Why Were There No Spaceballs Toys?
In 1987, master of parody Mel Brooks decided to take on science fiction. He had previously parodied other genres like horror (Young Frankenstein), westerns (Blazing Saddles), and history (History of the World Part I). But it wasn’t until his son Max’s tenth birthday party that he figured the science fiction genre was ripe for parody. Why? Little Max had a Star Wars-themed birthday celebration.
“I thought, science fiction,” Mel wrote in his book All About Me! My Remarkable Life In Show Business. “Now there’s a genre I haven’t wrecked yet.”
Mel Brooks Worried About Taking on the George Lucas Star Wars Empire
To be frank, Mel was worried about the possibility of getting sued. He wanted to stay as close as he could to the imagery, visuals, and mythos of Star Wars, but he also didn’t want to get sued by George Lucas, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Fox doing so.
Copyright infringement is a tricky line to walk. You are allowed to parody pop culture properties under copyright law. However, you can’t outright steal visuals, plot points, and original conceptual designs. But that’s exactly what Brooks wanted to do. He wanted to fully capture the aesthetics and narratives of George’s Star Wars and bend them just enough to poke fun at them.
Because George was infamous for being very protective of his Star Wars intellectual property rights, Mel called George and told him that he wanted George’s special effects company, ILM, to do all of the effects for the movie, which would amount to about $5 million for ILM services.
Wait, it gets better.
George assured Mel that he would allow Spaceballs to be made with no challenging litigation, as long as there would be no merchandising of the parody.
George’s golden egg was Star Wars merchandise. When he was negotiating his deal with Fox to direct Star Wars and have it funded by the studio, he had been smart enough to leverage the merchandising and sequel rights.
At the time, merchandising rights for movies weren’t highly desired by studios. There was very little money in it — until Star Wars debuted.
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Even though the last Star Wars movie of the Original Trilogy — Return of the Jedi — had been released a few years before the targeted release year for Spaceballs, George didn’t want any market confusion between Star Wars and Spaceballs merchandise.
Mel had no issue with that at all. It meant that he could make his parody with no legal interference.
“He explained that if I made toys of my Spaceballs characters they would look a lot like Star Wars action figures,” Mel said. “And that would be a no-no for his lawyers and his studio’s business affairs department. So, he gave his blessing to make my funny satiric takeoff of Star Wars as long as I promised that we would not sell any action figures.”
And that is why there were never any official Spaceballs toys. But we did get a hilarious movie.
Spaceballs didn’t perform well at the box office, making just $38 million off of a $22 million budget. However, it quickly became a cult classic and when it debuted VHS in 1988, it did very well for rentals.
Spaceballs Merchandising That Never Was… Except in the Movie
Being the brilliant funny man he was, Mel wrote in-jokes into the film poking fun at his agreement with George when it came to Spaceballs merchandise.
No, we’d never get official Spaceballs t-shirts, coloring books, lunch boxes, breakfast cereals, flamethrowers, but the movie had them on camera for all to see.
Where did all of that movie prop merch go?
We discovered that the Spaceballs Yogurt doll had been kept in pristine condition over the years by an anonymous private collector who claims to have worked with MGM — the studio that produced the film — for ten months during the production of Spaceballs. The doll was sold at an auction, but we don’t know who currently owns it.
And what about those dolls that Dark Helmet was playing with? Whatever happened to them?
Four of them are in the hands of Gus Lopez, who has one of the most remarkable Star Wars collections in the world.
The Princess Vespa one was won in an auction as well.
Mel told AV Club:
“He wouldn’t have sued me anyway. He’s not that kind of guy. He wrote me a lovely note saying to me how much he loved the picture. He said it’s dangerous comedy. He said, ‘I was afraid I would bust something from laughing.’ Which is a lovely note.”
So, toy collectors, if you’ve ever come across Spaceballs action figures, vehicles, dolls, or any merchandising, it’s not legit. But treasure it nonetheless because that’s all we’ve got.
