Web Animation / SolarBalls

Astrodude: Ever since I was a little ball, I dreamed of being an astronaut. Years of training and sacrifice, all for this moment. The one everyone always talks about… looking at the Earth from the heavens. They say your perspective on life changes once you see it. If that's true, then—
Earth: Hello, little guy! Welcome to space!
Venus: Hey, Earth! Tell your Earthlings to stop trying to propagate around the solar system like friggin' lice!
Sun: Oh, oh, I wanna see! HELLO, ASTRODUDE!
Astrodude: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHH!

SolarBalls is a web series created by British-Peruvian animator Alvaro Calmet, who also created MrSpherical, Worker Boi, and Human Buddy.

The Series follows Astrodude, an astronaut who goes out into space but little does he know that the planets, moons, etc. can talk and think, just like us. This fact makes him wonder whether he’s going insane or not, as the planets also engage in their own drama.

The whole series is available on the official YouTube channel.

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SolarBalls contains examples of:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Zig-Zagged in the episode “Will Robots conquer Space?” with the Superior Astronaut Replacement, it first appeared to be helpful to Astrodude, but it turns out to be the main antagonist of the episode and had put some sleeping pills in the beef stroganoff, only in a later scene to help Astrodude when his helmet is cracked, which is later revealed to have happened only because S.A.R. doesn’t see humans as a threat.
  • Played straight with the Venera probes in the "Surviving Venus" arc, who, after coming back to life, start chasing Astrodude; shouting "Join us!" in Russian.
• All Just a Dream: The episode “LEGO Planets! (feat. @Bricksane)” is revealed to be a dream that Astrodude’s son had.
• Alliteration & Adventurers: The dwarf planets, Pluto, Haumea, MakeMake, and Eris, along with Charon, one of Pluto’s moons, play “Dungeons and Dwarf Planets”.
• Anachronic Order: Despite the high level of continuity between episodes, release order often deviates significantly from chronological order. Fortunately, the series playlist has the episodes in chronological order.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Sun, particularly in the earlier episodes, as he often has a Slasher Smile and would often threaten planets that if they leave their orbit then he’ll shoot them with solar flares.
  • If you thought that The Sun was bad, Ceres is even worse as he contains all the traits of Sun in the early episodes but without any of the good qualities The Sun has, even the thumbnail of his debut episode, he has a Slasher smile and he is the only character in the entire show whose dialogue only consists of laughter, further establishing himself as crazy.
• Bad Boss: Houston makes Astrodude go on missions with no return date and doesn’t seem to care about his well being.
• Blackmail: In “The Secret of Venus” Earth blackmails Venus into becoming his servant or else he’ll reveal to everyone the meaning of his name.
• Built with LEGO: Most of the episode “LEGO Planets! (feat. @Bricksane)” is made with Lego.
• Cerebus Retcon: In "Why does Saturn have rings?", Uranus jokingly theorizes that he can force his moons to crash into him to expand his rings, with all the moons immediately running away. Later in "The Moons of Uranus", it is revealed that they are still on the run and are very hurt by what he said.
• Characterization Marches On: In the early episodes, The Earth could be described as a jerk who often belittled moons and was even mean to his so called ‘friends’, but in the later episodes he tries to make up for his mistakes and even outright redeems himself in "The Earth's Redemption".
• Edutainment Show: This show is supposed to teach people about the solar system through the lenses of talking planets and other celestial bodies, however as it went on, the show dropped the education part of ‘edutainment’.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone calls Astrodude, well Astrodude even though he has a real name, it’s just unknown what his real name even is.
• Forgetful Jones: Neptune is shown to be quite forgetful, as he couldn’t even remember Pluto right after meeting him!
• Go Mad from the Isolation: While not Ax-Crazy like The Sun and Ceres, Neptune’s odd traits such as his short-term memory were caused by loneliness for 165 years because of his orbit.
• Informed Species: A rare human example, people like Astrodude are stated to be human, but due to the creator's stylistic choices, it's rather hard to see them as humans outside of the hair and clothes.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Earth, while he started off as a jerk to the moons and even his own friends, he actively tries to better himself when he realizes his mistakes.
• Knight Templar: Europa and Ganymede would do anything even if that means killing all life on Earth and attacking Mars and Venus, so the planets would treat them as equals.
• Multi-Part Episode: There are multiple of these such as:
  • Surviving Venus Part 1 and Part 2
  • The Earth Alone Part 1 and Part 2
  • Mission to Titan Part 1 and Part 2
  • The Moons of Jupiter Part 1 and Part 2
  • Exaggerated with The Moon Revolution which has four parts.
  • How to terraform Mars Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
• Nations as People: While they aren’t the main focus like with MrSpherical, Poland Ball characters sometimes appear in scenes that take place on Earth.
• Organ Autonomy: In the episode “What happens if your body is EXPOSED to the Vacuum of Space?”, we seen Astrodude’s organs and like planets, moons, etc., they can talk.
• Origins Episode: The episode “How to become a Space Explorer! (feat. @veritasium)” acts as one for Astrodude as it tells the story about how he became an astronaut.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In “The Moons of Jupiter - Part 2”, Europa’s eyes turn red when she threatens Ganymede if he ever calls another girl babe again, she’ll push him out of his orbit and into deep space.
  • It happens again in "The Battle of the Planets" when Europa tells the other moons to push forward.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The moons, mainly Europa and Ganymede, would do literally anything to win against the planets in The Moon Revolution, even if that means killing all life on Earth.
• Slasher Smile: Both Ax-Crazy characters, The Sun and Ceres have really creepy smiles that represent their personality.
• Special Guest: Some videos have other YouTubers preform as themselves, this includes:
  • Veritasium, in “How to become a Space Explorer!”.
  • Steve Taylor (aka Kurzgesagt), in “What REALLY is a planet?”.
  • ChrisDaCow, in “Is the Universe a Simulation?”.
  • Bricksane, in “LEGO Planets!”
  • Dan Rhodes in “Space is Magic!”
• Suicide for Others' Happiness: The episode “The Earth is heading to the SUN!?” has Earth attempt suicide, thinking that everyone would be better off without him.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: The episode “The Earth is heading to the SUN!?”, has Mercury and The Moon try to talk Earth from committing suicide, which fortunately succeeds.
• War Arc: The Story Arc, ‘The Moon Revolution’ has to do with a war against The Planets and The Moons.
• Yandere: Europa threatens Ganymede if he ever calls another girl babe again, she’ll push him out of orbit and into deep space.

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