DVD Review: Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures

It only takes the average viewer a few minutes to decide how truly awful Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures is. Actually, “awful” doesn’t even cut it when describing this. Frankly, one word isn’t enough to relay how mind-numbingly atrocious this is. The word “dreadful” comes close, as does the adjective “appalling” — but it’s still hard to pinpoint a single, precise word to warn each and every one of you out there that you should not watch Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures under any circumstances. Yes, even if you are offered the sexual experience of a lifetime, a billion dollars (tax free), your own personal island, or your own Personal Jesus, you should avoid Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures like the dastardly animated plague it really is.

What is Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures, exactly? It’s a collection of four episodes (yes, there are more) from Spaceballs: The Animated Series, a show so bad, that only a television network aimed at barely-pubescent boys like G4 dared to air it. Somewhere along the line, somebody decided to take Mel Brooks’ line from the original Spaceballs to heart: “God willing, we’ll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search For More Money.” Unfortunately, by all accounts, that very individual is Mel Brooks himself, who created this unfunny animated series with the original film’s co-creator, Thomas Meehan. Mel also produced and lent his voice to the individual episodes of this series, which lasted a total of 13 episodes before a wise studio exec scrapped it for good.

Interestingly enough, Mel was able to finagle Spaceballs alumni Daphne Zuniga, Joan Rivers, Dom DeLuise, and Rudy De Luca. It doesn’t make any difference, though, because even though he oversaw all of the series’ writing, Mel obviously was experiencing some form of cognitive and intellectual deterioration at the time. Many people thought Brooksfilm was in peril, assuming Spaceballs: The Animated Series was a last act of a desperate man. Well, to that, I can only recite a line from Brooks’ infinitely-superior Blazing Saddles: “We don’t care if it’s the first act of Henry V, we’re leaving!”

Presented in a standard 1.33:1 ratio, this first installment of Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures (oh, please, don’t let there be any more!) is about as budget as you can get on DVD, from the cheap single layer disc it’s pressed on, to the cheap animation it was made with in the first place. A stereo soundtrack is passable clarity-wise, but will have you inserting a power drill into your ears if you listen to the actual dialogue for more than ten minutes. English subtitles are also provided, should you wish to gouge your eyes out as well (although the presentation itself should have you doing the same, but it never hurts to pull all of the tender tendons out). Insultingly enough, the disc does not carry any foreign language soundtracks or subtitles (turn another culture or country into blathering idiots, Fox — we’re doing a grand job as is!).

I think there may be some special features included on this disc, but I’m not taking the chance of breaking my player to view them. Seriously, my player stopped working when I put this in (I should’ve taken it as a sign, but…) and I had to recalibrate it in order for it to play a disc again.

This is pure evil, I tell you! So, please be cautious as to not get too terribly close to this one — it may just leap off the shelf (or out of the “bargain bin,” as that is probably be the more appropriate location for it) and attack you and your family. Be sure to carry a big can of charcoal fluid and a book of matches with you, too — just in case you see one of more copies of Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures amassing in the store.

In short: I know I haven’t touched onto this feeling very much here, but shun Spaceballs: The Totally Warped Animated Adventures like you’ve never shunned a DVD before. Evade it like you would a celebrity in Wal-Mart. Warn anyone who may pick it up that losing their intelligence is not worth it. And, above all, shirk it like you’ve heard the word “shirk” before many, many times.