The late John Candy in ‘Spaceballs’
Life comes at you fast these days. One minute you’re pleased at yourself for sending out a clever tweet about Spacebells, the beloved Star Wars parody from Mel Brooks, and the next minute you’re getting hammered with responses, threatening to boycott your sitcom because you attacked the president. Twitter really is a tricky medium.
Adam F. Goldberg, the creator of the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, accidentally kicked the social media hornet’s nest this past weekend when he sent out tweet referencing Spaceballs.
My God, the President is completely and utterly broken! I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. This isn’t fixable, is it? #Skroob
Harmless enough. The “Skroob” in question was President Skroob, Brooks’ character in the movie. If you look at the picture in the tweet, the Skroob action figure is literally broken. This seems like an open and shut case. However, it didn’t take long for things to get weird.
@adamfgoldberg Sorry Adam, it’s the liberals that are broken and refusing to let the country move forward. Give the President a chance and he may surprise
Goldberg’s response didn’t seem to help matters.
@adamfgoldberg @taconicglobal News flash! God is in control of the climate, NOT the leftist loons!!
Okay. Maybe he should have clarified some more.
@mavsfan1959 @taconicglobal No, he plays God by changing the weather using his ship in maid mode to steal the air. If you don’t agree that’s a fact, you’re the loon.
Again, Goldberg isn’t lying. In Spaceballs, stealing a planet’s air via a ship that transforms into a giant maid who is armed with an equally giant vacuum is literally what happened. Or (spoiler) almost happened.
Eventually though, things started to go off the rails. For every one or two people who got the Spaceballs’ references and jokes, there was one or two people who didn’t. Those that didn’t continued to think Goldberg was bashing President Trump. Goldberg even started to include the hashtag #notmyskroob but even that didn’t help clear things up.
@adamfgoldberg He’s my president and if the libs would get their head out of their ass, they would would want tax cuts and better healthcare for the folks.
A few days later Goldberg tweeted out his surprise and disbelief that in response to his tweets, people were planning on boycotting his show. He had also started to lose a good amount of followers. Naturally, Goldberg couldn’t understand why.
People are now leaving my show? Skroob literally stole the air. Anyone who supports this is insane. I don’t know what you were watching. t.co/THSSOLxqNq
Well. So many people are bailing on my show about the 80s. But at least promise me you will DVR Spaceballs because it’s a great 80s film. t.co/mzY4mftpfe
To be clear, this is not about science. It’s fact. Today I turned on the tv and literally watched a planet get destroyed by a giant vacuum. t.co/Ggel6unT38
To try and settle the issue Goldberg made an attempt to put the matter to bed, tweeting out that he was putting down Twitter to start working on an episode that will be a homage to the great 1980’s director John Hughes, who was responsible for movies like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Pretty in Pink. Goldberg tweeted out a poll to go with the tweet, asking once and for all what people thought: should President Skroob be impeached or should Skroob & (Bernie) Sanders rule all? After nearly 4,000 votes cast, 86% say Skroob (and not Trump, definitely Skroob) be impeached.
The Twitter dust-up even managed to make it’s way to daytime television, where it was discussed on The View.
Somewhere Mel Brooks has to be smiling.
The Goldbergs recently wrapped up it’s fourth season and has been renewed for a fifth and sixth season.