Space Cadets (television Hoax) - Comedic Elements

Comedic Elements

The show contained moderate amounts of bizarre, surreal, or subversive show elements, in a manner similar to other Zeppotron-related productions (for example, TVGoHome.) Examples include:

• Cadet lectures that were "about 80% true", the rest being ludicrous rubbish; many of these lectures were of little practical use to cosmonauts (e.g. memory tests of the planets in the solar system)
• Stereotyped characters, including a slow-talking Royal Air Force Squadron Leader with a luxuriant handlebar moustache
• Stupid training exercises (e.g. communications training involving reporting ever more implausible emergencies, ending with monkeys rampaging through the spacecraft, and Rambo giving The Fonz a high five)
• Nonsense Russian (e.g. having the Cadets salute a 'Russian Poem' which was actually the recipe for toad in the hole or having the Russian pilot wear makeup, place plastic spoons in his hair and insist the Cadets act out Alice in Wonderland)
• Nonsensical space experiments, including tests to make balloon animals
• The motto of the establishment S.T.A.R. is 'Это не ракетостроение'. The mission commander claimed this means 'We, the adventurers', but it actually means 'It's not rocket science', a phrase meaning that something is very easy, here taking on a double meaning.
• During the training lectures, the cadets were told that Russia's first cosmonaut to successfully orbit and return to earth was a monkey called Minsky (who is supposedly stuffed and kept on display at S.T.A.R.), and that the city of Minsk is named in her honour.
• According to one of the "pilots", if the shuttle was unable to land at the S.T.A.R. base in Russia, one of the back-up sites was at Woodbridge, UK. This is an in-joke as, unknown to the cadets, RAF Woodbridge was the 'twin' airbase to RAF Bentwaters. Woodbridge is also the nearest town to the actual Space Cadets production site in Suffolk.
• The cadets were also told the segments of Mission Control, referred to by acronyms, some of which are made up – CAPCOM, FlDO, LIDO, DIDO, NACAS and MUMI (only CAPCOM and FlDO are genuine positions).