Steve

Yeah, they actually. They actually got close to that. The. To the number of Friday the 13th. So they do. They zoom ahead in the tape. They're able to find the scene that is happening right now, which is a funny little gag where they're like making motions and they're seeing themselves on, you know, a sequential depth of monitors. Right.

Nic

It's like a camera picture inside a picture inside a picture. Yeah.

Steve

Looking like. Like the special effects on the Haunted Mansion or something. But then they find our heroes and. And that they're on this desert planet, which they're walking through the desert dragging the princess's matched luggage. Where the hell Are they going? They don't make any notion of like, oh, there's like we saw a city as we were crash landing. Like they're just walking.

Nic

No reason they're going the direction they're going.

Steve

None whatsoever. It makes no sense. There's no destination in mind. I cannot imagine what they actually thought, how that was going to work. Where were they going?

Nic

Yeah, they. This, I think this is my, my favorite joke in the movie. And I think this is kind of the perfect Mel Brooks style joke. So when they're looking for them in the desert and he orders them, comb the desert.

Steve

Yeah. President Scrub, right, Says, comb the desert.

Nic

President Scroob, comb the desert. And the next scene is just the men dragging a giant comb through a desert. Perfect visual gag. So that's where I feel like the joke would have ended in a Naked Gun Zucker type movie. Just a quick hit. And then they take it the next level where the guy's looking through the binoculars at the combing and he says, are we being too literal? Which is another great fourth wall type Mel Brooks. And then they're going to check in on all the different comb crews that are there. What have you found? What have you found? So it's, you know, all these standard kind of back pocket combs. And then the last thing, which was the afro pick rain drag through the desert. And then all the black soldiers there were like responding. And that, that's kind of of its time. But that is the Mel Brooks perfect joke where he's got, he's got the pun, he's got the thing that's self referential to this as being a movie or referencing the own script. And then a little bit of racial stuff, which was really well executed and very funny.

Steve

Yes. And it's a good example of the rule of three, Right. You've got the first gag and then the reiteration of the gag and then the punchline is really the third version of the gag. That is actually not my favorite joke in that scene, though. My favorite joke in that scene is when Sanders asks Helmut, are we being too literal? He has a bullhorn in his hand and he turns to Colonel Sanders directly front of him using the bullhorn, it says, no, you idiot, we were told to comb the desert, so we're combing it. And then when he goes to ask the soldiers, who are, who are, you know, hundreds of feet away, what's going on? He puts the bullhorn down, puts his hand up to his mouth and goes, have you found anything yet? It's just such a Good gag. It's so funny every. That's one of the things that makes me laugh every time I see the movie. And his pith helmet. His, like, African explorer.

Nic

Really funny.

Steve

The little door for the mask is such a great gag, too.

Nic

Yep. I'm gonna bring this up when we're summarizing it at the end, but I just want to put a. Put a bookmark here. Is that dark helmets, Desert Patrol vehicle.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Is a VW thing that is floating. So it's like a Volkswagen thing that's just floating through the desert. So later on, I'm going to talk about how this movie had things in common with each of the movies we've done so far.

Steve

Okay. But I won't mention one of the pieces because I think I know.

Nic

Oh, we'll see. We'll get to it. Well, we'll do it together when it gets there. Yeah. Comb the desert. Good scene. And they. They just squeeze so much out of a premise. And I really appreciate that. Rather than it being a bunch of mediocre jokes and volume. They really get everything out of it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

The other one being when President Scroob is supposed to be teleported.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Beamed. I don't know if we've gotten to that yet, but we can talk.

Steve

It was a little earlier than this. Yeah. We can hit this part. Yeah.

Nic

Because I thought so President Scrub is supposed to be. Do you want to come over here? We're going to beam you into this room. And they beam him over there, and he steps in this thing that he's clearly uncomfortable with using in the first place. And he gets in there and his head is on backwards. And they say, okay, well, we're gonna beam you back and see if you get normal again. And he's normal again. Okay. Should we beam you in again? No. And then he just walks through an automatic open door into the next room where they all are. So he was going, like, 18ft.

Steve

So as a kid, I love this scene, obviously. Cause it's like his butt. He scratches his butt. It's a very funny butt scene. Right. Because his hands on backwards, like. But my problem was I never. I know they say his head's on backwards, but I always thought, no, his butt and his dick got replaced with each other. Because his hands are still.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Right. Because he couldn't. It was just. It looks funny when he goes to scratch his butt. It's like. So his hands got flipped and turned around as well. Like, it's just part of the gag that kind of, like, you got to Suspend disbelief for a minute. But it is a great gag. Yeah. Like this. I'll walk, you know, like, I'm not gonna do this again. And it's yet literally not next door. Like, he never needed to, like, leave. That was also, I think, right. Right after that or right before that moment is him being on the phone. Sounds like with a journalist or something. Maybe it's like, oh, you can tell your viewers, you know, there's no air shortage whatsoever. I've heard the same rumor. It's ridiculous. And he's got a. A drawer full of cans of Perry the Perrier from, you know, says, like. Like, whatever. Fresh from Druid. Druidia. And it's just. He just sucks it down through his nose, which is just so fucking fun. I also love Ivan note here. So going back to the desert, our heroes pass out, basically. They can't go any further. You know, they're both. Lonestar's carrying Princess Vespa and Barf is carrying Dot Matrix. And they're both just done. And so they fall over, and it looks like they're done for, but then along come these little sort of Jawa like, characters. I've always called them the Dink Dinks. I don't know if that's what they're actually called, but they just sit on Dink.

Nic

Yeah, that's what I wrote.

Steve

Like, whatever, right? And they find them and they sort of give them water and revive them a bit or whatever and take them to their leader, who is the keeper of a greater magic, the keeper of the Schwartz. His name is Yogurt. He's sort of the Yoda, but he's gold instead of green. Because that's sort of funny, I guess, you know? But, yeah. So we get to this temple, we meet Yogurt and his Dink Dink friends. And I love that all the characters, all of our heroes know about the Schwartz. They know about Yogurt. This is like a. This person is a known quantity in the galaxy, I guess. Like, so they're not at all. They're, like, impressed to meet him, but they're. But they get it right away, right? There's no, like, hesitation. Like, or what? It's like, oh, my gosh, it's Yogurt. Oh, the Schwartz. Oh, how exciting. And it's like, really? But I love that. This is one of the greatest gags. I'm going to get into the backstory on it. One of the greatest little mini scenes is. I think it's John Candy asks him, so, Yogurt, what do you do here? One of them asks, and he says merchandising, where the real money for the movie is made. So this is great because this is. This scene was directly inspired by the dealings that Brooks had with Lucas before this movie was made and before they could make this movie. The studio needed Mel Brooks to basically get kind of sign off from George Lucas that, like, he's not going to sue them if they do this. Right. And so he, you know, basically got in contact with Lucasfilm and was chatting about, like, hey, we want to do this. And, yeah, it's going to be a spoof. It's going to be a parody. You know, that's what I do. We're going to base it off Star wars and have the character look like this. And he kind of explained to all the Lone Star character, the barf, everything, dark helmet, all of it. And apparently the. The word from Lucasfilm was like, yeah, that's great. Go do that. We have one issue. Because you're basing these character designs so closely on our characters, we don't think it would be fair for you to, like, merchandise it. Like, you can't make action figures and stuff because it's sort of like it's going to cannibalize our.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so forth. If we're going to, like, approve that, we're cool with this. No merchandising. So there really wasn't. You could not buy, like, Spaceball's action figures. You could not buy, like, trust me, I wanted them.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You couldn't get a toy set of. Of Eagle 5 or anything like that. This didn't exist. And so that then inspired Brooks to write this scene where yogurt is going through all of the merchandise being created for Spaceball. Spaceball's the T shirt. Spaceball's the lunchbox. Spaceball's the flamethrower. Kids love that one. Like, this is such a great little mini scene in the movie. And then Spaceball's the doll and it's yogurt. He's just so cute. But, yeah, it's a great. I love that there's like a real world sort of explanation for that scene.

Nic

No, that's good to know. And way to turn that into one of the best parts of the movie, because they really got a lot out of that running gag throughout the movie. There'd be a Spaceballs. There was a placemat and a shaving cream and all these things throughout the movie.

Steve

And if you notice, only after that scene occurs, they actually don't think any of them exist. But Then you see Spaceballs the toilet paper, Spaceballs the bed sheets, whatever. All of that comes after we get Yogurt's little explanation that this is, you know, where the real money is made.

Nic

So the heroes are trying to get the princess out of jail. She's been imprisoned.

Steve

Oh, no, no. That's jumping Whip over. Yeah, so they are. So they're at Yogurt's thing, and so they're trying to get her back to Jidia, but, like, they can't. So Dark Helmet and Cardinal Sanders find the door to Yogurt's lair and realize that that's where they are. But he says, you know, we can't go in there because Yogurt's got the Schwartz. And Colonel Sanders like, oh, do you have the Schwartz to your little ring? He goes, I got the downside. There's an upside and downside every short. So, you know, it's like he's more powerful. So they have to lure her out. And this is one of my favorite things about the Schwartz is that it has whatever powers are needed by the plot at the time. Apparently, in addition to, like, zapping people's nuts and turning into lightsabers and, you know, moving things across, you know, space, like telekinesis, like all this stuff, it allows for some kind of shape shifting or, or changeling or whatever it is, because Dark Helmet is able to make himself look like King Roland and entice Princess Vespa to come out and then, you know, basically kidnap her again. And so now they can take her back to Planet Spaceball and. And put her in jail, but they do have to sort of capture it. And then when Yogurt goes to, you know, send alone Star and. And Barf off after them. Dot Matrix has captured Alone, along with Princess Vespa. He gives them a fortune cookie. He fills up their tank of gas and then gives them a fortune cookie. Makes you open before you eat it because of course that comes back later, but yeah. So now they have to go to Planet Spaceball and they have to go rescue the princess from prison.

Nic

Yeah, and they're one of my favorite recurring tropes in any kind of movie is the beat up two guys and steal their uniform scene.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Never gets old to me. I always enjoy it and especially when there's a twist on it and they're definitely was here. So it was really funny to see Barf and Lone Star go beat these guys up. Take their uniforms. They fit perfectly. Including the tail hole.

Steve

That's a hole for the tail. Well, I mean, they were good. They did. The guards were a big guy and a skinny guy. So they were smart about sort of giving us. Yeah, okay. Like maybe he could fit into it.

Nic

The tail does throw it off. And then the guards show up later when they're escaping. They're in a shootout. And these guys are in their underwear still with their helmets and their helmets.

Steve

Guns, their gloves and get.

Nic

So do Lone Star clothes. Really good. Really good.

Steve

So before they arrive to rescue her, she's not in the prison cell. She's actually in this kind of. I don't know, it's a big room, some kind of control with a big wall. And this is now time for Scroob and Dark Helmet to, you know, ransom her. Right. And they contact King Roland, and they basically threaten King Roland and they say, if you don't give us the combination to the airlock around planet Dridia, this plastic surgeon is going to give your print, your daughter back her old nose. Right, Right. It's this really awful hook nose picture, you know, and she's like, no, whatever. And then she passes out. There's a funny cameo in this scene. Did you recognize Nurse Gretchen, the nurse that is with the doctor at all? That was. That is. That is actress Brenda Strong. And in addition to being in Sports Night, which is one of my favorite TV shows of all time, she played Sue Ellen Mischke on Seinfeld. The woman who walked around in just a bra and caused Kramer to, like, crack trash's car or whatever. Oh, okay.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

She's the one who would wear the blazer with just the bra. That was Brenda Strong. That was Nurse Gretchen. You know, the crazy thing about it is it seems like what's happening is Princess Prince King Roland is willing to kill everyone on his planet so that Princess Vespa doesn't get unwanted plastic surgery. Yeah. This doesn't seem like the right priorities for a ruler. Like, I don't know, it's probably roughly.

Nic

In line with your average powerful person. Yeah, he folds very easily and then he gives up the code. And in this era where there weren't a lot of. Maybe even ATM pins weren't as common.

Steve

Right. People.

Nic

Basically, when he gives the code, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, people are like, oh, that's what dummies put on their suitcases. And I was thinking, oh, I guess there weren't codes to unlock cell phones or anything like that. So the suitcase and the briefcase were the big codes. God. Imagine a world where you only had to know four passwords total.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Oh, what a dream.

Steve

The key Code whatever gets passed to the Spaceballs. And they put Princess Vespa back in her cell. And so that's when our heroes are able to come and actually rescue her. And now they're running. They're trying to get out of Spaceball City, Back to Eagle 5 on the landing pad so they can get out of there. And they've got to like. And they're being pursued by, you know, basically the movie's version of Stormtroopers, the Spaceball soldiers you mentioned. That's where they kind of run into the guys they stole the uniforms from who somehow still have guns. But then they, they make a daring escape through a closing door. And they can all jump through and it's very exciting. And when they get inside there, they're captured. And did you recognize good friend of the pod who is the, the, the captain or whatever that comes in to Stephen Tobolowski. Tobolowski. He's back. I am a huge Stephen Tobolowski fan. Always have been, always will be. But of course, they've captured the stunt doubles, which is such a great gag. It's another kind of Mel Brooks Hollywood movie making gag. Right. Where it's like. Well, of course they would have used stunt doubles to do the jump through the thing.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So the idea being. Well, if they haven't, that's who's in there right now. That's who's actually in there is the stunt double. So that's who gets captured.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And I love the Princess Vespa stunt double in particular is a short guy with long hair with a mustache and a cigar. Like he would have stab the cigar in his mouth as he's diving in. Right. Oh, my God. So good.

Nic

Yeah, that was, that was a really funny scene. And just constant references to this being a movie and the business of movie making and everything. And I think the fact that Mel Brooks is even able to get these movies made, period, is just such a big triumph because he's not necessarily gunning for the broadest audience. A lot of it is just insider things that are. Yeah, so that's good stuff. So the stunt doubles are captured. So the giant ship then is trying to make its way to Druidia.

Steve

Well, here.

Nic

No, so.

Steve

So before. So they're trying to leave Spaceball City and they get Back to Eagle 5 and the door is like, got shot. So the door is like jammed shut. And there's this great moment where you know, they hand the laser rifle, whatever, to Princess Vespa and she's like, I don't know what to do with this. Like. Like, I don't shoot guns. But then one of the Spaceballs shoots her hair and now she's pissed. And she locks and loads this thing and just goes. And just blows away like, seven or eight guys in a row. And I have a note here that says, boy, Joey Trotta sure thought he was going to be Princess Vespa. And he wasn't. So in Toy Soldiers, it didn't work out. But this was. This was. What was in Joey Trotta's head is that he was going to be like Princess Vespa at that point. Because in that. In my mind, in that movie, Joey is a huge fan of Spaceball. Since this movie came out before Toy Soldiers.

Nic

Oh, for sure. If they shot him in the earring, maybe he could have gotten mad enough to mow everybody down.

Steve

But they make a comment about, you know, oh, that was pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good for a girl. Pretty good for Rambo. Like. Yeah. I mean, she's got like nine guys in a row. Just one shot each of them. It was pretty impressive. Okay, so, yeah, so now they leave. But, yeah, Spaceball 1, because they've got the code. They're on the way to Druidia. They're ready to steal the air. The big ship. Ship. Okay, time for the ship. Time for metamorphosis. And Dark Owens goes. Ready Kafka. And it's just like. That's like a highbrow joke in the middle of this absolutely insane absurdist comedy, you know? And it's just like. I don't know. I love that.

Nic

It goes all over the place. That's the funny thing about it is you can exist in multiple realities. You could exist in multiple levels of intellectual humor, from the most goofy slapstick stuff to these really kind of more arcane references. But God damn, so good. So the ship is a Transformer, and it transforms into the most obvious and efficient thing to steal the air from this, which is a maid who is holding a vacuum cleaner.

Steve

Yes. Mega Maid.

Nic

Mega made.

Steve

Yeah. The bag doesn't even look that big like, when it starts. Yeah. Because they go ahead and they start her up. They put the. You know, they've opened the gate and whatever, and they put the little vacuum cleaner opening over it and they start sucking the air up. And, you know, of course, it's a lot of funny stuff called the snow off the mountains and all the trees get pulled up.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, King Roland starts slowly asphyxiating because he's an idiot who let his planet die so his daughter wouldn't have a nose job. And, you know, all this stuff is happening. And then Lone Star is able to use the Schwartz to move the external power switch on the outside of this or function switch on the outside of this vacuum. Which makes no sense that it would exist.

Nic

No.

Steve

No sense that it would have a reverse setting. Yeah. But it did set up one of the funniest jokes in the near the end of the movie, which is that, what's happening? Mega Maid, sir, She's gone from suck to blow. Which is not a joke. I understood the first few times I saw the movie, you know, but by my teens, I understood what that joke was telling us. Yeah. But, yeah, so they're able to put everything right back where it belongs. All the, all the snow falls on the correct mountain.

Nic

Trees go back into their spots, into.

Steve

Their root balls or whatever. And so everything's okay on Druid. But now our heroes have to deal with the ship and the Spaceballs. And they could just push. They could just reverse it again, you know. Yeah.

Nic

So we get to take this thing down. So it's kind of like the Death Star destruction type scene, except that the hole that they're driving into is the ear of this new Mega Maid. And driving very slowly, it seems like such a. Such a leisurely path to get to the middle there in that rv. And it had another scene where they get out of the RV that they're just loose in space again. Yeah, it's just, you can just breathe there. That's okay.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. And so this sets up. We get Lone Star finding the self destruct button. He like breaks into part of this, you know, central nervous system of Mega Maid or whatever it is. And this is where he is then confronted by Dark Helmet. And so this is the sort of battle we've been waiting for. I guess in this sense, if you're really thinking about, about the, you know, the first Star wars movie, it would be like Obi Wan versus Darth Vader. But I guess also it's a reference to the battle between Luke and Vader at the end of Empire Strikes Back because we learn the connection between these two characters, which is Dark Helmet saying that, you know, you should know this. I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate. Now, depending on how many brothers Lone Star's dad has, that could mean the Dark Helmet and Lone Star were roommates. Because his father's brother is his uncle. His uncle's nephew could be him son could be him, or could be the son of another Brother. If there were at least three brothers in that group, and then they would. That would make Lone Star and this other person cousins. And so potentially, it could go all the way back to where Lone Star. Or it could mean they have absolutely no connection whatsoever, which is probably the joke that was intended. But I have spent too much time thinking about how you could parse father's brother's nephews, cousins, former roommate. I don't think that he was intending to say that they lived together once, but I still think it was funny. It was very, very convoluted.

Nic

They leave it open exactly right before that. When Lone Star sees Dark Helmet, I love this line where he says, at last we meet for the first time, for the last time.

Steve

And he even thinks he has a look.

Nic

Yeah, that's right.

Steve

I got it.

Nic

Even in 1987, there was probably so much Star wars parody that had been done. So it's great that this seems so fresh and they had to take a different spin on it. But still remaining true to the main things that people understand about Star wars, during this fight scene, there are a couple funny things that happen. The boom mic operator getting clipped during the scene. He did it. That was great. Lonestar with his hand on Dark Helmet's head, holding him at a distance, and he can't hit him with his sword.

Steve

Very Looney Tunes.

Nic

Yeah, so much of that. So good fight scene there.

Steve

And then Helmut decides, hey, you're better at this than I thought you were. This is a fair fight. Let's go ahead and shake on it. And of course, he steals the Schwartz ring off of Lone Star's hand and makes a big deal about. Now Lone Star, you see why evil will always triumph because good is dumb. And frankly, that is an accurate representation of most of the good characters in the Star wars movies. Yeah. So, you know, kudos, Mel Brooks. But he, like, throws the ring away or whatever. And of course, it's like, you know, in any other movie or any other type of movie, this would seem like a big moment of like, oh, man, what's gonna happen here? You know, And Mel Brooks does set us up for, like, what's gonna happen? But then it's like, you know, all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, because, again, the shorts can do whatever it wants. Yogurt speaks to Lone Star and says, you know, use the Schwartz. Lone Star. I can't. I lost the ring. Ah, the ring is bupkis. I got it at the bottom of a crackerjack box. Okay, cool. Then he can just do any, you know, and it's just kind of like he gets a mirror and the laser blast goes back and hits Dark Helmet and he falls into the self destruct button, starting the self destruct process for Spaceball 1 Mega made. But it's like that could have been. That should have been a more like serious moment. But no, no, screw it.

Nic

Do whatever.

Steve

And it's just so fun.

Nic

It's a funny choice.

Steve

I love that. So that is just again, so quintessentially Mel Brooks. Just be like, I'm gonna set this up and then at the end, no, I'm just gonna throw that away and I'm gonna do this instead because it's just easier. It's gonna make it keep going. We can't end here.

Nic

So I think this is about when we hear the Spaceballs song for the first time.

Steve

Total Banger.

Nic

Amazing. It's a parody, but it's not overtly a joke song.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

It could fit in any of these movies. And you have the movies of this era, those kind of lower level sci fi type things like ice pirates and stuff like that. Like just these things where you could picture that song sliding perfectly in the seriousness. And then where he's talking about they're trying to steal your air. And it just, it's such a good, such a good song. And I'm really glad we get more of it at the end too.

Steve

I feel like it was very much this was because this movie, like it really is a Star wars spoof first. But it clearly references many other movies. At one point, Lone Star. Does the Vulcan neck pinch on a, on a Spaceball soldier? It has to be told, no, nobody.

Nic

Shows him how to do it.

Steve

Shows him how to do it better and all that. So there's a little reference, other stuff, but to me, this weird. The Spaceballs is clearly a spoof of the Ghostbusters theme song. Yeah, right. Which is like that song that, you know, just describes the movie or describes the point. So yeah, like all we do is dirt deeds. The we're the Space Walls is, is absolutely a song that I, I love every time I hear it. And it fits perfectly. And like you said, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's goofy. Ish. But it's not too goofy. Like it definitely. It's still like a good, you know, mid-80s kind of movie rock song.

Nic

Yeah. You can groove with it while you're enjoying the movie. For sure.

Steve

For sure.

Nic

We get a joke there about Rocky.

Steve

5000, although that was when. That's when after the blow up. Lone Star and Barf are taking Vespa back to Druidia and they're getting. It's a news telecast telling them that Pizza the Hutt is dead.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

But, you know, it's like before. So it's like. Oh, yeah. In news today, Notorious Gangster Pizza the Hutt has died. You know, he got locked in his limo and he ate himself to death. And then the. The. The. The. Whatever. The anchor goes. And now Pongo's review of Rocky 5000. Because at that point, I think there had only been four Rockies. But, yeah, they gotta make all kinds of jokes about there being too many Rocky movies.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. And they. Who knows? The Creed ain't done, so we might get five Creeds. Yeah. Creed's gonna have some kids that need to become boxers. There's gonna be an MMA spinoff. There's all kinds of stuff. A lot of places we can go with that, for sure. So they're in this kind of rooftop, 50s diner type.

Steve

It's a truck stop. Yeah.

Nic

A tight place at the end. The only thing that I kind of would have liked to have seen as somebody who's seeing this movie for the first time and who I'd know, Star wars, at least the original three films, is I would have liked a little bit more reference in this scene to kind of the Cantina band, like those kind of characters. That was the only thing where I was kind of expecting it. And I was like, oh, it didn't happen. But things were kind of wrapping up at this point.

Steve

Well, they decided to fit in their alien reference. Telling one of my favorite jokes. I still literally tell this joke as if it's my own joke. But the, you know, like, we're stranded on a planet and he starts sniffing around and all the trees and he says, I got it. I know where we're at. We're at Pluto. Pluto? How can you tell? He goes, from the bark, you dummies. From the bark. And it's just like, I love that joke. It's hilarious. Xenomorph baby pop out of his chest. But then, of course, instead of being menacing, it goes into a Michigan J. Frog. Hello, my baby.

Nic

Hello, my daughter.

Steve

It's just a great little gag. And then, of course, you know, he had. There were only two things ready to eat the space soup and the space special. And orders the special. But after this guy has this chest burster come out, he go, what did he have? He had the special. I'll take the soup. Good idea. But. But, yeah, it's a Great. And that's. And that was the thing too, is like, there's these little moments where they fit in spoofs of other movies. There's that thing for Alien. And then after Mega Maid blows up, apparently they're near a planet. It's hard to tell at the time other than Druidia, but they crash land. The head of Mega Maid crash lands on another planet.

Nic

The Planet of the Apes.

Steve

Right. Exactly. And so then they. Scroob and Sanders and Helmut, who are the only ones left, are crawling out of her nose. And two. Yeah, like Planet of the Apes style. Apes, you know, come up on horseback. Oh, it's coming out of the nose. Spaceballs. Oh, shit. There goes the planet. And so we get to get a little Planet of the Apes reference. It's like he just decided. I feel like those jokes were written early on when they were writing the movie and, like, figuring out what to do. And they didn't know where to fit him in. But these two sort of bumpers at the end of the movie are like, well, we gotta do a Planet of the Apes joke. We gotta do an aliens joke. Yeah, and they made it work. I mean, it definitely fits.

Nic

No, it definitely did. Well, and then Lone Star finds out that he is, in fact, a prince. This medallion he's had around his neck the whole time, which he's been kind of questioning, like, what's on this? What does it say? And Yogurt knew what it said, but he wasn't. Wasn't gonna tell him yet. Yeah, but basically it means it's a royal birth certificate of some sort.

Steve

Ridiculous.

Nic

I don't know. They don't seem too serious about the plot. I'm not gonna take it too seriously. Move things along. Funny line by Dot Matrix. So he ends up getting married. He just dips into the middle of the wedding ceremony, which was funny because.

Steve

Jim J. Bullock is boring. So he's. Yeah.

Nic

And the. The officiant of that wedding was just kind of like, let's move it along. Moving along. So they had the do you. Do you? Kind of wedding. And then Dot Matrix says, goodbye virgin alarm. Which is something earlier in the movie when somebody got close to the princess, she had this virgin alarm that went off. That was a good way to. Good way to kind of wrap things up.

Steve

Yeah, I do love too. At the. At that wedding ceremony at the end, the officiant asks, you know, because Barf is there. They're both dressed nicely. Barf's got his hair in a frame. French braid. And. And they're both Standing there. He goes, well, who are you? He's like, what's your name? And he's barf. Your full name. Bar. Full of me.

Nic

Yeah. Like, all right, again, shoehorning. Any joke that they can into it. It's just. It's a clinic.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

In what you can fit into 90 minutes.

Steve

Yes, yes, absolutely. Okay. So you hinted earlier at connections between Spaceballs and the other movies that we've done so far on the podcast. Yeah. So I know at least a couple, but I want to hear what. What you're coming to the table with.

Nic

Okay. Okay. So starting with episode one, which was Groundhog Day, we had the great Stephen Toblewski. Ned Ryerson, who was also one of the captains who captured the stunt doubles, Correct?

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Number two, a little bit deeper of a pull. Toy soldiers had a character named Yogurt.

Steve

The first thing I thought of when I saw. It's like, holy crap, this is. Right. This is the. We got two movies with a guy named Yogurt.

Nic

So Yogurt was one of the students. He was the guy who owned the remote control plane that ended up saving the day. And then, of course, Yogurt is the Yoda character.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Singles. We had Bill Pullman.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And he was a little bit different in each movie. And then the Pacific Heights link that I had is that there was a VW thing driven by Matthew Modine's character. Also a VW thing, a floating VW thing, which was dark helmets, desert patrol vehicle.

Steve

I imagine they probably just draped, like. Probably back then would have been blue screen. Screen, you know, like over the tires.

Nic

It's exactly what it looked like. It was just a clean cut off.

Steve

Exactly. Perfect. Well, you know, it's. It's always fun to find these links between things we kind of didn't intend, but that's fantastic. All right, well, let's talk about what you thought of the movie. I want to. You're the person who saw it for the first time. This time. I want to hear your rating before I give mine again.

Nic

Like I said earlier, I wasn't sure how this would go for me. I'm super glad that I watched it, and I think this is something I'll watch again for sure. It's kind of hard. It's not going to become a movie that I see 50, 50 times because there's a certain window in our lives where those enter and. And your mid-40s is kind of not when you find new ones fair. But I also don't think I've seen a bunch of Mel Brooks So I. I have things that I need to see. I haven't seen Young Frankenstein. I haven't seen Blazing Saddles since one time in college. So I don't know, 20 years ago.

Steve

I don't remember much. Those two. Those two. At least I'd say those two. And history of the world part one would be. Those be the three that I'd say. You got to make sure you go see.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And I love his humor, and I love the way that this was put together. So many people that I enjoy almost everything they do. John Candy. I can't think of a bad John Candy performance.

Steve

Maybe who's Harry Crumb? But even he was good in that.

Nic

Yeah, he. He pulled it together. Moranis is just so underrated. I know it's because he kind of quit acting at a certain point for personal reasons, but he had quite a run in the 80s between Ghostbusters and Strange Brew Honey. I Shrunk the kids even. Good.

Steve

Really funny. And again, he's great in it. He's fantastic.

Nic

He makes it. He makes it. And Bill Pullman. I read that this was only his second movie.

Steve

Oh, I don't even know if that's true. That's interesting.

Nic

So. And he's just a. He's a great, funny straight man. He could be the leading man, but is still funny enough to kind of in a Jason Bateman kind of way where he can be the main guy. But he is also funny. But he's not distracting funny.

Steve

Right. He's not a clown.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Yeah. Jester.

Nic

Yeah. So I'm gonna give this movie a four and a half out of five.

Steve

Nice.

Nic

I really liked it. I would watch it again. I appreciate the comedy and really, it holds up. There might be a couple dated references, but it's not the movie's fault for existing in the time that it came out.

Steve

Right. Yeah.

Nic

I. I think that I'd like to watch this with my daughter someday, too. I think she'd appreciate a lot of the humor in it.

Steve

100. Yeah. Well, that's fantastic. That means that for sure that this, this is our first movie that we've both, I think, fully agreed on as being very, very well worth anybody's time. I, like I said at the start of this one, this is one of my all time favorite movies. It's literally a top 10 comedy for me. I did a, you know, a thing on, like, Twitter where I was like, I'm going to list out, like, my 30 favorite movies or whatever. And. And this was on that list. So this gets a Solid five out of five for me. There's no reason for me not to give it a full five. I think it absolutely holds up. I don't think that there's anything problematic enough in it that you have to worry about. Not really. You know, a couple things that maybe skirt the line a bit. Bit. But you know, being a racial joke does not make any racist joke. So the, the afro pick in the desert is a funny gag. And, and so I love this movie. Solid five for me. So at nine and a half out of ten from the two of us, that's obviously by far the highest rating we've collectively given any of the movies we've done so far.

Nic

You don't want to double check how Pacific Heights did?

Steve

No, I think, I think we're good there. I think we're good. But yeah, so this was my pick. So Nic, what are we gonna see next?

Nic

Yeah, this was a great pick. And, and I'm glad to have watched one of your favorite movies. This next one that I pick could also end up on that list. I think it's probably something you would have seen before. It's definitely one of my favorite movies and it's something that. It's kind of a comfort movie. It's something I'm always in search of something that's like this movie because I don't necessarily want to watch it every time. Even though really, really big fan of it. 1993. Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones.

Steve

Oh, yes.

Nic

One of the greats. The Fugitive.

Steve

Oh, yes. I love this movie.

Nic

Such an enjoyable watch. And then there's a lot in it, like unintentional comedy type stuff that I've learned to really enjoy over the years. I think overall this is just going to be a fun one to talk about.

Steve

I love that movie. Excited. I have not seen it probably in four or five years. You know, it's okay. But it's definitely one I've seen multiple, multiple, multiple times over the years. Absolute wonderful movie. You know, has one of those movies that had scenes in it that became cultural touch points.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

You know, I, I've always loved even the, you know, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back they make a reference to the, the sort of damn scene in this movie where Tommy Lee Jones is chasing Harrison Ford and, and frankly, anything with Harrison Ford in it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be all about. There's just not. That man has not made a bad movie in, in his multi decade career. Yeah.

Nic

And he was really at one of his many peaks of his power.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

This was sort of during that time.

Steve

Like his Jack Ryan era.

Nic

Right?

Steve

You know, and that kind of stuff. And fantastic. So super excited, super happy that we'll be watching the Fugitive and everybody out there listening. You know, watch the movie before, before we get around to it. You've got a couple weeks before we'll release that episode.

Nic

Play along at home.

Steve

Absolutely. That's the whole point. And in fact, all you folks at home, if you watch, would please do us the favor of going on Spotify, going on Apple podcasts and giving us a five star review. You know, rate and review the show. It helps people find us. Let your friends know if you've been enjoying it. This was our fifth episode. We're starting to get our groove, I feel like. And if you want to send a note to the show, you can do that too. You can send us an email at the show. All one word@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two. The number one 2dads1movie.com. And yeah, well, maybe we'll. We'll talk about what you send us and if you got a suggestion for a movie we should watch, maybe we'll take into consideration and maybe we won't. I don't know.

Nic

But yeah, we'd love to hear from you. I mean, it can't hurt to try. And if we ignore you, then it doesn't mean you're a bad person. It probably just means that I was in charge of responding to emails. I'm not good at that.

Steve

I'm smart enough to know that's not. I'll handle the email in box. It'll be fine. All right. This has been Spaceballs and this has been 2 dads one movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you all so much for listening and we'll catch you next time.