Space Goofs

''Space Goofs'' () is a French animated series that was produced by Gaumont Multimedia for its first season and Xilam for its second season, produced for France 3, and broadcast on that network from September 6, 1997 to May 12, 2006. The first season was also on Fox Kids in the United States from 1997–2000, while the second season aired internationally.

The series also served as the basis of an adventure game, developed by Xilam themselves and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows and Sega Dreamcast called '' Stupid Invaders'' in 2000 – which was dedicated to its co-creator, Jean-Yves Raimbaud. In contrast to the original show, it featured plenty of toilet humor and slightly more crude, adult content. It also was the first work produced by Xilam to be made for an older audience – the others being the adult animated movies '' I Lost My Body'' and '' Kaena: The Prophecy'', and the adult animated series '' Mr. Baby''.

Plot

Five extraterrestrials from the fictitious planet Zigma B, Candy H. Caramella, Etno Polino, Bud Budiovitch, Gorgious Klatoo and Stereo Monovici, go on a picnic together in space. However, their spaceship crashes into an asteroid, and they fall to planet Earth. They realize that if any human finds out that they are aliens, they could be captured and experimented on by scientists, so they take shelter in the attic of a house that is up for rent.

The aliens have two goals: return to their home planet, and chase away anybody who tries to establish themselves in the house. To remain unknown from humans, the aliens use a device called the SMTV that lets them transform into almost any entity of their choosing, but always cycles through three other unrelated transformations (as a running gag) when used.

In the second season, Stereo is now no longer part of the main cast, with said character only being bought back for two episodes. An explanation was provided where Stereo has somehow managed to get back to Zigma B, so Candy, Etno, Bud and Gorgious continue to find a way back home.

Characters

Etno Polino
: Voiced by (French): Peter Hudson (season 1), Bernard Alane (season 2)
: Voiced by (English): Maurice LaMarche
: Being short and purple with red lips, a big red nose and red eyes, Etno is the leader and brains of the group. A scientific genius, he creates all sorts of machines with the intention of aiding the group's return to their own planet, including rockets. The aliens often fail to blast off into space, either due to Etno's rockets malfunctioning or someone else boarding the ships. In the original French dub, he speaks with an English accent, but in the English dub, he has a rather fast-paced manner of speech, vaguely reminiscent of those found in educational films about space exploration from the 1950s.

Candy Hector Caramella
: Voiced by (French): Éric Le Roch (season 1), Éric Métayer (season 2)
: Voiced by (English): Charlie Adler
: Small and green, with a wrinkled forehead, red eyes, and wearing a polka-dotted apron, Candy is the uptight neat freak of the group. He is homosexual (often disguising himself as a woman), and it is not uncommon to see him flirt with other men. Unlike the other aliens in the house, he often chooses to disguise himself as a woman. He is very energetic (often cleaning around the house). In both the French and English versions, Candy's voice parodies a sophisticated English accent.

Bud Budiovitch
: Voiced by (French): Marc Brettonière (season 1), Éric Métayer (season 2)
: Voiced by (English): Jeff Bennett (season 1), James Louis Gomez-Garneau (season 2)
: Tall and orange with three strands of hair, a long neck, and big pink bloodshot eyes, Bud is lazy and naÏve. He is a television addict and spends most of the time sitting in front of it and drinking soft drinks. Like Etno, Bud is laid-back and usually 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.

Gorgious Klatoo
: Voiced by (French): Patrick Préjean
: Voiced by (English): Michael Sicoly (earlier episodes), Danny Mann (onward)
: Fat and blue with a heavy chin, green eyes and a protruding tooth, is the grumpy and snarky one of the group. He is very greedy and his hobbies consist of eating, lazing around, and bullying his friends, although he is shown at several points in the series to care deeply about them underneath his gruff exterior.

Stereo Monovici
: Voiced by (French): Antoine Tomé (season 1), Patrick Guillemin (season 2)
: Voiced by (English): Jeff Bennett (season 1), Danny Mann (season 2)
: Two-headed and red in which each head has a slightly long nose and green eyes, Stereo acts as two people since each head has its own mind. Early episodes portray him as the "bookworm" of the group who often wastes his intelligence on the most useless information. Stereo is very energetic (like Candy) and is usually feeling happy. Both heads sometimes argue with each other. Stereo was removed from the series for Season 2 (as Xilam considered him a weak character), but reappeared in two segments of that season ("Other World Champs" and "UFO"). One of the heads speaks with a distinct, high-pitched voice, while the other head speaks with a rather low-pitched one.

Almost every episode features a new visitor, ''à la'' a "villain of the week" formula, who will come to the presumed "vacant" home. These visitors come in a weird variety of characters (mostly humans, but sometimes animals like pigs and birds, and even other aliens). While the credits do not specify who, additional voices include:
*Jim Cummings
*Billy West
* Carlos Alazraqui
*Rob Paulsen
*Kevin Michael Richardson
*Tom Kenny
* Laraine Newman
* Frank Welker
*Kath Soucie
*Grey DeLisle
*Tara Strong
* Susanne Blakeslee
* Kat Cressida
*Michelle Layton
* Jessica DiCicco
*Jackie Gonneau
* Sirena Irwin
* Carolyn Lawrence
Some characters are voiced by the main cast. This is especially more prevalent in Season 2.

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (1997–98)

All episodes in this season were directed by Thomas Szabó and aired on Saturdays.

Season 2 (2005–06)

All episodes in this season were directed by Olivier Jean-Marie and aired on Fridays.

''Stupid Invaders''

An adventure game based on ''Space Goofs'' named '' Stupid Invaders'' was released in 2000–2001 by Ubisoft. It featured crew members from its first season and the voice actors of its English dub as the five aliens, having to go back home in a surreal world, after an infiltration by a bounty hunter named Bolok (voiced by Billy West).

Broadcast and home media

On top of airing on France 3, it also debuted in the same year in Germany on ProSieben, and aired in Canada on Teletoon. In the UK, the first season premiered on Fox Kids on August 31, 1997 and 3 weeks later on Channel 4 on September 21, 1997, both under the show's original title of ''Home to Rent'' and the second season premiered under the series' final name on Nicktoons UK on November 5, 2005 at 9:30 AM. Furthermore, the first season aired as part of the Fox Kids lineup on Fox in the United States.

Of the more notable physical releases, three VHS tapes (entitled ''Alien Antics'', ''Cartoon Tales'' and ''Animal Crack-Ups'') of the series were released in the U.S. on August 11, 1998. The complete series (in 2 season sets) was also released in France on June 13, 2011.

In other media

A film adaptation for the show titled ''Stupid Invaders'' was planned, but was never released for reasons unknown – what only remained was a short video posted online. The cast of the original show reprised their roles for the main characters (sans Stereo). It was a CGI-animated adaptation of the show, where the four aliens (Etno, Candy, Gorgious and Bud) have ended up accidentally crash landing into someone else's house. Said house is revealed to be inhabited by an unnamed brunette girl, who gets curious upon her sight of the aliens.

References in other Xilam properties

The main characters make several cameos in some of Xilam's other TV shows. It should be noted most of these references took place in the mid-2000s, when the second season was airing.
*In '' Oggy and the Cockroaches'':
** In earlier seasons, the interior of Oggy's house features a framed picture of the main cast of aliens from just the first season. These were removed in the remade episodes.
** A miniature version of the house for rent is seen and utilized in the episode "Baby Doll" (from its first season) and its remake.
** The characters also made a cameo in the episode "Night Watchmen" (from its third season), where the titular characters end up transforming into the four aliens (as a gag) in one scene.
*In '' Shuriken School: The Ninja's Secret'', a picture of Candy is on the cover of Jimmy B.'s manga, ''Star Attacks'', a parody of the ''Star Wars'' franchise.
*In the film, '' Go West! A Lucky Luke Adventure'', a scene featuring Roger and the cockroaches (Dee Dee, Marky and Joey from ''Oggy'') has him mention "monster men", which may be a reference to the show's theme.
*In '' The Daltons'' episode "Le Secret Passage", Candy was one of Joe's transformations in Fort Dalton.

References

External links

Official website
*
*

{{Fox Kids

1997 animated television series debuts
1997 French television series debuts
1990s French animated television series
1998 French television series endings
2005 French television series debuts
2005 animated television series debuts
2006 French television series endings
2000s French animated television series
Animated television series about extraterrestrial life
Fox Kids
French-language television shows
French children's animated comic science fiction television series
ProSieben original programming
Animated television series about shapeshifting
Television shows adapted into video games
Xilam
Television series revived after cancellation
YTV (Canadian TV channel) original programming
France Télévisions children's television series