Hardware Wars

Hardware Wars
Counterclockwise from top left: Fluke Starbucker, Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster, Ham Salad, and Augie "Ben" Doggie.
Directed by	Ernie Fosselius
Produced by	Ernie Fosselius Michael Wiese
Written by	Ernie Fosselius
Starring	Scott Mathews Cindy Furgatch (aka Cindy Freeling) Jeff Hale Bob Knickerbocker Frank Robertson
Narrated by	Paul Frees
Music by	Richard Wagner
Cinematography	John V. Fante Michael Wiese
Distributed by	Pyramid Films "20th Century Foss"
Release date	October 16, 1978
Running time	13 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8,000

Hardware Wars is a 1978 short film parody of a teaser trailer for the science fiction film Star Wars. The thirteen-minute film, which was released almost 18 months after Star Wars, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original. The theme song is Richard Wagner's famous "Ride of the Valkyries". The tagline was "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss three bucks goodbye."

The film begins with the text "Meanwhile — in another part of the galaxy — later that same day". A household steam iron flies through space, fleeing a toaster, which fires toast at it. Two robots named 4-Q-2 (who looks like the Tin Man from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz) and Arty-Deco (a canister vacuum cleaner), escape from the evil Empire. After launching from the ship (a cassette player) in an escape pod (a cassette tape), they land on a desert planet (a watermelon). They are found by young Fluke Starbucker (played by future multi-platinum award-winning music producer Scott Mathews) who finds a video message saved on Arty-Deco. It is a loop of Princess Anne-Droid saying "Help me, Augie Ben Doggie, you're my only hope." Upon meeting Augie "Ben" Doggie (of the venerable Red-Eye Knights), Fluke receives his father's lightsaber (a flashlight). After tricking the Imperial Steam Trooper guards (steam cabinets) to let them into the city, they reach a cantina, which Fluke describes as "too weird". The cantina is a country-and-western bar, where they meet space renegade Ham Salad and Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster (a puppet that resembles Cookie Monster from Sesame Street). Meanwhile, the villainous Darph Nader is interrogating the Princess. When she refuses to talk (mainly because she can't understand him; his speech is muffled by his welder's mask), he destroys her peaceful home planet, Basketball.