The Morning Watch: Making Fake Drugs in Movies, The Disaster of ‘Spaceballs: The Animated Series’ & More

Fake Drugs in Movies

The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.

In this edition, find out how fake drugs are made for movies, including the cocaine from The Wolf of Wall Street and the heroin in Pulp Fiction. Plus, take a look back at Spaceballs: The Animated Series, the failed attempt at reviving the Star Wars parody film from Mel Brooks. And finally, Martin Short looks back at the box office bomb that was Clifford in 1994.

First up, Movies Insider looks at how fake drugs in movies are created and how actors are made to look like they’re actually doing them. For example, special syringes are used for heroin scenes that push the liquid (made of brown sugar and water) into a hidden chamber. Meanwhile, cocaine can either be vitamin D powder snorted by the actors, or there’s a suction rig that can be constructed that sucks up fake powdered drugs. Find out more in the video above.

Next, Hats Off Entertainment takes a look back at the disaster that was Spaceballs: The Animated Series. Airing on G4 and Canada’s Super Channel, this cheap attempt at bringing back Spaceballs didn’t just parody Star Wars, and the result was an absolutely abysmal work that didn’t have a single shred of cleverness.

Finally, as part of the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival last weekend, Martin Short sat down for a career retrospective with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. Their conversation turned to a rarely discussed film from his past: the box office bomb Clifford, in which Short plays an adolescent boy who drives his Uncle Martin (Charles Grodin) to the verge of insanity. Watch the full interview on HBO Max.

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