The year was 1990, and the local boy scout troop was having it’s annual all-nighter. The night where they book the local school and run a marathon of movies/gym time and everyone attempts to stay up all night. Many movies were chosen that night but chief among them was unanimously voted: Spaceballs the annual all-nighter tradition, and as this was my first night old enough to attend it was my introduction to Mel Brooks movies, spoofs and most importantly: Spaceballs. Luckily at this age I was in the target audience for Star Wars and can even boast that I have seen Return of the Jedi in theatres during it’s original run so the parody humour was not lost on me… well not totally lost anyway. This movie was funny even at that age, even though I did not get all the jokes (for instance growing up in a very small very east coast Canadian town I had close to zero exposure to Jewish people or the religion, in fact this movie was also in large part my introduction to this as well even though I did not realize it at the time). But one thing was for certain: I loved Spaceballs. There was enough silly humour to entertain a younger me, I was 12ish when I first watched it, and the fact that there was some light cursing also made me giggle. There was some slapstick, a small amount of gross out, a fair amount of meta stuff and a lot of broad humour Star Wars parody that I enjoyed. This had pretty much everything a 12 year old rural eastern Canadian kid could want. I went on to watch it many times in the ensuing couple of years and a few times since. Prior to this watch I probably had not seen it for about 15 years or so, and even then I probably only watched bits of it on like CBC or something similar while it was on.

Now, while I enjoyed this viewing, it was not near as much as the early days. That being said I did laugh out loud at several points in the movie, and much to my own personal surprise it was the meta humour/4th wall breaks that I found funniest. Putting on Spaceballs: The Movie VHS to find where Lonestar and the princess escaped was a genius joke, and when they get to “right now” in the video it is a ‘who’s on first” quality joke. Capturing the stunt doubles might be one of my all time favourite Mel Brooks gags and Spaceballs: The _________ merchandise was so great that I could not do this write-up without incorporating it into the title (Spaceballs: The Flamethrower being a top favourite), but I also loved the way that after Yogurt goes through his spiel there are several callbacks throughout the rest of the movie with various merchandise showing up in the fore and background of scenes. The non-meta stuff has more misses than hits for me at this age, with the Star Wars references landing about 50/50 there was a lot of jokes that were just such low hanging fruit. I chuckled at a few (for some reason when Dark Helmet lures the princess away from Yogurt’s place and yells “FOOOOOOOOOLED YOU!” I always laugh at that one), and even find a couple funny. The Alien and Planet of the Apes bits both still work for me two (12 year old me loved hearing the word Shit coming out of a talking ape). Upon ‘second look’ this movie is still really funny. Comedy aside I also really loved the effects in this go around. The Jam hitting the radar, the Schwartzsaber fight vehicles in space. Even though they obviously use cheap effects in this case they really add to the charm of the film. As do the costumes which are very well done for a parody. At this point in reflection I am actually starting to convince myself that I liked this movie a lot more than I thought.

Probably the greatest strength of Spaceballs is the casting, it is what makes the comedy work so well. Bill Pullman is the perfect everyman not quite Han Solo, his largely straight man response to the silliness around him is what makes his scenes in the movie. Similarly John Candy is so likable as Barf the Mawg I can easily believe that he would be his own best friend and mine as well. Daphne Zuniga works good both as a spoiled princess and as a Rambo princess maybe not fully believable, but it works well as a parody. On the Spaceball side I cannot imagine a more effective Darth Vader parody then Rick Moranis in a comically oversized helmet. He is over the top silly mixed with over the top self seriousness and it works in such great juxtaposition to typically fanboy images of Vader which makes me laugh pretty much anytime he is on screen. I mentioned the cheap effects earlier and how they actually add to the charm of the movie, one of these is when they come out of Ludicrous speed launching Helmet into a console, the silly effect makes this work so much better for me on rewatches Almost religiously next to him at all times George Wyner as Colonel Sanderz plays a great straight man, often suffering under the comical incompetence of his boss. And In the middle Mel Brooks does a double roll as president Skroob and Yoghurt. I never found Skroob to be that funny but Yoghurt gets a few great 4th wall breaking gags. If there is one thing I can fault this movie for in regard to casting is that Michael Winslow is here, gets a good scene and that is it (honestly I don’t know how they could use him more, but I will always advocate for more Michael Winslow). All in all when the comedy works, it is largely due to the cast selling it.

One of my big questions going into this viewing was is this still a good Star Wars Parody, especially in the age of much much more Star Wars material then initial release, as well as many other Star Wars parodies to compare to. The answer for me was both a yes and a no. I found most of the Star Wars jokes fell a little flat as they were low hanging fruit (Pizza the Hut) and better ones have been made by others since. On the flip side there are still a lot of great jokes and gags that are not Star Wars based to make you laugh and there are still a few good Star Wars jokes (combing the desert, killing a camera man with a Schwarz-saber, etc). It sticks the landing okay and works as a SW parody, but I do wonder if it would have been better as a space comedy parody and not based around Star Wars specifically, I mean there are references to Star Trek, Alien and Planet of the Apes and they all work pretty good. So while it does basically work as a Star Wars parody for me, I feel it could have been better as a more general sci-fi movie parody that isn’t focused so much around one franchise (though keeping it Star Wars focused may have made pitching it easier).

Final Thoughts. This film does have the feel of something that was thrown together pretty quickly and cheaply, but also got lucky to still be funny enough to justify it’s existence, and charming enough to gloss over the lower budget. It is very uneven throughout and one of the funniest things to me is how the different humour effects me at different ages (what I laughed at before I don’t now, and vice versa). I am glad this movie exists though, at the very least it is a fun parody that fans can get together and largely enjoy. I am also glad I did a rewatch and seen how my tastes and likes have changed over the years. Even bits like the radar jamming I laughed both then and now, but for different reasons. It is really fun to watch in somewhat real time how my engagement with a film changes over the years and there are not too many movies that would qualify quite like Spaceballs does. As a final note I actually started writing this in May when I did the rewatch but am finishing it in mid-late June and in that time span Mel Brooks announced and did a teaser for Spaceballs 2 (fortuitous). I am somewhat trepidacious about what the final product will look like, but I have to say that teaser was spectacular and made me laugh a lot.