Fully known as Mel Brooks' Spaceballs: The Animated Series or Spaceballs: The Series if anyone prefers it short, Spaceballs: The Animated Series is an adult animated series that aired on G4TV and a loose adaptation of Spaceballs with each of its episodes being a parody of pop culture, similar to how Star Trek and Star Wars were parodied in the source material.
Brooksfilms collaborated with Beliner Fim Company as well as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to produce the show in early 2005 with Brooks himself as executive producer and reprising President Skroob and Yogurt. 13 episodes were planned to air in the fall of 2007, but it ended up being delayed to September 21, 2008 (with the pilot episode airing on June 4 that year), by which point the show had already been cancelled.
Animation for the series was provided by Cyber Chicken (4 episodes), Eh-Okay Productions (3 episodes; plus pre-production sevices on 4 episodes), Fantasy Prone Interactive (2 episodes, one with Film Roman; plus pre-production services on 9 episodes), Prime Focus (2 episodes) and Huminah Huminah Animation (1 episode).
Spaceballs: The Animated Series - The Tropes:
- Adaptational Curves: Zircon and Vespa have larger breasts than in the movie.
- Adaptational Ugliness: Colonel Sandurz, played by the relatively normal-looking George Wyner in the movie, is designed with a comically long nose and an exaggerated cleft chin.
- Adaptation Deviation: The pilot is mostly a retelling of the movie, except that Lone Starr retains his Schwartz ring and doesn't turn out to be a prince. Since Vespa cannot marry him, she stays single.
- Adaptation Expansion: The series actually shows Dark Helmet's backstory as a parody of The Phantom Menace and gave him the name "Panakin Crybaby" before he wore the helmet and became Dark Helmet. How much of it is canon is up in the air.
- Adaptation Name Change: Planet Spaceball becomes Planet Moron, spacebucks become starbucks, and the Asshole family become the Bleepholes.
- Animated Actors: The opening sequence shows the characters getting ready for filming the opening sequence.
- Animated Adaptation: It is an animated cartoon version of Spaceballs as a TV show.
- Canon Foreigner: Yogurt gets a wife named Yenta, and Marlene and Charlene are joined by Darlene.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: King Roland, Vespa's father, is completely absent here.
- Demoted to Extra: Outside the pilot's retelling of the movie, Colonel Sandurz, one of the movie's three main Spaceballs, only appears in a single scene of a single episode.
- Depraved Dwarf: Dark Helmet's already short height (he was originally played by the 5'6" Rick Moranis) is greatly exaggerated compared to the movie, but he's still one of the Spaceballs.
- Escaped Animal Rampage: Several dinosaurs in "Watch Your Assic Park" escape from their pens and become a threat to those around them.
- Jurassic Farce: "Watch Your Assic Park" is an episode blatantly parodying Jurassic Park. Lone Starr and his friends win an invitation to visit Watch Your Assic Park, where President Skroob injects dinosaur DNA into athletes. Many scenes of the movie are spoofed, including the T. rex escape and the attack of the raptors.
- Konami Code: The Konami Code is featured in an episode where Lone Starr and Vespa are trapped in a video game.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- Dark Helmet's true name is Panakin Crybaby.
- President Skroob's full name is revealed to be Waylon A. Skroob.
- Punny Name: Dark Helmet's real name, Panakin Crybaby, aside from sounding similar to Anakin Skywalker, sounds very close to "panicking crybaby", as it is a Take That! to the performances of Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen in the prequels.
- Title: The Adaptation: The show is titled Spaceballs: The Animated Series.
- Trapped in TV Land: One episode involves Vespa and Lone Starr getting trapped inside a video game's world.
- Vocal Evolution: Despite Daphne Zuniga reprising Princess Vespa from the movie, her voice sounds lower and more mature due to her aging after 20 years.
- World of Buxom: Every woman has large, bouncy breasts. This includes Princess Vespa and Commander Zircon, whose breasts were noticeably smaller in the original movie.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Lampshaded in one episode where Dark Helmet tells Skroob that it's time to move to Phase 2 of their plan. Skroob suggests staying at Phase 1, because things always go so well during Phase 1, and Lone Starr never shows up to ruin things until they move to Phase 2.
SPACEBALLS: THE ANIMATED SERIES: THE STINGER