Space Goofs

Space Goofs (Les Zinzins de l'Espace) is a French animated series that was produced by Gaumont Multimedia for its first season and Xilam for its second season, produced for France 3, and broadcast on M6 from September 6, 1997 to May 12, 2006. It also debuted in the same year in Germany on ProSieben, and aired in Canada on Teletoon. In the UK, the first season premiered on Channel 4 in 1998 under the show's original title of Home to Rent and the second season premiered under the series' final name on Nicktoons UK on November 5, 2005 at 9:30am. Furthermore, the first season aired as part of the Fox Kids lineup on Fox in the United States.

The series also served as the basis of an adventure game, developed by Xilam themselves and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows and Sega Dreamcast called Stupid Invaders in 2000 – which was dedicated to its co-creator, Jean-Yves Raimbaud. In contrast to the original show, it featured plenty of toilet humor and slightly more crude, adult content. It also was the first work produced by Xilam to be made for an older audience – the others being the adult animated movies, I Lost My Body and Kaena: The Prophecy, as well as another series, Mr. Baby.

Plot
Five extraterrestrials from the fictitious planet Zigma B, Candy H. Caramella, Etno Polino, Bud Budiovitch, Gorgious Klatoo and Stereo Monovici go on a picnic together in space. However, their spaceship crashes into an asteroid, and they fall to planet Earth. They realize that if any human finds out that they are aliens, they could be captured and experimented on by scientists, so they take shelter in the attic of a house that is up for rent.

The aliens have two goals: return to their home planet, and chase away anybody who tries to establish themselves in the house. To remain unknown from humans, the aliens use a device called the SMTV that lets them transform into almost any entity of their choosing, but always cycles through three other unrelated transformations (as a running gag) when used.

In the second season, Stereo is now no longer part of the main cast, with said character only being bought back for two episodes. An explanation was provided where Stereo has somehow managed to get back to Zigma B, so Candy, Etno, Bud and Gorgious continue to find a way back home.

Characters
 Etno Polino 
 * Voiced by (French): Peter Hudson (season 1), Bernard Alane (season 2)
 * Voiced by (English): Maurice LaMarche
 * Being short and purple with red lips, a big red nose and red eyes, Etno is the leader and brains of the group. A scientific genius, he creates all sorts of machines with the intention of aiding the group's return to their own planet, including rockets. The aliens often fail to blast off into space, either due to Etno's rockets malfunctioning or someone else boarding the ships. In the original French dub, he speaks with an English accent, but in the English dub, he has a rather fast-paced manner of speech, vaguely reminiscent of those found in educational films about space exploration from the 1950s.

 Candy Hector Caramella 
 * Voiced by (French): Éric Le Roch (season 1), Éric Métayer (season 2)
 * Voiced by (English): Charlie Adler
 * Small and green, with a wrinkled forehead, red eyes, and wearing a polka-dotted apron, Candy is the uptight neat freak of the group. He is homosexual (often disguising himself as a woman), and it is not uncommon to see him flirt with other men, such as Gorgious. He is very energetic (often cleaning around the house). In both the French and English versions, Candy's voice parodies a fancy English accent.

 Bud Budiovitch 
 * Voiced by (French): Marc Brettonière (season 1), Éric Métayer (season 2)
 * Voiced by (English): Jeff Bennett (season 1), James Louis Gomez-Garneau (season 2)
 * Tall and orange with three strands of hair, a long neck, and big pink bloodshot eyes, Bud is lazy and naive. He is a television addict and spends most of the time sitting in front of it and drinking soft drinks. Like Etno, Bud is laid-back and usually the last one to panic in a situation. He always comes up with the best solution, but most of the time no one will listen to him.

 Gorgious Klatoo 
 * Voiced by (French): Patrick Préjean
 * Voiced by (English): Michael Sicoly (earlier episodes), Danny Mann (onward)
 * Fat and blue with a heavy chin, green eyes and a protruding tooth, is the grumpy and snarky one of the group. He is very greedy and his hobbies consist of eating and bullying his friends.

 Stereo Monovici 
 * Voiced by (French): Antoine Tomé (season 1), Patrick Guillemin (season 2)
 * Voiced by (English): Jeff Bennett (season 1), Danny Mann (season 2)
 * Two-headed and red in which each head has a slightly long nose and green eyes, Stereo acts as two people since each head has its own mind. Early episodes portray him as the "bookworm" of the group who often wastes his intelligence on the most useless information. Stereo is very energetic (like Candy) and is usually feeling happy. Both heads sometimes argue with each other. Stereo was removed from the series for Season 2 (as Xilam considered him a weak character), but reappeared in two segments of that season ("Other World Champs" and "UFO"). One of the heads speaks with a distinct, high-pitched voice, while the other head speaks with a rather low-pitched one.

Almost every episode features a new visitor, a la a "villain of the week" formula, who will come to the presumed "vacant" home. These visitors come in a weird variety of characters (mostly humans but can sometimes be pigs, birds, other animals and other aliens). While the credits do not specify who, additional voices include:
 * Jim Cummings
 * Billy West
 * Carlos Alazraqui
 * Rob Paulsen
 * Kevin Michael Richardson
 * Tom Kenny
 * Laraine Newman
 * Frank Welker
 * Kath Soucie
 * Grey DeLisle
 * Tara Strong
 * Susanne Blakeslee
 * Kat Cressida
 * Michelle Layton
 * Jessica DiCicco
 * Jackie Gonneau
 * Sirena Irwin
 * Carolyn Lawrence

Season 1 (1997–98)
All episodes in this season were directed by Thomas Szabó and aired on Saturdays.

Season 2 (2005–06)
All episodes in this season were directed by Olivier Jean-Marie and aired on Fridays.

Stupid Invaders
An adventure game based on Space Goofs named Stupid Invaders was released in 2000–2001 by Ubisoft. It featured crew members from its first season and the voice actors of its English dub as the five aliens, having to go back home in a surreal world, after an infiltration by a bounty hunter named Bolok (voiced by Billy West).

In other media
A film adaptation for the show titled Stupid Invaders was planned, but was never released for reasons unknown – what only remained was a short video posted online. The cast of the original show reprised their roles for the main characters (sans Stereo). It was a CGI-animated adaptation of the show, where the four aliens (Etno, Candy, Gorgious and Bud) have ended up accidentally crash landing into someone else's house. Said house is revealed to be inhabited by an unnamed brunette girl, who gets curious upon her sight of the aliens.

References in other Xilam properties
While a revival has never been considered, the main characters make several cameos in some of Xilam's other TV shows. It should be noted most of these references took place in the mid-2000s, when the second season was airing.
 * In Oggy and the Cockroaches:
 * In earlier seasons, the interior of Oggy's house features a framed picture of main cast of aliens (for the first season). These were removed in the remade episodes.
 * A miniature version of the house for rent is seen and utilized in the episode "Baby Doll" (from its first season) and its remake.
 * The characters also made a cameo in the episode "Night Watchmen" (from its third season), where the titular characters end up transforming into the four aliens (as a gag) in one scene.
 * In Shuriken School: The Ninja's Secret, a picture of Candy is on the cover of Jimmy B.'s manga, Star Attacks, a parody of the Star Wars franchise.
 * In the film, Go West! A Lucky Luke Adventure, a scene featuring Roger and the cockroaches (Dee Dee, Marky and Joey from Oggy) has him mention "monster men", which may be a reference to the show's theme.
 * In The Daltons episode "Le Secret Passage", Candy was one of Joe's transformations in Fort Dalton.