Baseball + Outerspace = Spaceballs 🤩

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The Ten News: Season 4, Episode 21

Today on The Ten News ⚾ Baseball Breakdown: from the 2023 World Series champs to superstitions and curses about the game with sports correspondent, Kenny Curtis 🍿 A peak at the Star Wars parody and one of Ryan's favorite movies, Spaceballs ☄️ Plus, five out-of-this-world facts about Bennu, an asteroid that scientists have been tracking since 1999! 🧑‍🚀 And, on the trivia throne: what does NASA stand for?

Resources

• https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/01/sport/world-series-rangers-diamondbacks-game-5-winner

• https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/parody

• https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/ten-things-to-know-about-bennu/

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TRANSCRIPT:

INT. TEN NEWS STUDIO

RYAN: (whispers) Pamela. I have an amazing idea.

PAM: (whispers) What’s the idea, Ry?

RYAN: (whispers) Kap said I could do another favorite things episode. So we’re going to cover Space and Baseball…

PAM: (whispers) Oooooh! I love both of those too! But why are we whispering?

RYAN: (whispers) Because I can combine them into… (stops whispers) SPACEBALLS! <SFX Spaceballs Song> 

PAM: Oh boy. 

RYAN: Spaceballs also happens to be one of my favorite movies. 

PAM: I’ve never seen that movie…

RYAN: Sweet fancy Yogurt. It’s time to live and learn, Pamela.

PAM: Game on, should we start the show?

RYAN: LUDICROUS SPEED. GO! I’m Ryan Willard.

PAM: And I’m Pamela Kirkland. It’s Thursday, November 9th.

RYAN: This is the Ten News.

INT. SNACK ROOM - DAY

RYAN: Pam, I gotta be honest, I’m pretty sad that baseball is over. But man, what a season that was!

PAM: I know, right? The Texas Rangers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series, 4 games to 1, and became champions for the first time in their 63 season, franchise history. 

RYAN: And Major League Baseball’s rule changes had a major league impact on the game. The average length of each game 2 hours and 39 minutes, which is 24 minutes shorter than 2022’s games and 30 minutes shorter than 2021. Home Runs, batting averages, runs scored and stolen bases all saw significant increases with the MLB’s new rules. 

PAM: And attendance for the 2023 MLB season increased by 9.6% this season, over the last. But one thing that hasn’t changed about baseball is–

RYAN: Really tight pants?

PAM: haha yup. That and… superstitions and curses. I’m gonna toss the ball to our sports correspondent, Kenny Curtis to give us the rundown. 

PAM: Thank you Kenny, (PAM reacts to segment)

RYAN: Okay, have YOU ever heard of the movie Spaceballs? It’s a parody of Star Wars. A parody is “an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.” A parody is basically making an imitation of something and doing it in a ridiculous way. And in the United States, parody is protected by the 1st Amendment as a form of expression, and people making parodies rely on the Fair Use exception, which protects them against copyright claims. So now that you know what a parody is, I’m curious, how would you parody the Ten News? Give us a call at 877-TEN-NEWS and leave us a message with how you would, and we might just have you on the show!

RYAN: I’m a little obsessed with space. And we just got some big news from an ancient meteorite. The Bennu asteroid was first discovered in 1999 and scientists have been collecting data on it ever since. 

PAM: Nasa just got their first sample back from the ancient asteroid called Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx is part of a seven year long voyage to deliver samples of the asteroid back to Earth. The mission promises to bring the largest amount of extraterrestrial material brought back from space since the Apollo era.

RYAN: Here are five fascinating facts we know about the asteroid: #1: Bennu is very, very dark. It’s classified as a B-type asteroid, which means it contains a lot of carbon, as well as various minerals. Its carbon content creates a surface on the asteroid that reflects about 4% of the light that hits it, which isn’t very much. For comparison, Earth reflects about 30% of incoming sunlight. 

PAM: #2: It’s very, very old. Bennu has been pretty much undisturbed for billions of years. Scientists calculated that Bennu formed in the first 10 million years of our solar system’s history…over 4.5 BILLION years ago. 

RYAN: #3: Bennu is basically a space artifact, just hanging out up there. Because it’s soooo old, it could be made of material containing molecules that were present when life first formed on Earth. 

PAM: #4: The first samples of Bennu showed abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals. Which means minerals like these might’ve landed on Earth 4.5 billion years ago, which could’ve been what helped make Earth a habitable planet. 

RYAN: #5: Bennu was named after an ancient Egyptian deity. A nine year old boy from North Carolina won the Name That Asteroid! Competition by suggesting that the spacecraft’s Touch and Go Sample Mechanism arm and solar panels resembled the neck and wings in illustrations of Bennu, whom ancient Egyptians usually depicted as a gray heron. Bennu is the ancient Egyptian deity linked with the Sun, creation and rebirth.

PAM: That was five fascinating facts about the asteroid, Bennu. We’ll keep you posted when we hear more about what Nasa discovers from the samples! If you haven’t already figured it out… Spaceballs is one of my favorite movies. It was written and directed by the great Mel Brooks and follows a character named Lonestarr, who’s basically Luke Skywalker and Han Solo put together. Lonestarr and his sidekick, Barf, go on a quest to rescue Princess Vespa and save the universe from the evil Spaceballs, who are led by Lord Dark Helmet. 

PAM: Sounds like a silly, dodgy version of Star Wars, right? Yeah, that’s exactly what a parody is. And this film is probably my favorite example of a parody. Instead of Jabba, there’s Pizza the Hutt and instead of Yoda, it’s a small green man named Yogurt. And instead of the Force, it’s the Schwartz. 

RYAN: I know, I know, it’s ridiculous. But if you like the original Star Wars trilogy. You’ll have a lot of laughs watching. Oh and of course, be sure to check with your grownups to see if they think it’s okay for you to watch. 

OWEN:  Welcome to the Trivia Room!

PAM: Hello Mr. Owen. 

OWEN: Hey Pam! So nice to see you. 

PAM: I needed to get away from Ryan, he won’t stop quoting that movie Spaceballs!

OWEN: Well you’re always welcome to hide in here. Do you want to hop up on the Trivia Throne today?

PAM: I’d love to!

OWEN: We’ve talked a lot today about space, and here in the US the people we rely on as our experts are known as NASA. But do you know what NASA stands for? 

OWEN: Is it:

1. National Association of Space Allies

2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration OR

3. National Administration of Scary Aliens

PAM: Oooooh, I think I know this one…it’s B! 

OWEN: <SFX drumroll> The answer is… B! Nasa stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was founded when President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. NASA is an independent agency of the US federal government and is responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research and space research!

PAM: (Sigh) I’ve always wanted to go to space camp. Maybe one day!

OWEN: I would definitely join you. Hey Ten’ers, do you want to join me in the Trivia room and drop some hot knowledge? Visit The Ten News Dot Com Slash Contact to get in touch, and we might have you on the show!

<sfx shimmer/shine fades and door closes>

RYAN: Pam, I think I just need to go to Mars. 

PAM: That’s your takeaway from everything?

RYAN: Yeah, I just think me and space would really vibe. I’m going to look into going there.  

PAM: We should probably give Ten News Snaps to one of our listeners before you do.

RYAN: You’re right. But before that, here’s a quick note for the grownups. 

RYAN: Time for Ten News Snaps! <Grand fanfare SFX>

PAM: A Ten’er named George left us this review on Apple Podcasts and said: “I think that this podcast is awesome, but I didn’t like the episode called Israel and Hamas because it is scary.”

RYAN: Thank you George! That definitely was a scary episode and it is still a scary situation. But we’re doing our best to keep you, our Ten’ers, cool, kind and informed. So thanks for listening to the Ten News. Ten Things You Need to Know drops every Tuesday and our in-depth reports drop every Thursday. And if you want some bonus content, you could join the Ten’ers Club on our website or on Apple Podcasts.

PAM: “The Ten News” is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts, and part of the Airwave Podcast Network.

RYAN: The Ten News creative team is figuring out how to get to Mars and includes Tracey Crooks, Logan DeYoung, Corinne Catibayan, Carson Potter, and Chad Chenail. Big thanks to Owen for contributing to this episode. 

PAM: Our Production Director is Jeremiah Tittle, and our Executive Producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. 

RYAN: I’m Ryan Willard 

PAM: And I’m Pamela Kirkland; thanks for listening to The Ten News.