Space Goofs

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Space Goofs (French title: Les Zinzins de l'Espace, or in the United Kingdom: Home to Rent) is a French animated series produced by Gaumont Multimedia, and Xilam for France 3 that first aired in 1997. It also debuted at the same year in Germany on ProSieben. It also aired, in Quebec, on Télétoon. In the UK, the 1st season premiered on Channel 4 and the 2nd season premiered under its original moniker on Nicktoons UK on 5 November 2005 at 9:30am. It also aired as part of the Fox Kids lineup on Fox in the United States.

The series also served as the basis of an adventure game titled Stupid Invaders.

Video Space Goofs

Plot

Five extraterrestrials from the planet Zigma B, Candy, Etno, Gorgeous, Stereo and Bud go on a picnic together in space. However, their spaceship crashes into an asteroid, and they fall to planet Earth. They realise that if any human finds out that they're aliens, they could be captured and experimented on, so they take shelter in a house for rent.

The aliens have two goals: Return to their home planets and chase anybody away who tries to establish themselves in the house.

To remain unknown from humans, they use a device called the SMTV that lets the aliens transform into almost any entity of their choosing. It often doesn't work on the first try, leading to some wacky transformations.

Maps Space Goofs

Characters

• Etno Polino: Being short and purple with red lips and a big nose, Etno is the leader and the brains of the group. A scientific genius, he creates all sort of machines, including rockets. The aliens often fail to blast off into space due to either Etno's rocket malfunctioning or someone else boarding the ship. In the original French version, he speaks with an English accent, however, in the English version, he rather has a fast-paced scientist speech vaguely reminiscent of those found in the 1950s educational films about space exploration. Etno's voice was done by Maurice LaMarche. By coincidence, LaMarche was also the voice behind the character of "The Brain" from Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs.
• Bud Budiovitch: Tall and orange with three strands of hair, a long neck and big bloodshot eyes, Bud is lazy and naive. He is a television addict and spends most of the time sitting in front of it and drinking soft drinks. Like Etno, Bud is always the last one to panic in a situation. He always comes up with the best solution but most of the time no one will listen to him. Bud's voice was done by Jeff Bennett in Season 1, and Louis Garneau in Season 2, and has a strong hillbilly impression.
• Candy Caramella: Small and green with a wrinkled forehead and wearing a polka-dotted apron, Candy is the uptight neat freak. He gets in touch with his feminine side by sometimes disguising himself as a woman. In many situations, Candy is the first to worry. In the Latin American version aired on Jetix/Magic Kids, Candy's gender is changed to female. Candy's voice parodies "fancy" British accent, and was done by Charlie Adler.
• Gorgious Klatoo: Fat and blue with a heavy chin and a protruding tooth, Gorgious is the grumpy and brutal one. He is very greedy and his hobby consists of bullying the others and eating. Gorgious' voice was done by Danny Mann, taking from Northeastern US (New York/Boston) accent. His last name is likely a reference to Klaatu.
• Stereo Monovici: Two-headed and red in which each head has a slightly long nose, and being as tall as Bud, Stereo acts as two people since each head has its own mind. "He" is pretty much the bookworm of the group, yet often wastes his intelligence on the most useless information. The heads often argue with each other. Stereo was removed from the series in season two, with the exception of two episodes of that season ("Other World Champs" and "UFO") where Stereo reappears. Both heads are voiced by Jeff Bennett in Season 1, and Charlie Adler in Season 2, however, one head has a distinct high-pitched tone, while the other head speaks rather low.

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Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (1997-2000)

Season 2 (2002-2008)

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Reception

• The series has been a hit in France, in particular due to its absurd, slapstick and tongue-in-cheek slightly politically incorrect humor.

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Stupid Invaders

An adventure game based on Space Goofs titled Stupid Invaders was released in 2000-2001 by Ubisoft. The plot centers around the aliens and their attempts to return to space. All the main characters of the series are playable through the course of the game. The game is notable for deliberately rejecting or distorting some cliched aspects of the adventure genre; standard adventure game tactics such as picking up, talking to or interacting with anything encountered will often result in instant (albeit highly comical) death for the player character and the need to reload, for example, often with no warning. The writing also takes a more risque approach to its humor than the TV series, resulting in a T rating from the ESRB.

Stupid Invaders was developed by Xilam for Windows and Mac OS, and ported to the Dreamcast by Titanium Studios.[1]

Reception

The game received "mixed" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

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Appearances in other Xilam series

In Shuriken School: The Ninja's Secret, Candy appears on the cover to Jimmy B.'s manga Star Attacks.

The characters made a cameo in the Oggy and the Cockroaches episode "Night Watchmen".

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References

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External links

• (in French) Official website
• Stupid Invaders official website
• Space Goofs on IMDb
• Space Goofs at TV.com
• Stupid Invaders at MobyGames

Source of the article : Wikipedia