Julia Rios, writer, editor, narrator, podcaster. The OMG Julia Podcast explores creative lives and processes. Worlds of Possibility collects stories and poems by others.
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Spaceballs: The Transcript

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00:00.53
juliarios
Welcome to This Is Why We're Like This, the podcast where we talk about things that are definitely going to cut your balls off or something, yogurt, giant hair dryers, and the movies that shaped our childhoods... for better, or for worse. I'm your host, Julia Rios

00:23.67
Geoffrey
I'm your other host Geoffrey Pelton

oo:25:02
juliarios
And today our special guests are Julia Rios and JJ Lang! Welcome!

00:29.38
jjjjjjjjjjj
Hello.

00:30.25
Chess Julia
Hi guys.

00:37.16
juliarios
So  Julia and JJ are my very special friends who are my chess podcast doppelganger host and her chess podcast awesome chess improver partner --ah not in a romantic way, just in a podcast way.

00:48.41
Chess Julia
Exactly.

00:55.00
juliarios
They all have separate romantic partners just to clarify.

00:55.45
jjjjjjjjjjj
All of us.

00:55.95
Chess Julia
Exactly that's right, our joke our joke is that JJ and I are married. We're both married to different people.

01:06.89
juliarios
Right? I mean I would argue that perhaps you're both married to chess.

01:08.83
jjjjjjjjjjj
That's just true.

01:13.43
Geoffrey
I was about to ask that.

01:13.84
Chess Julia
Our partners might say that.

01:23.18
Geoffrey
I was going to ask, aren't you really married to chess, and does chess know you're stepping out onto our podcast today?

01:33.30
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um.

01:33.72
Chess Julia
No, don't don't tell chess Twitter they'll be all up in arms.

01:40.94
juliarios
Definitely tell chess Twitter. maybe chess Twitter will come and decide to like weird movies from their childhood.

01:44.45
jjjjjjjjjjj
Wait, why are we not watching Searching for Bobby Fischer?

01:47:03
juliarios
Because, JJ, you're the one who suggested Spaceballs. That's why.

01:53.38
jjjjjjjjjjj
My bad. Okay, well I don't want to watch Searching for Bobby Fischer, but I do have a friend, and friend of the pod, who had on his dating bio that like he was a chess teacher and chess player, and would routinely get matches from people being like "Searching for Bobby Fischer was my favorite movie as a kid" and he would always respond "why?"

02:16.47
juliarios
Okay, so Julia and JJ, do you want to quickly introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about your own podcast so people have any idea who you are?

02:26.27
Chess Julia
Um, yeah JJ, who are we?

02:28.30
jjjjjjjjjjj
Hi so this is Julia and we always introduce each other. We are a couple of buds. We met on chess Twitter, which is a surprisingly vibrant community on Twitter of chess players who like shooting the shit and putting off their own chess improvement. And we just bonded became best buds and decided that we wanted to do a podcast together on chess, which I teach, and psychology, which Julia practices, and this intersection. And basically our interest there is because everyone who plays chess is really interested in what they call the mental aspects of the game, and people don't really think a lot about what that means and so it can get really self-helpy or really kind of  crush-your-goalsy, kind of gross under the name of psychology, and we decided that it was up to us to rectify that.

03:20.18
Chess Julia
I think also the thing that was really grating on me before JJ and I started Chessfeels was that people would use psychology terms very confidently in the chess space and on different chess podcasts, and they would talk about the psychology of chess, but then wouldn't define anything or explain what they meant. It was kind of this catchall term that people would use to say oh it's this thing that we can't explain, but it's a problem. And they would treat it like a problem they were trying to solve. So I think JJ and I both took issue with kind of both of those things One: let's actually dive into it. There's a really rich and evocative space to explore in the psychology of chess. And two: is it a problem that needs to be solved, or can we actually harness this to make our chest not only better, but also more fulfilling, and make our lives more fulfilling?

04:20.20
juliarios
I think it's a great podcast! I don't play chess at all and I've listened to every single episode.

04:25.24
Chess Julia
Oh my gosh, Julia! I didn't know that! That's more than JJ or I have actually listened to.

04:32.87
jjjjjjjjjjj
You're tied with my partner Amelia for having listened to every episode.

04:34.52
juliarios
Ohm excellent. Ah yes I now understand the Stouffer's lasagna thing as as much as anyone can.

04:40.90
Chess Julia
Yes, ah, incredible.

04:41.13
jjjjjjjjjjj
Cool. You can explain it to me later.

04:50.70
juliarios
If you are interested in chess, or psychology, or chess and psychology, or just listening to Julia and JJ have their interesting little banter that goes on, you can go listen to the Chessfeels podcast, which is is like actually sponsored and everything.

05:08.15
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah, and we have a we have a t-shirt store, if you're interested in the merchandising!

05:10:17
juliarios
Ah, yeah, you're getting ahead of the curve there, JJ!

05:11:52
jjjjjjjjjjj
I had to get there. I had to do it. I had to do it.

05:12.85
juliarios
Okay, so, JJ chose the movie that where we watched for this episode, and this is a movie that they remember from their childhood. It is Spaceballs! JJ, can you remember where you were and what your thoughts were the first time you ever saw this movie?

05:38.62
jjjjjjjjjjj
I was realizing when I learned this movie came out in '87 that it never really occurred to me that this movie even existed in time because it was presented as this like timeless classic. So I was born in '91. My dad loved it. I have no idea how old I was but I certainly watched it for the first 5 or 10 times in the couch in our living room growing up. I must have seen it for the first time before I was 10, and I will get into how I know that later, but I really couldn't tell you the year or anything, and I remember that it was kind of presented as almost this holy source of Brooklyn Jewish humor, like several other Mel Brooks movies, but I mean I think other people had Monty Python or something, but for my dad it was Mel Brooks, and he would always be making little joke references from there, talking in his Mel Brooks accent – which is different than his real voice, kind of surprisingly. Even watching it yesterday and being like holy shit that was a Spaceballs reference too, for like so many things that he would say all the time and I kind of wanted to watch it as an adult for the first time because I've been thinking a lot more about my cultural heritage, especially re: humor, having now been married to a catholic for a while.

06:56.80
juliarios
Oh yeah, okay, great stuff there. So, Julia, had you ever seen this movie before?

07:09.11
Chess Julia
Yes, I had seen this movie before. I saw this movie when I was probably like a pre-teen. I had an older brother, and I would just watch all the movies that he and his friends watched. So, I think this whole movie was like totally over my head and I definitely picked up a lot more of the pieces watching it at thirty years old.

07:50.00
juliarios
Okay, Geoffrey, I'm sure you had to have seen this movie before, but do you remember the first time?

07:55.84
Geoffrey
I don't remember exactly the first time. I believe we probably rented it because I don't think we went and out and saw it in the theater. It would have been though I would have been like 8 or 9, and seen it pretty close to when it came out, I think. At one point we had a VHS copy that we that we taped off of some TV broadcast, and I remember that especially because there was a commercial break, right as  the king of Druidia starts breathing again and starts saying "ahhh" but it's been since childhood probably since I saw it last.

08:36.57
juliarios
Excellent, okay, okay, cool. So I definitely saw this as a child. I think the last time I saw it was probably sometime in my teens, like my early teens like 14ish and I did not remember most of it. But I knew that my father was a big Mel Brooks fan, so probably we rented it I don't think we saw it in the theater, but I do remember seeing it as a small child and I know my father really liked just anything Mel Brooks did. He was not a Jew from Brooklyn – that was not my father. He was raised catholic in Mexico and then came to the United States and lost all religion. But he did love all of the Mel Brooks humor.

So, JJ, before we watched this movie, you sent us a summary, and this is what you said:

Spaceballs is a Mel Brooks parody of the Star Wars franchise. I don't think it follows the plot of any particular Star Wars film, but I also haven't seen any of those in a long while, but I think there's some sort of rescuing a princess narrative which I think was in episode 4? And a joke off of "I am your father's cousin's nephew's roommate" which I think is episode 6? So yeah, it's more of a play off of the idea of Star Wars. Was there a point to picking this particular franchise? I mean, they make jokes about the ridiculousness of merchandising and whatnot. And the absurdity of space and sci-fi – they've gone plaid! But, for the most part, it feels like a really nice and heartwarming reminder that if you're committed enough to your schtick, you can apply it to anything, even if there's no reason to.

Which is, I think, an interesting summary that's more analysis than summary, and doesn't tell us a whole lot about the plot of the movie. I, also, before I sat down to watch Spaceballs last night, thought I should jot down a quick summary of what I remembered, and here's what I wrote:

I'm pretty sure there's a flying RV and also sexist jokes about a woman having a big hair dryer. 1 2 3 4 5 is the combination on Mel Brooks's luggage, and Jabba the Hutt is now sentient pizza. I think this may be pretty bad on fat jokes based on that. I think John Candy is like a weird space dog who is not as awesome as Chewbacca. I have no idea how this is going to go for me to be honest. Honestly, a little worried. I know my father loved it when it came out, though.

11:16.50
jjjjjjjjjjj
I'm glad I now know what a plot summary sounds like. That was really helpful.

11:22.90
juliarios
Well no, that was like just a summary what I remembered. So, for anyone who is listening and has for some reason not seen Spaceballs, or doesn't remember it, because I really didn't remember the entire plot, a quick recap of what happens in Spaceballs, is:

It is indeed a Mel Brooks parody of Star Wars, and Star Wars in particular and then sci-fi in general genre at large, and basically he says in his memoir, All About Me, which came out last year, and the audio book is read by Mel Brooks himself, which, like, he is 96. This is amazing. He's like– he was 95 and reading his own audio book which is. A hell of a job. Anyway, he says in his memoir about space balls that they took the plot from A Night to Remember or It Happened One Night – one of these old movies which involved a runaway heiress who was supposed to marry a boring rich guy but then fell in love with a handsome maverick. And so they so they ripped that plot and then they took all of the sci-fi tropes and sent them up and they have Mel Brooks playing a double role as sort of a villainous president who is dumb and uses 1 2 3 4 5 as the combination on his luggage and also the very wise and powerful Yogurt who teaches Bill Pullman how to use the Schwartz which is the Spaceballs version of the force.

Rick Moranis stars as Dark Helmet playing a villain who wears a very large helmet which is on a very small Rick Moranis and therefore even funnier, and basically we just see a lot of silly space hijinks and jokes for a couple of hours and then there's kind of a plot tacked on there. That is Spaceballs.

So I want to know, JJ and Julia, what did you see last night or today when you rewatched this movie that was what you remembered and what are some things that you didn't remember that surprised you that maybe you're going to remember from now on?

13:32.39
Chess Julia
I feel like I didn't remember almost anything, and I think my memory was way closer to the real Star Wars. I don't think I really understood the concept of satire at the original time I watched this at like age 11.

13:50.70
juliarios
Fair enough. How did you like it this time?

13:56.62
Chess Julia
That's a hard question to answer. I mean I feel like I appreciated it for what it was at the time but I think it just surprised me so much like the way I remembered it was that this was like a I remembered this just being a very kind of, as JJ said, a timeless classic and a very funny film, and then watching it this time I was like wow this is very low budget and this has a sense of humor targeted for 13 year old boys like no wonder I enjoyed watching this with my teenage brother and his friends. USo it definitely was different, but I guess I kind of enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching it from that lens of almost film review. But I think if I sat down to watch this movie, not for the purpose of recording this podcast and talking about it and kind of getting to analyze the movie and think back to how I perceived it the first time, I would have been like this is not good. JJ, what do you think?

14:56.52
jjjjjjjjjjj
Oh yeah, I wouldn't have made it. What I learned was that every single thing I remember from the movie is like from the first 20 minutes and then I couldn't really remember what the plot was or anything. But pretty much all the best jokes are the ones... Maybe my dad only remembers the first 20 minutes and only pulls his jokes from there and that's why I remember it. But I was like super excited about it and remembering all the things and happily just like writing down all the jokes, like I do like when they have Snotty use the beam from Star Trek and then Mel Brook's references Star Trek within the movie. But then all the meta reference stuff got a little too much, then by about 30 minutes in, I was just really bored because they were just sort of almost making it a movie, and it was just not enjoyable. But the thing I didn't remember at all was Joan Rivers. Maybe I just didn't know who she was and it just didn't click, because like she had – I don't know if she had the funniest lines, but like she had the only good delivery and just like the premise of the C3PO bot played by Joan Rivers, or voice acted by Joan Rivers was just like... that was something that is probably going to be the major thing I remember from that movie and wasn't at all what I had from it before so that was a pro.

16:15.98
juliarios
All right? What about you, Geoffrey?

16:18.97
Geoffrey
I remembered most of the plot. I think I kind of come down slightly differently in that my sort of expectation was that this was going to be kind of a Mel Brooks throw everything at the wall and then some of them hitting some of them don't and that this was more on the don't side. So I was actually a little happier with the number of jokes I actually found funnier than I was expecting to. I wouldn't call it one of his better outings, but there were, to me, a surprising number of bits that I thought were pretty solid.

I think actually most of them I had forgotten about, except for the very very long spaceship gag at the beginning, which is perfect.

17:18.72
juliarios
I have to say when that happened, Moss and I were watching this together and you're panning across this very long spaceship and I'm like okay the gag is that it's very long I get it, and Moss was like yeah I find it pretty funny actually, and I was like yeah okay. And then it just kept going and it kept going and it actually did go long enough that by the end of it I was like okay actually this is really funny. They really committed to it.

So for me I was really quite surprised by it. Basically as you can tell from the summary that I read going in I was a little trepidatious, and I thought that it was going to be much worse than it was. Moss said when we sat down to watch it that Mel Brooks is the Aristophanes of our time and that that is both good and very bad and I was like yeah that's fair. Ah so we were both kind of expecting to be a little bit put off by a lot of like body humor and things like that and there was some of that and there were definitely some parts that I was like, I really could have done without Jabba The Hutt being Pizza the Hut, and I really could have done without John Candy's dogtail trying to sexually assault a waitress? Um, but like overall there were also a lot of things that actually did end up working for me and I was surprised by that.

At the end of the movie, I was like Mel Brooks definitely has something. He has a spark. You can see why he is a popular comic director.

19:09.39
jjjjjjjjjjj
I wrote down that I stopped enjoying the movie after the Yogurt scenes because after that much Mel Brooks on camera, it just wasn't enjoyable not watching him on camera.

19:19.85
juliarios
He is very good on camera.

19:24.37
Geoffrey
Although the amount of sSpaceballs merchandise that starts appearing everywhere on set after that scene doesn't make up for it, but it's pretty great.

19:29.20
juliarios
So, like immediately immediately after that you see the 2 very attractive blonde women in bed with Mel Brooks the president, and they're underneath Spaceballs: the sheet. And then they don't say anything about it, but for the rest of the movie like every scene has something Spaceballs: the x in it.

19:55.58
Chess Julia
I totally agree with that, Julia. That is so my sense of humor and JJ I talk about this. We've had meta conversations about not just commitment to the bit, but also the callback. So it's commitment to the bit. But then you let some time pass like you let people forget and then you bring it back. It's so much funnier that way.

20:16.37
juliarios
I 100% agree. I also felt like for me watching it from from the perspective I have now, which I definitely didn't have as a teenager of having spent the last ten years editing stories and really thinking deeply about story structure, I really appreciated that this movie is a parody and a satire in the true sense of really understanding the genre that it's sending up, and structurally, in just understanding how story works, it did a lot with that.

I think the pacing of movies in the eighties is so different from what we're used to now that it's hard for things to really stick. So I think that that's one of the places where you felt like you were getting bored. But just the fact that this did actually understand what it was doing, and it understood how to make stuff funny. Like even if every joke didn't work for me, I was laughing every few minutes.

21:24.90
jjjjjjjjjjj
Did you have any favorite jokes that you wrote down?

21:30.18
juliarios
Honestly, one of the things that made me laugh the hardest – and actually what I wrote down at the time was "Christopher Walken is right! Bears are funny!" – is at the very end after Bill Pullman presses the self-destruct button on the giant evil spaceship and gets out of Dodge. There's one escape pod left and there are 3 villains and 1 of them is like well I'm going to take the escape pod and he jumps in. And tries to fasten the seatbelt and he's like what's wrong with the seatbelt? And it's giant bear arms, because a literal bear has gotten into the escape pod. He turns around and sees that it's a bear, and is like ah, and then jumps back, and you know the bear gets to escape, but the 3 villains have to stay in their replica Statue of Liberty head. And the bear being sort of like put off and startled was very funny.

22:34.57
Geoffrey
There's a certain sort of all of a sudden everything sort of falls apart and becomes chaotic moment in most good Mel Brooks movies, and the escape pod scene was that for this one. One of the first things that I started laughing at was in the very opening credits. I wouldn't have caught this when I was younger, but you've got the faux John Williams music going and then these super cheesy laser blast sounds and listening to them was like oh my god they must have been, Mel Brooks and whoever, must have been laughing their asses off in the sound room over this terrible electric laser sound they got for this soundtrack and putting in just too many.

23:17.37
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah, so many of them.

23:38.24
juliarios
Also just the the scroll at the beginning where it's like in a galaxy far far far far away... chapter 11

23:47.86
Chess Julia
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:51.88
juliarios
Oh, so Jeffrey do you want to talk really quickly about a couple of notable people? I mean this is an all-star cast. So obviously we're not going to go in depth on all of them, but I know you've got a couple.

24:01.46
Geoffrey
Yeah, it's absolutely stacked, but I will do a very short shout out. In the desert, the guy who yells out, "We ain't found shit!" Ah, that was Tim Russ who would later play Tuvok on Star Trek, but the person I looked up was from that very end scene where they're all running to space pods, and that's the bearded lady. She was played by Dee Booher, who was a former professional wrestler on Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. On GLOW, she was known as Matilda the Hun. Later she started her own wrestling league and was Queen Kong. Her biography includes past careers in roller derby, and starting up a phone sex line. After wrestling, she did stuff like TV and movie appearances, and she did slammograms, where you know it's sort of like a singing telegram or whatever except she would show up as her all six foot 3 you know 300lbs, you know, could lift a human being over her head with relative ease, and do a variety of wrestling moves that apparently are easy to do to make look like they're scary wrestling moves but you don't actually break anything. That she was doing I think up until like the last few years of her life where she had to use a wheelchair because of various joint degeneration. She died in January of this year and her website still hasn't been updated about that. She recorded a single called "I Eat Raw Meat" as her wrestling persona. I got the impression that she just had a hell of a good time in her career, and she was married to the same guy until he died. They had a son and apparently she had grandchildren and just had a blast in her 70 years.

26:33.33
juliarios
Wow, that is awesome. I didn't know any of this. My notable person is going to be Mel Brooks because I feel like I had not really looked into the life of Mel Brooks at all before watching Spaceballs and wow, fascinating man, fascinating life. He was born in the 20s and served in WWII in Germany and France and then came back and wrote for TV for a while and eventually started in movies. Had his big hit with The Producers and then did Young Frankenstein and various other comedies, Blazing Saddles, and eventually Spaceballs. I understand a lot more about his humor now. And I kind of understand more about why my father liked it now than I did as a child because I feel like definitely when I was a teenager, my father really liked him, and one of the last movies that I remember seeing in the theater with my father was Dracula: Dead and Loving It, which I think came out in like 1995 or 6 and. I remember at the time just like thinking oh my god this is so embarrassing like I'm having to watch this terrible comedy with my dad and it's not funny, and I feel like I also was like, oh this is such a low brow humor, like I'm so much smarter and better than this and I think it's been a long enough time and I've had enough life experience to kind of be like I understand now why like someone who is Mel Brooks who literally did go fight nazis is then going to make a really dumb humor about nazis. And like Spaceballs is still really dumb humor about nazis. Like they don't say that they're nazis, but Dark Helmet is definitely a nazi.

28:33.37
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um, they have the ah the the salutes at the beginning right.

28:36.29
Geoffrey
Um, yeah.

28:44.11
juliarios
And the evil President Skroob.... which... Mel Brooks tried to spell Brooks backwards but got it wrong? Um, but the evil president does a really dumb salute every time we see him and I understand more about that and I understand also like things that I don't really necessarily love. Like I didn't love all the balls humor where it's like oh you know Dark Helmet is going to come for your balls, and everybody grabbed their crotch. I was like ah this is kind of dumb but also like I get that at some point if you're dealing with intense trauma it becomes important to actually look at everything in life and like the fact that bodies are kind of horrifying and gross and weird and embarrassing and just be like let's hang a lantern on that. Bodies are weird and gross and horrifying. So yeah I think I appreciate it more now than I did then about Spaceballs specifically.

Mel Brooks did it after his son Max Brooks, who is the author of World War Z, the zombie novel and then also the Zombie Survival Guide – when he was 10, he had a Star Wars birthday party and he loved Star Wars and Mel Brooks was like I haven't sent up science fiction before.

Like I've done westerns, I've done musicals, I've done horror, I've done silent movies... time to do science fiction! So they decided to do it and started doing everything and then he sent the script over to George Lucas because he was like just FYI am doing this, and I'm not really asking permission, but like you know, didn't want to surprise you. And George Lucas called him and was like this is fine but like you have to promise me that you're not going to sell action figures because your Spaceballs action figures will look too much like Star Wars action figures and I don't want it. Mel Brooks agreed and they never made any Spaceballs action figures, and like also never really made any Spaceballs merchandise even though there's the whole thing about moichandising.

31:02.95
Chess Julia
Ah, that's such a good point.

31:05.88
jjjjjjjjjjj
Can I add a notable person to this list, even though I know very little about them? George Wyner who played Colonel Sandurz, my dad was friends with him when my dad lived in LA. I don't know how close, but I do know that when we went to see some family we had in LA when I was around 10, that we had dinner at his house, which is how I know that I saw Spaceballs for the first time before I was 10.

31:25.18
juliarios
Wow, you've you've had a real brush with celebrity there, JJ.

31:34.50
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yes, and because I knew it was a big deal. I mean I understood that it was a big deal. I wasn't like so excited to meet the actor who played Colonel Sandurz, but like I understood that that was a big deal, and like my dad was super proud of this fact. I remember him being really funny and nice and charming and whatnot and according to his Wikipedia page, he's been a character actor on like over a hundred tv shows and has played at least 3 rabbis in the past decade.

31:58.61
Geoffrey
JJ, you're one degree of separation from Mel Brooks.

31:58.91
juliarios
Wow, That's yeah.

32:03.72
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um, yeah, fuck. But yeah, I just, I didn't want to put that in too early, but I think that's relevant.

32:13.71
juliarios
Yeah, absolutely! Okay, well I will say there was 1 other thing that I didn't remember was from Spaceballs, but 100% remembered when it happened and then was like oh wait, I thought this was from Gremlins 2.

32:29.33
Chess Julia
Oh my God.

32:32.22
juliarios
And it's the part where John Hurt is in the diner and a chestburster alien comes out of him and then does a little song and dance number, and for some reason I had confused that with Gremlins 2. But I think actually in Gremlins 2, just one of the gremlins like says, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

32:51.82
Geoffrey
There is also an entire. Um, oh gosh who's the sort of Golden age of Hollywood who did the big spectacle things with the like the scenes.

33:03.66
juliarios
Lawrence Welk? Busby Berkeley?

33:08.57
Geoffrey
Yes, they do a a large Busby Berkeley type scene in Gremlins 2.

33:12.49
juliarios
I guess maybe we'll have to watch Gremlins 2 sometime soon because I haven't seen that since I was a child either.

Oh okay, so with that said I think we should get into our big questions. Every movie teaches us something whether it intends to or not, and so I'm wondering, JJ and Chess Julia, what are the lessons that Spaceballs taught you?

33:44.77
Chess Julia
Wow. What a question.

33:47.95
jjjjjjjjjjj
The power was never in the ring.

I mean I definitely see my sense of humor shaped a lot by that movie or just like that movie in my mind. I mean what was ah was maybe Mel Brooks Humor I don't know. I don't think it was my dad's favorite but it was just the one we watched the most and. So just the humor the timing the pointless kind of chapter 11 reference jokes I was bracing myself for the body humor to be worse, more insensitive etc. But I think I was expecting to see where I got a lot of my sense of humor as a teenage boy and was kind of relieved to see that I got more of the good parts from it and less of the bad parts. I watched enough South Park etc. but I was expecting more on the sexism jokes and the fat jokes and I don't think they even made any trans jokes, which is surprising for a movie in the eighties

34:45.90
Geoffrey
No, that's actually why I looked up the the bearded lady because I remembered very clearly that there was a bearded lady scene. Like okay who's this? Is this okay?

35:03.37
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah, um, but maybe maybe just like comedic timing. Ah especially from the legend Mel Brooks himself um even just like as the self-destruct button is going off and there's no way to stop it and he yells it's irreversible like my raincoat, just in the middle of all the chaos is just, it's so nonsensical even by the bar that they've set and it's just the kind of thing that gives me like unmatched joy. Um, so that was one lesson. I'll keep thinking.

35:34.80
Chess Julia
Oh I love that, JJ. I love this question, too. I think that there really is something to asking ourselves us about a movie that does seem so nonsensical. So the easy answer is like okay, don't make the combination to my luggage 1 2 3 4 5.

35:51.75
juliarios
This is a good lesson! Password security.

35:53.58
Chess Julia
Thank you.

35:54.49
Geoffrey
Um, ahead of its time really.

36:10.29
Chess Julia
Truly, truly. But I do think that there are some profound moments, even quotes that kind of like really stood out to me. The one that I think stuck with me the most was basically when he says "everything that happens now is happening now" which seems like such a throwaway, but isn't there like a profound wisdom to that? And maybe I am biased because I tell JJ all the time, one of the only movies I've ever been able to sit through totally in theaters without wishing it was over, was Everything Everywhere All At Once, and so I feel like I've been kind of carrying in the background of my psyche this idea of like what it means to be present in the life that we're actually living and kind of looking at everything that's in front of us. And I don't know, I do feel like that was kind of a sneaky profound moment and I almost feel like there is like this zeitgeist in current culture right now around this idea of time I think people are fascinated with the idea of the multiverse and that's kind of a shift maybe even from when this movie was made back in the 80s.

Rather than thinking about sci-fi in terms of like time travel to the past or to the future, people are more interested in what does it look like to have multiple realities now in the present? And I am kind of curious why that is and why there's been that shift. And I've even heard some theories from some psychologist friends that it's this idea that now people don't feel as secure that there is a very long future for the planet with climate change and so people aren't interested in going 2000 years forward. They're like what if there was multiple realities now? So. That's certainly very far off the beaten path of this movie but it definitely gave me things to think about.

37:52.19
juliarios
Excellent. Geoffrey, what about you?

37:56.76
Geoffrey
You can get a lot of comedic mileage out of out of throwing in a yiddish word here and there.

38:06.26
Chess Julia
Yes, oh my gosh. Yes.

38:07.00
juliarios
May the schwartz be with you?

38:09.50
jjjjjjjjjjj
That's basically what I meant by what I said.

38:09.55
Chess Julia
There were also things that I didn't even remember were quotes from this movie. My partner makes this joke sometimes where he'll be like "I bet she gives good helmet" and I forgot that that was from this movie, so when I saw that I was like "damn it Michael you're not funny. You stole that from my people!"

38:39.33
Geoffrey
Speaking of helmets. It's important to have the right equipment for the right situation. So Dark Helmet has this black helmet for the ship and a giant pith helmet for the desert, which I loved.

38:48.61
juliarios
Like yeah a giant pith helmet for the desert which has 2 eyehole cutouts but then also a faceplate cutout that he can remove later.

38:49.16
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah.

39:00.39
Chess Julia
It's true. It's true.

39:01.59
juliarios
Oh I think the biggest lesson I learned from this is that it's all about merchandising, like the the money to be made from a movie is not the movie itself. It's the merchandising, and that is such a true lesson. like anytime you see any...

39:17.16
Chess Julia
Oh yeah.

39:20.45
juliarios
Any creative product. It's like yeah, that's the tip of the iceberg but all of us you know JJ and Julia you have your chess podcast and that's great because you know it's great to have a podcast that the real money is coming from the t-shirt that I bought.

39:36.61
Chess Julia
Um, yeah.

39:38.83
juliarios
That has a chess joke that I don't understand.

39:40.80
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um, yeah, the merge store says we've made $36 and I haven't even set up how to withdraw it yet.

39:45.16
juliarios
See the... like, a livable income.

39:47.89
Chess Julia
Ah, JJ, you better split that with me.

39:51.24
jjjjjjjjjjj
I was going to buy more shirts.

39:58.83
juliarios
I'm responsible for like $20 of that just from the one shirt that I bought.

39:59.78
Geoffrey
Oh I just realized another--

40:00.32
Chess Julia
Um, we we don't see $20 of that unfortunately, Julia.

40:06.59
juliarios
What a sad, sad world. What's your lesson?

40:07.67
Geoffrey
I just realized another important lesson: that you know some people are leaders and and some people you know make their way to a position of of power. But when push comes to shove, they're just going to complain that they're surrounded by assholes.

40:26.96
Chess Julia
Oh my God. It's true.

40:27.42
Geoffrey
And make the wrong call.

40:28.37
jjjjjjjjjjj
That was one of my dad's favorite references which as you could imagine was like appropriate in many situations but that's one of the ones I find myself saying to myself a lot I'm surrounded by assholes.

40:40.85
juliarios
I'm surrounded by assholes. Excellent. Ah no I also think that one of the things, one of the lessons that I got from this that I think is really actually a good lesson and accurate is that often people in power are terrible and they don't have your best interests, or anyone's best interest, in mind, and they will in fact just totally wreck all of the climate on your planet and make it so that you can't breathe and it's terrible. Um, and a president isn't necessarily smart.

41:14.67
Chess Julia
You don't say.

41:16.32
juliarios
Like that those are all lessons I got from Spaceballs and I can't see a lie.

41:21.67
jjjjjjjjjjj
I was wondering. I mean I know that back in that day they had plenty of dumb presidents. But I was thinking you know like the dumb President and the evil politicians, especially like lying so blatantly about climate change, I was like oh this probably seemed like farce or parody or hyperbole when it came out.

41:41.34
juliarios
Somewhat. But as someone who was actually alive at the time I can tell you that environmentalism was huge in the 80s and we were all worried about the hole in the ozone layer. This is not something that anyone talks about now, but in the 80s we were all sure that the hole in the ozone layer was going to lead to acid rain and kill us all. We were all going to die from like extreme sun damage from not having ozone protecting us and also acid rain.

42:07.26
jjjjjjjjjjj
Especially if it turns from suck to blow.

42:10.78
Chess Julia
I Knew you're gonna say that.

42:11.16
Geoffrey
Well everyone everyone forgets that because that time we we did what what we were supposed to do and it worked.

42:18.51
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah.

42:18.78
juliarios
Um, yeah, yeah, we we used to like have much more chloroflorocarbons in products and we banned all of those and that helped some but um.

42:19.34
Chess Julia
Um, yeah.

42:35.39
juliarios
We could stand to take a lesson from ourselves in the 80s and actually do more about climate change. Ah so okay, so was this movie scarier then or scarier now? This is kind of a funny question about this one because I don't feel like this movie is scary, but I want to hear it. What do you think?

43:00.74
Chess Julia
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna have to say scarier now. Nothing about it was scary to me the first time I saw it. I just liked the the potty humor and you know thought it was funny when they like pointed the lasers at their crotches. But um, yeah I guess watching it now kind of like we've already sort of alluded to there. It's interesting to see that the problems that we think of as being so present have really been around forever. Um, and that is kind of terrifying. I guess when I think about it from that lens it's like wow nothing has changed. But maybe there's also comfort in that like nothing has changed. I don't know. I find it terrifying. JJ, What do you think?

43:45.97
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah I'm going scarier then, not because I was scared when I watched it but just because I had this idea of like what passed for humor and what I internalized as good humor that I was afraid was going to be much worse than it was and less endearing or like not hold up as well. So I was on kind of relieved. Like okay, if this was like the holy Grail of like comedic texts for me I actually could have done a lot worse. That's kind of a relief.

44:20.40
juliarios
Fair. Geoffrey?

44:23.92
Geoffrey
I'm going to go scarier then, just slightly scarier because um, entertainment, especially comedic entertainment, in the 80s kind of led me to believe that the world was a much more dangerous place for testicles than it has turned out to be.

44:39.16
Chess Julia
Um, that was like quicksand for us nineties kids. I was also just being really scared of Cacti, I like really thought that I was going to have to avoid getting hurt by a cactus at some point in my life.

44:55.13
juliarios
Wow.

44:57.80
Geoffrey
It's the yucca plants you got to watch out for. I was walking in Arizona once and got stabbed right under the knee by a yucca plant. It hurt. Like there was a puncture wound there days later that still hurt.

45:05.48
juliarios
Oof.

45:13.37
Chess Julia
Very yikes.

45:13.99
juliarios
Yikes. I've been... ah I stepped on a sea urchin once and ah, it's like the cactus of the sea. I definitely had an ouch for a little while after that one.

45:19.17
Chess Julia
Oh my gosh

45:30.52
juliarios
It's ok I survived. I will say that I think probably scarier then because I think Pizza at the Hut probably scared me when I was a kid like the first time I saw it?

45:43.36
jjjjjjjjjjj
Man.

45:47.40
juliarios
Because I definitely I thought there was way more Pizza the Hut in this movie than there is. In fact, he's only in it for like 2 minutes at the most. Um, but I think like probably I was scared of that character and that's why I thought there was a lot and as an adult I'm just like I wish this character wasn't here but I'm not scared by it.

I feel like they could have done better by Dom Deluise um so yeah, scarier scarier then. And I agree with you, JJ. I was expecting it to be so much worse than it actually was in terms of insensitivity, and actually wasn't it wasn't terrible in that way. So that's good.

Yeah, so most painfully dated moment.

46:25.39
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah, it was that sense, it was uplifting.

46:44.17
Geoffrey
Well I'll start with one, and it was dated when it happened. The I'm your father's roommate's whatever. That joke was old like 2 hours after the empire strikes back premiered. There's no reason to still be doing that. cut that joke in in 1980 what was it 7 It's so bad.

47:15.41
jjjjjjjjjjj
They had to. They couldn't do the action figures; they had to do that.

47:20.51
juliarios
They took it a step further though. What does that make us? absolutely nothing, prepare to die.

47:22.87
Geoffrey
So bad.

47:27.60
Chess Julia
He.

47:34.21
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um, finding something dated is.

47:36.11
Chess Julia
I Know. I mean I feel like just in general the graphics to me just was even so dated I Just remembered them being really good and I feel like I would actually feel this way if I watched the real Star Wars. I have to remember it's the time but I thought that these things were like very realistic and didn't realize that they were purposefully spoofy. I mean it was just such a different movie to me this time around. Um and then someone actually told me that this was the most expensive movie that Mel Brooks ever made I was kind of like wait... where? Like this was so bad...

48:15.67
juliarios
It did have a budget of $22,000,000

48:19.12
jjjjjjjjjjj
How many space bucks is that.

48:21.60
Chess Julia
Um, yeah, wow it's 1,000,000 Spacebux JJ

48:29.80
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah, like  I guess that I'm enjoying thinking about this question because when something is so corny and making fun of itself and just so shamelessly. So it's really hard to judge something as dated. When they jammed the radar and jam came out and it was raspberry and dark helmet said there's only one man in the galaxy who would dare give me the raspberry. It's like there's a word like dated that maybe is there. Yeah, but that's the thing It's like it's that's the stuff where it's like when you are that classic.

48:47.98
Chess Julia
It was so funny.

48:58.35
Geoffrey
That's just classic.

49:04.26
jjjjjjjjjjj
And shameless. It's like you get away with pretty much everything.

49:07.41
Geoffrey
Oh I have another one. Um, no one talks about valium anymore but valium was a big thing in the 70s and 80s and so the joke prince valium's a pill-- that was so good.

49:11.27
juliarios
Yeah, yes, yeah.

49:11.46
jjjjjjjjjjj
Oh nice, good answer.

49:12.67
Chess Julia
Okay, that is true.

49:21.48
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah, um, maybe maybe I guess the ones I'm thinking of are more timeless but ah, it looks like the temple of doom and then Joan Rivers says well it sure ain't the temple of Beth Israel

49:33.63
juliarios
Ah, right I would say that so some of the things that I will say I I definitely noticed that were dated are um the the Winnebago RV is a very – that's an 80s RV, that is not something that you really see a whole lot these days.

49:49.80
jjjjjjjjjjj
But if they made that movie today that would still be the space van they had.

49:51.38
juliarios
I was wondering about that because I was like this is very guardians of the galaxy but guardians the galaxy is deliberately retro because it's deliberately Peter Quill remembering his childhood of the 80s I guess um but

50:02.36
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um.

50:13.40
juliarios
I don't know I'm not sure if that would be the van that they would set it in today. Um.

50:17.45
Geoffrey
Well I'm glad you you guys brought this up because because I think we've been ignoring the elephant in the room here and that's whenever people start talking about Mel Brooks ever and always someone always has to chime in and say well you know they couldn't make space balls today. Um, and sadly I think I think it's true because. The star wars fandom has gotten so toxic that ah depending on who you take a shot at or failed to take a shot at you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna make enemies.

50:36.26
juliarios
Ha.

50:36.80
Chess Julia
Um.

50:45.32
jjjjjjjjjjj
I came across something on Wikipedia that I didn't know that um that this is relevant to which is there was a 1 season TV show animated for Spaceballs in 2008

50:45.33
juliarios
Yeah.

50:57.30
juliarios
Yeah, from 2008 to 2009 and apparently also a game I did not know this existed until yesterday.

51:02.48
jjjjjjjjjjj
Has anyone watched this did anyone know this existed. Yeah and it looks like they I mean Mel Brooks of course is a voice. Joan Rivers plays dot matrix again.

51:14.48
juliarios
Yeah, they have Daphne Zunica as the princess again too.

51:20.16
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah, I'm probably going to like ingest something and watch this later.

51:20.54
Geoffrey
Wow.

51:25.90
juliarios
Ah, yeah, key words there: ingest something.

51:31.56
jjjjjjjjjjj
It'll be the soup, not the special.

51:36.47
juliarios
Ah yeah, you don't want the special.

So other dated things I noticed are that every time they're watching TV news, It's very 80s tv news. That's not how we consume news these days mostly and if we did it would it would look different just because technology has changed so much in the last thirty years um so like the things that, the way that we talk about current events has changed, and the way that we consume news about them has changed and this was very much like a space future in which everything is predicated on the modern day technology of 1987. The other thing was that they go to a fifties diner and in the 80ss the fifties were so in.  Everybody wanted to have a fifties diner and like Back to the Future was a huge hit because it was like a 1980s movie where an 80s kid goes back to 1955, and you know what's in 1955? All the 50s diner aesthetic that you could ever want.

52:33.39
jjjjjjjjjjj
Um, oh speaking of technology and diners and consumption, what about the scene with Mr coffee?

52:45.19
juliarios
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a great one and it was like no this is Mr. Radar over here.

52:50.43
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah, it's the ones like that where it's like it's dated but like in making that like they know that possibly by the time it's release that eventually it's like it would be so easy to not make the Mr Coffee joke that it's datedness almost like that one almost almost gets better with age.

53:07.50
juliarios
Um, yeah I Definitely agree on that one. Okay, yes.

53:10.37
jjjjjjjjjjj
I got another I have a controversial one for ah for dated. Um the Jewish/Druish jokes and "she doesn't look Druish" and the nose job I think that was... yeah.

53:20.18
juliarios
And the Druish princess, like I feel like we did have a wave of people actually talking about Jewish princesses in the 80s. Like that was a thing that you could just like joke about in a movie, and I don't really think you would do that now.

53:35.56
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah and like the "we're gonna give her back her original nose."

53:39.16
juliarios
Yeah, that was terrible, and I'm like, I mean, I guess Mel Brooks can make this joke if anyone can.

53:46.21
Chess Julia
I know, Julia. I had the same exact reaction like okay at least it's a self-deprecating humor rather than just like a blatantly anti-semitic one.

53:49.88
juliarios
But yeah. It was definitely a thing. I think it's really interesting that that was one of the big plot point jokes of this and this was also like right around the same time that Dirty Dancing came out. Which, Dirty Dancing was immensely popular and the lead actress in that then got a nose job because she didn't like her nose and then after that she really didn't get much work because it took away the uniqueness of her face. And I don't think that had quite happened yet during the time that Spaceballs happened but like nose jobs were definitely a huge topic for jokes in the 80s all the time.

54:41.68
Geoffrey
Oh yeah, people talked about those jobs all the time.

54:53.00
juliarios
Ok um I think for me the most painfully dated moment does have to go to Barf's tail ah going up The waitress's skirt in the diner that is just it's so gross and it's the kind of thing that's like no one making it thinks that this is not anything other than funny.

55:07.87
jjjjjjjjjjj
Right? Yeah, it was so unnecessary. And especially because it came at a point in the movie where it felt like the movie could be over.

55:09.37
Chess Julia
Yeah, 100%

55:18.50
juliarios
Yeah, yeah, and then then they're like no, we just have to have a gross dog tail assaulting a waitress, just got to throw that in there. Um, Okay, so finally the most important question. Would you show this to a child?

55:39.51
Chess Julia
Absolutely.

55:42.68
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah, which child?

55:57.99
Chess Julia
I famously will let my 3 year old child watch all kinds of things as long as it's not really violent or graphic. Or sexual. I'm I think a little more lenient than other parents. So my kid's favorite movie when she was three was Spirited Away. And she particularly likes the part where No Face, the kind of semi scary spirit, like goes on a rampage through the village and is barfing up garbage. So um, so recently she's also enjoyed watching The Simpsons... definitely doesn't bother me. She likes Stranger Things. Um, she thinks one of the characters is actually JJ.

56:33.22
jjjjjjjjjjj
Not just one of the characters. What's the actor's name. It's like I'm really honored to be that character.

56:35.15
Chess Julia
Yeah, so every time Brett Gellman is on the screen, she'll go "is that JJ?" and then me my partner in unison will always be like "yup." Um, so I would absolutely let her watch this film.

57:12.27
juliarios
All right? What about you, JJ?

57:14.83
jjjjjjjjjjj
Yeah I feel like I would be letting down my lineage if I didn't.

57:19.43
juliarios
Fair enough. Geoffrey?

57:21.87
Geoffrey
Sure. I mean it's PG. I personally think Mel Brooks works better when he works a little bluer, but you catch this one more or less ah acceptable for, I'd say, kids of....  your mileage may vary. But yeah.

57:39.47
Chess Julia
Your mileage may vary.

57:41.21
juliarios
Yeah, I would surprisingly say yes I would. Also I was kind of expecting to go into it thinking like oh I'm not going to like this and I would not show it to a child and it's going to be gross and sexist and full of fat jokes and it really ah like aside from the dog tail in the diner, it was mostly not too bad. And also like often funny and some of the lessons that you get from it are really actually good. So Ah yeah I would I would 100% let a child watch this if they were interested.

58:05.64
Chess Julia
Um, yeah.

58:08.94
Geoffrey
Mel Brooks, he's a mensch.

58:15.29
juliarios
The question is would they want to? Like can I see my 9 year old nephew wanting to watch this? I don't know about that.

58:19.95
jjjjjjjjjjj
I realize, I know Julia -- cool Julia –  I know that you really did not like Pizza the Hut, but I think maybe one of my favorite jokes is like you have to pay us the 1000000 spacebucks by Friday, or else pizza is going to send out for you.

58:37.87
juliarios
Ah, yeah, that's good.

58:39.55
Chess Julia
Um, does that count as a pun JJ? I'm trying to figure out what puns are. I'm still working on it. But yeah, that was a good one.

58:41.63
jjjjjjjjjjj
Ah, no.

58:47.57
juliarios
Well a pun is jamming the radar.

58:55.70
jjjjjjjjjjj
Just plain yogurt.

58:57.86
Chess Julia
Um.

59:00.41
juliarios
Ah, ah see this is actually funny like the the fact that when you later say something like just plain yogurt and all of us are like Okay, yeah, that's actually funny.

59:11.49
Chess Julia
It's so true.

59:12.15
juliarios
All right? Well Julia and Jj it has been a delight having you on our show. Everybody should go check out chess feels if you want to hear more of them and Jeffrey thank you again? Always for being here.

59:27.51
jjjjjjjjjjj
Thank you for having us Julia and Jeffrey I'm sorry.

59:31.47
Geoffrey
The.

59:34.60
juliarios
Ah, don't be sorry. Don't be sorry. We've watched so much worse than this so much worse.

59:34.27
Chess Julia
I'm also sorry.

59:38.50
Geoffrey
Um, oh yeah I actually enjoyed this.

59:41.60
Chess Julia
What's the worst. What's what's the movie that you would say Julia and Jeffrey was the absolute worst you've ever had to review for the podcast.

59:48.77
juliarios
I think that I have to give that award to the one. My sister brought to us which was ah the buttercream gang. Um, the buttercream gang is a Christian movie from like the early 90s.

59:53.67
Geoffrey
Oh that was rough.

59:56.76
Chess Julia
Oh God ah.

01:00:08.36
juliarios
It was so bad. I remembered that my sister like got obsessed with this when she was in 3rd grade and we had to watch it a bunch and I hated it at the time and I came to it as an adult being like I'm going to hate this. But maybe it's not as bad as I remember.

01:00:14.46
Chess Julia
Um, oh my goodness.

01:00:24.68
juliarios
And it was worse. It was worse than I remembered. if you would like to hear all about that, You can listen to our episode on the buttercream gang.

01:00:31.57
Chess Julia
I might now. I'm so curious from the title alone.

01:00:37.14
jjjjjjjjjjj
I'm going to watch it.

01:00:37.52
Geoffrey
That may be the worst. I would also put in a bad word for the country bears. Ah and the dog who stopped the war or La guerre des tuques.

01:00:46.64
Chess Julia
Um, oh my God Oh that sounds really bad.

01:00:50.41
juliarios
Ah, the dog who stopped the war is like a Canadian production from the early 80s and it's about children who build snow forts and have wars and the dog stops the war by dying.

01:01:06.12
Chess Julia
Oh my god.

01:01:08.86
juliarios
And like, I've just given you the short description, but it's much more disturbing than that. Ah, that was a bad movie. Yes, I agree I would also I'd also put in a bad word for Raggedy and Andy: a musical adventure.

01:01:23.73
Geoffrey
Oh God. Oh yeah.

01:01:27.63
juliarios
Like which, ah, Pizza the Hut, speaking of, reminded me a lot of the the horrible taffy monster in that.

01:01:36.76
jjjjjjjjjjj
I don't want to see any of these.

01:01:40.86
juliarios
Ah, luckily you don't have to. That's our job.

01:01:42.45
Geoffrey
That's correct.

01:01:43.81
jjjjjjjjjjj
Thank you for your service.

01:02:00.43
juliarios
Ah, you're welcome. All right, everybody listening. Thank you so much and we'll catch you next time.