Our readers speak!

As I wrote Monday in my post about Fox's new flop, "Meet Dave," the studio wrongly tried to pretend that the Eddie Murphy movie wasn't a sci-fi comedy, even ditching its original title, "Starship Dave." One reason why: Fox's Tom Rothman believes that sci-fi comedies are box-office poison. To prove his point, when we were at lunch not long ago, Rothman stumped me when he challenged me to come up with a sci-fi comedy that had been a bona fide hit.

I guess I should bring a few of our readers along to our next lunch, that is, if Tom is still speaking to me. Either our readers are considerably smarter than me or had a little more time to do some research. Or perhaps both. Either way, they've been filling up our comments box, doing a pretty good job of demolishing Rothman's case--or at least expanding the notion of what constitutes a sci-fi comedy. So the next time you hear someone write off the genre as commercially untenable, here are a few savvy comebacks (and a chance to see a wonderfully funny scene from the sci-fi comedy classic, "Galaxy Quest"):

   

When it comes to sci-fi comedy moneymakers, Alan Dean Foster volunteered the old Mel Brooks gag-filled comedy "Spaceballs" as well as more recent Pixar hits, "Wall-E" and "The Incredibles."

Anne Huard offers up "Galaxy Quest," which hasn't lost a step nearly a decade after its original release. P. Carumba nominates "Ghostbusters," the Bill Murray-starring comedy that certainly supplied a lot of fun ghost gags and special effects. Julia named most of the above films, adding a few others, including "Short Circuit," "Weird Science," "Dark Star" and (!) "Repo Man," which is definitely more of a cult classic than a hit, since it made about $49.95 when it came out in 1984. OK, actually $3.5 million, though you still have to love any movie that features both Harry Dean Stanton and the Circle Jerks.

But no one could top the dry sci-fi wit of Cy, who wrote in: "I think we've all proved that Tom Rothman is just a Conehead whose brain has been Zapped! because his Stepmother is an Alien. I'll bet he thinks that Earth Girls are Easy too."

  "Galaxy Quest" photo from DreamWorks Pictures / ILM

Comments

[Karen]

I love Galaxy Quest!

[JKW625]

Isn't it sad when people condem a genre because people who are unfamiliar with it go ahead and produce films that stink? Nearly every sucessful SF, Fantasy or Horror television series has an element of humor. OK, not Battlestar Galactica but I said nearly every onr not EVERY one.

Michael Shanks ~ Local Custom -
Ben Browder ~ Interlopers
Voices of Science Fiction and Fantasy
http://www.buzzymultimedia.com/stargate-sg1-special.html

[James Seger]

Nobody thought to mention Men In Black?