Space Chickens IN SPACE is an Australian-Mexican-British-Irish animated television series produced by Ánima Estudios in Mexico, Studio Moshi in Australia, and distributed by Cake Entertainment, and was co-produced by the recent Dublin-based Gingerbread Animation and Disney EMEA.
A trio of chickens—Chuck, Starley and Finley—are taken from their home and mistakenly enrolled in an elite intergalactic former military academy. It would take all their strength, and teamwork, to survive every escapade they have.
It ran for two seasons, with the first episodes airing on September 30, 2018 and finishing on June 9, 2019.
Space Chickens IN SPACE provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- Niven's mother constantly reminds her daughter of how embarrassed her failures cause her family.
- Glargg's mother is implied to not love Glargg as much as her other son Brian. Her showing the video of Glargg dancing is ultimately what causes him to break down.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Everyone makes fun of Chuck, whether he deserves it or not. Even nice characters like Starley's best friend Narci, dislike him.
- Almighty Janitor: Ommm, the academy's custodian, is secretly a trans-time superbeing, with abilities such as being able to predict the future, and being unaffected by time stopping.
- And You Thought It Was Real: Effectively, this kickstarts the plot of "Players Gotta Play" because the antagonists, Starfish Aliens called The Beige, assume a high school play airing on multiversal television is real (which is also Artistic License – Film Production since a high school play wouldn't be aired on network television, although this can be hand-waved away as being in Another Dimension); this ends up being a Oh, Crap! moment for the aliens as much as the protagonists.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Chuck, Finley and Starley (although Chuck claims to be all three in "Final Exam").
- Big Brother Instinct:
- In "Trolling Thrognak" Finley rushes to save Chuck from being electrocuted (only to be electrocuted himself). He also cares deeply for Starley.
- Starley is very protective of her brothers, especially Chuck. In "You Snooze You Cruise" she wants to punch Barnetta when she thinks she's mind controlling him and she punches a dealer when he almost hurts Chuck.
- Chuck himself is a reverse of this in "The Egg" when he uses himself as a meat shield to protect Starley and in "Players Gotta Play" he rushes to Finley's side, concerned for him when he loses his intelligence.
- Big Little Brother: Finley is the smallest of the chickens but he hatched first in the intro.
- Break the Haughty: Chuck tends to suffer from this.
- In "Draw Anything" Chuck is so down about his art he never wants to draw again until he finds the magic pen.
- In "The Chicken Feed", he arranges for he and his siblings to become part of a web show, believing it is his ticket to stardom. Unfortunately, the viewers all love Starly, leaving Chuck distraught.
- In "Alpha Chuck", Chuck admits he is not worthy of being himself.
- Broken Pedestal: Hugo feels rejected by Chuck's mixed signals until he turns to Ainta who he idolizes instead. Chuck wins his respect back after he saves his life.
- Characterization Marches On: In the first few episodes, Chuck while being dumb seems to act like a big brother to Starley, trying to keep her safe. However in later episodes, Starley acts more like the big sister, being protective, comforting and trying to put him on the right track.
- Cheerful Child:
- Starley is a preteen girl who has a cheerful outlook on life.
- Hugo is a small child who loves to laugh and play. He's naive and oblivious to his surroundings and he keeps this attitude even when he's hurt.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Starley behaves this way a lot of the time, and is over-optimistic about everything, sometimes even speaking in a babyish voice.
- Comic-Book Time: None of the characters age at all during the series.
- Comic Trio: Chuck is The Fool (and this often shows up a lot of the time), Finley is the Only Sane Man and Starley is the Cloudcuckoolander.
- Dean Bitterman: Principal Glargg appears to be the stereotypical sadist school principal, although this is zig-zagged in that it's played straight for some episodes, but in others it's parodied, but then again he is a very flexible character for the writers of this series.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The show's title feels the need to remind audiences that the characters are Space Chickens... in Space.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- In "Poor Dweezil", Atori tries to block the chickens' path by taking on the appearance of a giant monster. However, since she uses a Glamour rather than actually shapeshifting, the chickens are able to run right through it.
- In "Being Glargg", Chuck uses his control over Glargg to remove all of the academy's rules. This leads to Niven and her posse trying to get rid of the chickens once and for all, since there's no longer any rules holding them back.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Starley is prone to this.
- In "The Egg", she disowns her brothers after they laugh at the "sister" she made out of dirt being destroyed in the analyzing machine.
- In "Friendchip", she decides to get a new best friend after Narcy forgets about a "friend-iversery" that she made up.
- Entitled Bastard: In "Bad Bad Bad", Chuck teams up with the villain Sweet Skulls, helping her to take over the academy. When Sweet Skulls casts him aside for failing her, he runs to Starley, fulling expecting her to forgive him for everything.
- Entitled to Have You: Chuck in "Green-Eyed Monster". Despite having just met Adele (and making a fool out of himself in front of her), he's quick to claim that she's his girlfriend.
- Fantastic Racism: Niven despises the chickens.
- Foil: Interestingly, the trio are this to each other: Chuck is The Ditz by comparison with Finley being the genius, and Starley is eccentric by comparison to Finley, and calmer by comparison to the hot-blooded Chuck.
- Egg-Laying Male: Chuck has a habit of laying eggs whenever he's scared (which is often).
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Glargg is mean and plans to start a war, but he adores his pet BliBli and will do anything to protect her.
- Despite Glargg hating the chickens, he is shown to get along with them and secretly care about them. This is especially clear in the finale where he cries because he thought he would never see Chuck again, the chicken he gets along with the least.
- Fountain of Youth:
- In "Personal Space Time", Finley concocts a formula to revert Chuck and Niven back to their proper ages after they escape the yawning star's gravity.
- In "The Chicken in the Egg", the Emitefil has this ability as a defense mechanism.
- Genius Ditz: Adele is one of the smartest characters, even beating Finley in grades. But she can't ever remember Chuck's name despite being reminded.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Chuck.
- In the episode "Green-Eyed Monster", he becomes extremely jealous when he thinks Adele has feelings for Finley.
- In "Alpha Chuck", he takes an immediate dislike to Charles, his wittier, more charming duplicate.
- Sometimes Finley is jealous of his best friend, Adele because she is shown to be even more of a genius than him.
- Gross-Out Show: Because of its deranged animation and focusing on details for shock value, it will highlight things in such a way that the viewer will be grossed out.
- High Hopes, Zero Talent: Chuck dreams of being a great commander and pilot, but has little chance of achieving either goal (mostly due to his distaste for actual work and studying).
- Hive Mind: Implied with The Beige, who Speak in Unison and don't seem to have distinct personalities. It's left ambiguous as to whether they are a hive mind, or not, though.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Ommminous Foreshadowing", Glargg tests out the student's new implants that allow him to beam morning announcement directly into their brains. He notes that they could hear him even if he whispers, but he still screams... which results in him losing his voice.
- Hollywood Evolution:
- In "Flying and Chill", Hugo claims that his species never evolved.
- In the same episode, a massive explosion of an evolution-inducing substance causes an entire planet to evolve together into one gigantic, infinitely intelligent "space brain".
- Hypocrite: Starley. For all her talk about peace, love, and non-violence, she can be very vindictive, suffers from destructive temper tantrums, and has no problem using force on her brothers to get them to do what she wants. In "Snot Like This", the villain of the week openly calls her out on how she hates being control, but is just fine controlling the lives of other.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Both Chuck and Niven admit to this during "Personal Spacetime".
- Insufferable Genius: Finley often attempts to show his intellectual superiority, which backfires on him a lot of the time, although, given that this is a Sadist Show, it's Played for Laughs.
- Internet Jerk: Chuck in "Trolling Thrognak". He relentlessly mocks the Horde of Darkness through his cell-cone, only to freak out when they announce they're going to attack the academy in retaliation.
- Iron Butt Monkey: Hugo suffers a lot of punishment throughout the series. But as his species is practically indestructible, he always bounces back.
- Jaded Washout: Glargg is implied to be this, being a former soldier who is now stuck as the principal of a school.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Niven invokes this at times.
- In "Presidential Coop", when told that barely anyone voted for the student body president candidates because of all the fighting, Niven angrily points out that Chuck and Starley were the only ones who were fighting.
- In "Ultimate Niven". Starley says that if she wins the Tournament of Ultimate Champions, she'll make it so that everyone can be the boss. Niven retorts that if everyone's the boss, then no-one is.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The heart of gold part isn't usually seen, but in spite of Chuck's jerkiness, he really does care for his siblings, he rushed to Finley's side worriedly when he was corrupted by the stupid clouds. He also protected Starley from a laser that could have destroyed a sun. In the finale, Chuck decided to own up to his mistakes and take his siblings' punishment from the Get Em' Backs when they were after them, in spite of how painful it would be.
- Just Friends: Finley and Adele. Despite having a lot in common, and spending much time together, their relationship is nothing but platonic.
- Leader Wannabe: Chuck. In "Chuck's First Command", he tries to find a way to quickly become a captain, and in "Presidential Coop", he runs for student body president.
- The Load: Chuck rarely does anything useful and just drags his team down with his arrogance.
- Logical Weakness; The Bosstrils take control of their victims by crawling up their nostrils to their brain. They cannot do this if the nostrils are clogged (like from a cold), and if someone they are controlling sneezes, the Bosstrils are flung right out the way they came.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Chuck is vain and flamboyant while his rival and bully Niven is tough and mean.
- Moral Myopia: In "Chicken Out", Chuck shamelessly steals Finley and Starley's class projects, passing them off as his own, without so much as an apology. But when he overhears his siblings saying they sometimes wish he wasn't their brother, he treats it as a horrible betrayal.
- Naïve Animal Lover: Starley. When she sees an animal in containment, no matter how vicious and terrifying, she tends to let it out.
- Narcissist: Chuck. In "Green-Eyed Monster" and "Alpha Chuck", his inner vision of himself is far more handsome and muscular than he actually is.
- Never My Fault:
- Chuck has a bad habit of refusing to take responsibility for his actions.
- In "Stop Bugging Me", Starley keeps blaming her problems with her new roommates on an infestation of Berserker Bugs, rather than admit her own actions had something to do with it.
- Nice Mean And In Between: Starley is peaceful and affectionate, Chuck is rude and selfish, and Finley is a nice guy but has an evil genius side.
- Oblivious to Love: Adele isn't aware Chuck has a crush on her and doesn't even know his name.
- Opposites Attract: Chuck is dim-witted and selfish, but somehow fell in love with the intelligent and generous Adele.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Adele and Finley have no interest in each other romantically, but they are very much friends. When Finley decided to work without Adele, she became very disappointed and sad, but she used her science project to help Finley with his because she knew how much it meant to him.
- Precocious Crush: Niven, who is implied to be a preteen, has a crush on Glargg the school principal.
- Predator-Prey Friendship: Adele, who looks very similar to a fox is best friends with Finley.
- Puppeteer Parasite: The Bosstrils, worm-like parasites who can take control of others.
- Sadist Show: Most of the time, nothing will go right for this trio or the Principal, Glargg, and they suffer a lot with the consequences.
- Sdrawkcab Name: The name of Emitefil, a creature that can turn its attackers into infants, is "lifetime" backwards.
- Shout-Out: "Being Glargg" is a parody of Being John Malkovich.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Chuck. He's convinced he has the makings of a great pilot, and a great leader. But in reality, he is the least liked student and is often made fun of by others.
- Starfish Aliens: There are many in this series, although they are largely incidental characters or One-Shot Character who only are relegated to cameo roles after their debut episode.
- Status Quo Is God: No matter what exploits the trio get up to or if their space school gets destroyed, everything is restored to normal by the next episode.
- Stealing the Credit: Chuck often tries to take all the glory whenever he and his siblings actually accomplish something.
- Stupidity-Inducing Attack: The Beige's signature weapons produce a cloud that dramatically lowers the intelligence of whoever it touches.
- Successful Sibling Syndrome: Glargg has spent his entire life in the shadow of his military hero brother Brian, whom his mother clearly prefers over him.
- The Symbiote: Barnetta is one, with Phil as her host.
- Take Me Instead: Near the end of "Chicken Back Again", Chuck realizes his siblings are in danger because he ran away from them and brought back criminals. So he decides to sacrifice his own life so they can be free and safe, this is interrupted however when the two rush in to save him.
- Troubled Abuser: Glargg's mother calls Glargg "good for nothing" and favors Brian over him. Similarly Glargg yells at the chickens and favors Starley over Chuck and Finley.
- The Un-Favorite: Glargg states that his mother always loved and praised Brian more than him. Similarly, Glargg favors Starley over her brothers.
- Villain Has a Point: In "Snot Like This", Clive, leader of the Bosstrils, rightfully points out how Starley resents being controlled in spite of how she tends to control the lives of others.
- With Friends Like These...: Chuck is very selfish and mean towards his siblings and in return they aren't nice to him either.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: In "Personal Spacetime", Chuck and Niven are trapped in the orbit of a "yawning star", which stretches out time for the surrounding area; while only moments pass back at the academy, the two experience decades of isolation.
