POP-CULTURE COLUMN: I Hate To Say It, But Spaceballs Isn’t Funny
By Dan Brown As you may have heard, there’s going to be a sequel to Spaceballs, the Mel Brooks Star Wars parody that debuted a long time ago in 1987. Brooks and the cast (a mix of old hands and newcomers) have been doing publicity to drum up interest in the upcoming film, dubbed The New One, which will land in theatres April 23 next year. Providing movie theatres still exist. I suppose, as a sci-fi fan, I should be eagerly anticipating The New One, which promises to bring more Star Wars jokes and new pop-culture references to the big screen. But can I let you in on a secret? I don’t find Spaceballs funny. It might be familiar. It might even be fun to watch. But it ain’t funny. You likely have fuzzy memories of the gags written into the Spaceballs script. For instance: *Pizza the Hutt, the alien glutton who finds himself delicious.. *Barf, a half-human, half-dog alien hybrid who is his own best friend. *Dark Helmet . . . a villain played by Rick Moranis who has a giant helmet. *Daphne Zuniga’s Vespa is a Druish princess. *The Yoda figure is called Yogurt. *The Schwartz is a mystical power derived from merchandising dollars. And so on. Jokes like these are fine. Some of them even bring a half-smile to my face. But not a one of them is hilarious. Spaceballs has certainly achieved a kind of cultural staying power. Somewhere on this planet, on some channel or network, Spaceballs is playing right now. And by dint of ubiquity, it is one of those so-so motion pictures that we convince ourselves is remarkable. Like the Austin Powers films, it achieves influence just by enduring. But it’s not a comedy that achieves greatness. It’s not even the greatest Mel Brooks comedy. It doesn’t break new comedic ground like, say, Blazing Saddles. There’s nothing in Spaceballs to compare to the Blazing Saddles campfire scene where cowboy after cowboy farts until the joke is beaten into the ground, then they let more farts rip and it becomes funny all over again. Talk about audacious for the times! The Star Wars spoof also lacks a weirdly intense lead character, like Gene Wildern, who turned in such a great performance in Young Frankenstein. Besides, if Brooks had been itching to take on Star Wars, he wouldn’t have waited until four years after Return of the Jedi appeared in theatres. By then, the George Lucas trilogy was already retreating from the public consciousness. (Spoiler for younger readers: Star Wars came back!) It’s certainly not the greatest Star Wars parody, either. In fact, you could argue that the definitive comic spin on Star Wars still has yet to be made. There’s been a long history of attempts. The 1978 short film Hardware Wars was the first try, followed when the internet was in its infancy by the 1997 online short Troops. The slam against Lucas is that he takes his space opera too seriously. Look at the fact he never mocked his own creation the way the Star Trek brain trust does with its animated series Lower Decks. At least Trek’s producers realized the comedy potential of poking fun at themselves. (Granted, Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville beat Lower Decks to the punch by three years) Of course, some crusty Star Wars fans would likely say the Book of Boba Fett itself was an inadvertent self-parody! There’s no shortage of Star Wars material to work with, so how about it, Hollywood? Just mocking The Phantom Menace on its own could inspire so many laughs! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
Pop Culture: Will 2026 Be the Year It All Happens?
By Dan Brown Like a cornered she-wolf protecting her pups, the New Year is upon us. This week, I’m in the mood to look ahead and ask – what’s going to be the biggest thing in pop culture in 2026? What event, person, or product will define the next 12 months? Will movie theatres sell even fewer tickets? Will Taylor and Travis tie the knot? Will people continue to exit social media? What will the song of the summer be? What will the most-popular film, meme, TV series, book, and podcast be? Only someone who is deluded or dangerous would give answers to those questions with 100 per cent certainty. So while I don’t have an all-powerful crystal ball, I do have some thoughts. For starters, AI. If last year is any indication, the advocates who are pushing artificial intelligence on the rest of us will crack on. Their goal: Making the general public think AI is inevitable. But from what I’ve seen so far, I’m not impressed by tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. I’m a skeptic on this one, so the question for me is: What are the odds the AI bubble will burst before 2027 a la the dotcom downturn of the 1990s? Merriam-Webster Dictionary got it right when their editors chose “slop” as the one word that defines 2025. If present trends continue, perhaps the word of 2026 will be “crap” or “crud.” At the movie theatres, people are buying fewer tickets. The entertainment data firm EntTelligence, quoted in the Los Angeles Times this week, says there were 800 million theatre tickets sold in 2024, but 760 million sold in 2025. (Those figures are for the U.S., I’m assuming.) Even the higher figure doesn’t match pre-pandemic levels. There may be more people watching movies this year, they just aren’t watching them at the multiplex. One motion picture that I am looking forward to seeing on the big screen is Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey, which is not a prequel to 2001. It arrives July 17. It could be interesting. As for the much-memed Avengers: Doomsday, I’m still on the fence. Other questions on my mind: Which entertainment figure will the Trump administration go after, as the U.S. President did with Jimmy Kimmel last year? What effect will Trump have on the proposed sale of the venerable Warner Bros. studio to Netflix? (He’s already said he will be involved in the federal government’s approval process.) You also can’t discount the stuff that happens in any given year that nobody saw coming. The obvious example from last year would be the December slaying of director Rob Reiner, whose filmography included one of the best motion-picture comedies of all time, This is Spinal Tap, as well as The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Stand By Me, and Misery. What will the big concert tour be? Which comedian will survive being cancelled? Will a seeming generation of stars – last year it was Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Brigitte Bardot, and Ozzy Osbourne – pass into history before our eyes? Will something as simple as an album cover provoke controversy, as Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend did last August? Whatever happens, I will be here to document it all. And here’s hoping 2026 brings us more happy surprises than tragic ones! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
A Small Thing but an Important Thing
By Dan Brown I miss “the wave.” What I’m talking about has nothing to do with standing up at the right time at a sporting event, I don’t mean that wave. What I’m referring to is a tiny gesture that has everything to do with courtesy on the road and making our divided world just a little more humane. If you’re a veteran driver like I am, who has had a license for 40 years, you likely have seen “the wave.” It goes like this. Let’s say you’re stuck in busy traffic and some car from a side street is trying to ease into your lane. Good Samaritan that you are, you stop going forward to let them in. As they pull into the path ahead of you, they stick a hand out the driver’s side window and motion in your direction. That’s “the wave.” And it’s disappearing. Which is a sad comment on where we’re at as a society. The wave, as I call it, is more than just a gesture. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a smile from the other driver, who is acknowledging that by letting them in you have done them a solid. It’s a way, from one stranger to another, of wordlessly saying, “I appreciate you, man, thanks!” After all, you don’t know that other driver. Allowing them some space ahead of your vehicle is not something you’re required to do by law – I do it because I recognize they may be having a tough day, and it costs me almost nothing, maybe a few seconds, to be courteous. And some day, I’ll be in the same position. I’ll be the one having a rough time who needs a small break from the universe in the form of a kindly fellow commuter. Many people have said chivalry is dead, and the wave is one way of acknowledging the chivalrous spirit. It’s the opposite of road rage – it’s road gratitude. (It reminds me of another driving habit, flashing your high beams to oncoming cars when you pass a police speed trap, but that might be a country thing.) There’s even song about small driving kindnesses by the group Geggy Tah, who sing: All I want to do is to thank you/ Even though I don't know who you are/ You let me change lanes/ While I was driving in my car. The wave is like saying, “Thank you” when the person ahead of you holds a door open for you when you’re entering a building. They weren’t mandated by law to do that. I hope I don’t overstate the case, but it’s one of those tiny things that makes life in a city such as London tolerable, enjoyable even. And I’m worried, since I haven’t seen it for some time. I haven’t been keeping detailed notes, but I would say in the last year or two I’ve let a fair number of people in ahead of me in traffic on my daily drive to and from work. But something’s missing. No wave. That’s why I’m troubled. Those other drivers don’t appear to feel any impetus to wave anymore. I think I’m being just as gracious a driver as I’ve always been. And I’m driving as much as I always did. But I suppose it could be my fault. Perhaps people fell out of the habit during the pandemic. If so, screw you COVID-19. Or maybe distracted driving is such a problem that people aren’t paying enough attention to lift their hand for just a second or two. Maybe tinted windows play a part. Or perhaps those drivers feel entitled to butt in ahead of me in traffic. All are possible. In fairness, I will say there is one group of drivers who can still be counted on to give the wave: School-bus operators. If you want to see another human being light up on your morning commute, obey the law and stop when a school bus in the other lane has its lights flashing. And those bus drivers certainly don’t have to wave to you! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Slow is the New Fast
By Dan Brown In our fast-paced world, doing things slowly is not just a luxury, it’s also the ultimate power move. You’ve probably noticed we live at a moment in human history when it feels as though everyone on the planet is rushing around with their hair on fire. Just look at online retailers (think Amazon) or delivery services (like Skip the Dishes), that promise faster and faster service. Then there’s the employers who don’t want slowpokes. Bosses prize workers who can move like lighting. They hire employees who can keep to a schedule by meeting tight deadlines. In 2025, no one wants a slow hand, as the Pointer Sisters once did. “I wanna go fast,” singer Demi Lovato pleads on her comeback single, out now. Everyone everywhere wants to move quickly, to get to the next thing before too much time has elapsed. Making the most of your day no longer means savouring each moment, but packing as many moments as you can into each hour, minute, second. No one has time to waste. So is it any surprise those who move at a slower pace stand out? The first place I noticed it was on the road. Driving around London, I would get stuck behind cars that were going painfully slowly. Usually, these vehicles travelling slower than the minimum speed limit were pimped-out machines. It didn’t take long for it to hit me: Clearly, going slow is the cool thing to do. Cool people don’t rush. (Another place you’ll see this principle at work is in Grand Bend with the cars that cruise the Strip at a snail’s pace.) If you want another illustration of this truth, check out any speech on YouTube by former U.S. president Barack Obama. His trademark style was to speak deliberately, with lots of pauses. What he was saying without saying it out loud was: “I’m no fast-talker like other politicians. I choose every word carefully. I’m no fool.” He was trying to make people hang on his every syllable. Understanding Obama’s message required an attention span. He was no influencer on Tik Tok. Going slowly in today’s fast-food, fast-everything world is a power move because being slow on purpose projects a message. It says, “I’m not in a hurry, like all the normies. I’m not a slave to the clock. I’m too important to rush around. I’m not shackled to a schedule, I’ll arrive when I arrive.” People who have the superpower of being slow are above common concerns the rest of us share. They don’t have to be at the party on time, or – heaven forfend — early. Is there a bigger faux pas than arriving before all the other guests? The slow among us are our modern-day Ferris Buellers. If you recall, Bueller struck a blow against the tyranny of the clock in 1986 by goofing off for an entire school day. "Life moves pretty fast,” he said. “If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I don’t know about you, but I would love just one extra day to do nothing in particular, not having to worry about using my time efficiently. If it’s true life is a race to the grave, then not hurrying is also a way of resisting mortality itself. The heavy-metal group Blue Oyster Cult tapped into that idea in their 1981 song Burnin’ For You, which is partly a meditation on time: Time is the essenceTime is the seasonTime ain't no reasonGot no time to slowTime everlastingTime to play B-sidesTime ain't on my sideTime I'll never knowHaving time to burn to indulge such silly impulses as actually listening to B-sides is the ultimate luxury today. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really should get going. I’m on a tight deadline. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Network Talk Shows Are Played Out
By Dan Brown Given the fuss over the axing of the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, you might get the impression network talk shows matter. They don’t. Such programs haven’t mattered for years, and few TV viewers would notice if ALL of them went off the air. The format of a monologue, phony interviews, then a musical performance is played out. In a world in which seemingly every slightly famous person hosts a podcast, network talk shows are not the draw they once were. When was the last time you watched an episode of Colbert from start to finish? What about the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, or Seth Myers? Contrast those guys with Johnny Carson. He was such a fixture back in the day that his retirement from late night in 1992 amounted to a cultural earthquake. Carson’s heyday was a different era. Network TV ruled the roost, with cable coming on strong. When the Carson-inspired David Letterman took off in the 1980s, his brand of late-night comedy was considered edgy, dangerous, subversive. You WANTED to stay up late to see what Dave was up to. Fast-forward to 2025 and it feels as though the list of celebrities who have hosted a late-night chat show at some point in their careers is longer than the list of those who haven’t. They aren’t special anymore. No one is interested in watching a procession of minor stars fake their way through a pre-scripted interview to promote their latest project. We can get our entertainment news in so many different places now, and the supply of celebs far outstrips the demand. The last late-night interview that mattered aired in 1995, when Jay Leno got to ask Hugh Grant why he had hired a prostitute named Divine Brown days earlier: “What the hell were you thinking?” in 2025, no one is eagerly anticipating the next guest who will step out from behind the curtain. Networks have hung on far longer than anyone thought they would, but according to the Los Angeles Times, the proportion of the television viewing audience watching streaming is now larger than that watching linear TV. Talk shows were relatively cheap to make when companies actually advertised their wares on network TV. In their day, they had cultural sway. A new generation has taken the format and is running with it, doing interesting things online. The idea of an interview show with the guests all eating spicy hot wings might sound loony, but it actually works. Or how about a parody of talk shows called Between Two Ferns on which every interview is hilariously uncomfortable? Maybe you would rather watch yet another minor movie actor talk about what a great time they had on set making the latest programmatic Hollywood sludge. You’re in a shrinking minority. If talk shows on network TV have accomplished anything down through the decades, they’ve killed interviewing as an art form with their rehearsed conversations. Which is OK. With a million podcasts to choose from, none of which are time-limited, on any number of platforms, we’ve got space for all the genuine follow-up questions imaginable. That’s where the real talk is taking place with hosts who don’t need to feign their interest. Oh, and just for the record, the best talk show ever was on pay TV – it was called Night After Night and was hosted by Allan Havey with sidekick Nick Bakay in the early 1990s. I taped it every night. So let’s retire network talk shows — all of them. At least for a few years or decades. Letting the genre lie fallow for a while can only lead to positive things for the entertainment industry. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Why I Love Character Actors Like George Wendt
By Dan Brown “Norm!” If that one word brings to your mind the image of a rumpled figure plopping down on his favourite bar stool to wearily take the first sip from a mug of draft, then George Wendt can go to his reward knowing he did a good job. If you watched television in the 1980s and 1990s, you will know Wendt as the performer who brought everyone’s favourite wise-cracking barfly to life on Cheers, the sitcom featuring a group of lovable losers in a Boston bar. Wendt, who died May 20 at the age of 76, was Emmy-nominated six times for playing the role of Norm Peterson, which earned him a spot in the pop-culture canon. His example also demonstrates how the right character actor can make an entire series come alive. Wendt so expertly inhabited Peterson that it’s impossible to imagine any other player in the same part. That’s why I love character actors. They are so talented, they can make something special out of a nothing role. I’m talking about your George Wendts, your Stanley Tuccis, your Stephen Roots, your Judy Greers. These B-listers are geniuses for doing the improbable: They make a living as actors without ever getting typecast. Give me a skilled character actor over a leading man or lady any day. I find them much more interesting than any Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, or Sandra Bullock. The best character actors exemplify Morgan Freeman’s maxim that “Steady work is better than stardom.” The thing about a guy like Cruise is, I can’t relate to him. His enduring good looks, flawless body, and smooth patter give me pause because I don’t know anybody who has stayed as perfectly preserved as he has over the decades. In the final analysis, such perfection on the big or small screen is just boring. After Cheers went off the air in 1993, Wendt had a second act on Broadway in productions of Elf, Hairspray and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, plus he continued to be a perpetual guest-star on shows as different as The Larry Sanders Show, Fresh Off The Boat, and Spin City. A Second City alum, Wendt became an unofficial cast member on Saturday Night Live for a number of episodes. Talk about versatility! It certainly didn’t hurt Wendt when the Cheers producers would assign him a juicy zinger for the cold open of many an episode. The harried Peterson’s desire, or perhaps need, to grab a beer as soon as he walked through the door helped cement his Everyman appeal. Male viewers may have wanted to be Ted Danson’s Sam Malone, but in their hearts they knew they were really more like Norm. Whatever you want to call George Wendt, he wasn’t a “star.”. He was a working actor who played his part so lovingly he wormed his way into the collective memory. He proved the truism that there are no small roles, just small actors. So raise a glass to George Wendt and the other character actors we love. They may not win the biggest awards, but they steal scenes left and right. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
