Western Animation / The Space Place

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The Space Place is a 2008 direct-to-DVD childrens’ animated series set in, well, the Space Place, a museum with an odd secret- every night, after the caretaker leaves, the small model spacecraft in its displays come to life!

While the satellites (Yuri, Phillipe, and Bernard) and shuttles (Neil and Chen) soar suspended by strings, the moon buggy (Julie) does stunts over plastic craters, and the Mars rover (Rakesh) collects tiny model rocks- and the lunar lander (Nancy) can’t wait until she can find something to fix.

Made as a successor to 2006’s The Transporters, The Space Place shared the series’s goal of teaching young autistic children to recognize emotions from facial expressions, but came with a few changes- it ditched the edited-in human faces in favor of fully-CGI character models, and replaced Stephen Fry with Rob Rackstraw as the narrator.

Only a single DVD release of the series, containing 12 episodes and subtitled We Have Lift Off!, was made; however, there were plans for a second series, as attested to by the fact that the DVD has a rather visible “Series 1” plastered between the title and the subtitle.

The Space Place provides examples of:

• Acrophobic Bird: Neil the space shuttle has a brief attack of fear-of-heights in “When The Lights Went Out”, but gets over it fairly quickly.
• Alliterative Name: Rakesh the rover.
• Camera Fiend: Taking pictures is Bernard the space telescope’s main hobby.
• Embarrassment Plot: “Julie’s Stunt Show” revolves around Julie being embarrassed when she flips over a pebble and falls on her back while trying to show off her stunts.
• Establishing Character Moment: “Let’s All Be Happy” has Phillipe be introduced talking to himself about how impressive and shiny he looks, Julie be introduced doing tricks on the lunar craters, and Rakesh be introduced working on his rock collection.
• Five-Token Band: Each character is of a different nationality- Neil is African-American, Bernard is British, Rakesh is Indian, Nancy is Australian, Yuri is Russian (fittingly, as he’s a model of Sputnik), Phillipe is French, Chen is Chinese, and Julie is Canadian (despite having an American flag visible on her fenders).
• Future Music: “What’s That Awful Noise?” gives us Rakesh’s loud music, which can be compared to a symphony composed entirely of pinging noises… or to someone just messing around with the settings on a synthesizer.
• Insomnia Episode: “What’s That Awful Noise?” has Yuri being unable to sleep because of ambient noise- Chen and Neil competing over who had the loudest rocket boosters, Rakesh playing his Future Music, and Bernard’s solar panels creaking. Eventually, he does find a place where he can sleep… and starts snoring up a storm.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: A laid-back melody filled with “space-y” beeping plays during the “opening credits”.
• Introductory Opening Credits: The intro sequence gives the audience clear shots of and names for, in order, Neil, Yuri and Bernard (on one screen), Nancy, Julie, Philippe and Rakesh (on one screen), and Chen.
• Living Toys: The main characters are all model spacecraft and satellites that come to life in a museum’s display after the caretaker leaves.
• Location Title: “The Space Place” is the museum the main characters reside in.
• Loud Sleeper Gag: The end of “What’s That Awful Noise?” has Yuri revealed to be a horrid snorer after spending most of the episode trying to find a place to sleep.
• Misleading Package Size: This is a Discussed Trope in “The Mysterious Parcel”, as Phillipe, when challenged about why a giant cardboard box would be used to ship a replacement for one of his dishes, defends himself by claiming that the extra size could be due to soft packaging material. The rest of the Space Team isn’t buying it.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Neil and Yuri are both named after famous astronauts- Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gangrin, respectively.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: The narrator voices the allegedly-Canadian Julie and allegedly-Australian Nancy using his normal British accent.
• Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: A variant is used in “Don’t Tell Chen”- Chen is hurt when he overhears the other members of the space team talking about a party but reminding each other “don’t tell Chen”, but when the party finally happens Chen finds that it’s a surprise party for him, for the one-year anniversary of when he came to the Space Place.
• Picnic Episode: “The Space Team Picnic” has the team attempting to have a picnic by the Mars display… only for Bernard to be in the middle of a project (time-lapse photography) that requires him to stay still, and Yuri to be stuck in a new display in the annex. Fortunately, they’re able to “attend” the picnic anyway with the help of Chen’s video-conferencing cameras.
• Questioning Title?: “Where Are My Rocks?” and “What’s That Awful Noise?” have these.
• Rhyming Title: The show has one.
• The Secret Life of Nonhumans: The show is about what the model spacecraft in a space museum's displays do after the museum has closed for the night.
• Sentient Vehicle: The main characters are all living (toy models of) spacecraft- Julie is a moon buggy, Neil is a space shuttle, Yuri is the Sputnik satellite, Bernard is a space telescope, Nancy is the lunar lander, Chen is a futuristic “tourist space shuttle”, Phillipe is a modernistic satellite, and Rakesh is a Mars rover.
• Stock Foreign Name: Chen, for the Chinese space shuttle.
• Surprisingly Functional Toys: Despite being plastic models, Neil has working lights, and Bernard can take pictures and video, play them back, and even broadcast them to the Space Place’s wall-mounted televisions. Oh, and then there’s all the “gadgets” Chen has.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Since the goal of the show was teaching autistic children to recognize emotions, this was unavoidable, although it does manage to be less bad about it than The Transporters.
• Two Girls to a Team: Nancy and Julie are the only female members of the space team.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Yuri’s fear of the dark causes problems when the lights for the annex he hangs in are turned off in “When The Lights Went Out”.
• Wrench Wench: Nancy is noted to enjoy making repairs- she fixes Bernard’s lens in “Cheer Up, Bernard” and Chen’s drive mechanism in “Nancy To The Rescue”.
• X-Ray Vision: In “The Mysterious Parcel”, Chen produces an “x-ray beam”, which allows you to see inside whatever you point it at… and reveals that the titular package only contains paper towels.