SolarBalls - TV Tropes

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!

What do you get when you anthropomorphize the Sun, moons, and planets of our Solar System? You get 'SolarBalls'.

SolarBalls is a web series created by British-Peruvian animator Alvaro Calmet, who also created MrSpherical, WorkerBoi, and HumanBuddy.

The Series originally followed 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 made him wonder whether he’s going insane or not. As the series progresses it turns its focus more on the planets and moons drama and their personal problems and relationships while also exploring the past and possibly future of the Solar System.

The whole series is available on the official YouTube channel.

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SolarBalls contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: As of now, the finale to Triton’s arc has still remained unproduced. Meaning fans are left unclear what the outcome is to Triton learning the truth of where he came from.
• Adults Are Useless: Well, “adult” in loose terms since he’s a star, but Sun, even as the one in charge of the Solar System, had no clue an entire Moon Revolution was happening. A fact he's very much not happy about learning.
• 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, started chasing Astrodude; shouting "Join us!" in Russian.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Mercury with the rocky planets and Uranus with the giant planets both deal with this.
• 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”. Later, Ceres (with Charon interpreting for him) and Triton (who is a former Dwarf Planet) join in as well.
• All There in the Manual: Sometimes extra details on characters or what’s going on in the story will be explained by Alvaro or the other writers through comments left under the Youtube videos, or Alvaro himself dropping into the Solarballs discord.
• Always Someone Better: Venus’s feelings to Earth. In “Where Are ALL the Planets - Part 2” Mercury very explicitly tells Venus to his face that he can tell he’s deeply unhappy with himself and feels like a “failed Earth.”
• 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.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: The main draw of the show itself. The viewers watch the embodiments of our sun, planets, and moons as they orbit our Solar System and the shenanigans and drama they can get into.
• Artistic License – Physics: The ending of "Surviving Venus - Part 2" has a Venera probe on fire. The oxygen concentration on Venus is nowhere near the amount that would allow a fire to burn.
• Artistic License – Space: The show takes a few liberties with its setting. Although most of the facts are correct, some are not.
  • Notably with Planet X, which should be called Planet 9 and is not confirmed to exist.
  • Another factor is that the Moon leaving Earth's orbit won't have a big effect on its axis for about 1000 years. And since Mercury is bigger than the Moon, and Venus is almost as big as Earth itself, they would have a negative effect on the axis.
  • More minor, but Venus' atmosphere is absent except for the Surviving Venus arc and Titan's atmosphere is partly visible when they have been fully seen with their atmospheres in real life.
  • Hyperion claims that he is the largest non-spherical moon in the Solar System. This is false. It's actually Proteus, one of Neptune's moons who is the largest. In fact, he is even bigger than Mimas.
• 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.
• Baffled by Own Biology: Mercury in “Will Mercury Explode” was baffled at the pain coming from his core and thought he was going to explode. Earth explained to him that what he was experiencing was tectonic activity.
• 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.
• Blank White Eyes: All of the characters have this, with very rare occurrences of pupils being shown.
• Blue Is Calm: Majorly subverted, all three blue colored planets (Earth, Uranus, and Neptune) are anything but calm.
• Blue Means Cold: The Solar System’s ice giant planets of Uranus, Neptune and Planet X are all blue because of the frozen methane ice crystals in their atmospheres.
• Built with LEGO: Most of the episode “LEGO Planets! (feat. @Bricksane)” is made with Lego.
• Break the Haughty: Earth had to go through this arc when his Karma Houdini Warranty expired and he found himself alone with all his friends and moon having enough of him. This culminated in Earth almost committing suicide because of the pain of it all. Thankfully this ends with him having a redemption arc and now is a much nicer planet to the others.
• Broken Tears: Happens to Earth twice during both of his Sanity Slippage arcs, when his lowest points have caused him to break down in tears.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Mercury can’t catch a break.
• Calvin Ball: In "What if the Moon Approached the Earth", the Rocky planets admit that they make up the rules for the card game they play as they go along.
• 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.
  • Sun's insistence on the planets staying in their orbit as well as his mentally unstable nature as a whole were initially Played for Laughs. Then "The Big Bang" reveals that he's been suffering from trauma for billions of years due to seeing a star die quickly upon his birth, and is terrified of the damage to the solar system that can be caused if planets leave their orbit, having watched several developing planets be destroyed due to crashing into each other.
  • In 'What if Planets Collide?' after both Venus and Mars explained to Earth about planetary collision and how new planets can be formed, the tone of the video ends on a comedic one when the two, sick of the Earth's jokes, decide to have some payback and ask him where he believes he and his own moon comes from? ^Explanation. Come recent videos making the existence of Proto-Earth and Theia canon, and now the comedy of Earth not knowing what planetary collision is or where Luna came from takes on a more depressing view.
• Cerebus Syndrome: While still a light-hearted comedy show, over time the show has taken on a more serious storyline and character development. What started out as small two-minute edutainment videos now is an episodic continuity with multiple story arcs. This can be seen with Astrodude’s increased Out of Focus involvement within the story as the series focuses more on the planets and moons.
• Character Development: 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."
• Commonality Connection: As Mercury explains to everyone else in the “Solar System Trials,” he truly understands the moons’ feelings since he’s also a small being at the mercy of two others who love tossing him around and mocking him.
• Conflict Ball: The entire arc of Earth leaving his orbit because he learned about Theia and the collision could have all been avoided if the other rocky planets and Luna just listened to him when he outright told them he was losing his mind.
  • Made even worse when it’s confirmed this Sanity Slippage over Theia’s name has happened before so often that even Pluto recognizes it. Meaning the rocky planets have even less of an excuse than before on this happening.
• Convenient Coma: The explanation given for where Astrodude has been after crashing into Luna? He was in a coma for two months!
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Both Mars and Luna have a talk during “The Earth is LEAVING? Part 3” and realize that the current issue of Earth leaving his orbit all could’ve been avoided if they actually listened to him when he told them all he was losing his mind over a revelation.
• Cute and Psycho: Ceres is a small dwarf planet, and he would be more cute if he wasn’t so Ax-Crazy.
• Deadpan Snarker: A lot of characters have their moments, but the best ones throughout the series are Uranus, Callisto, and Ganymede.
• Death of a Child: Horrifically shown in “The Big Bang Part 2” with the reveal of the Grand Tack. Jupiter, not wanting to keep being separated from Saturn, attempts to cross the asteroid belt to be next to him. Tragically, he didn’t understand his importance of keeping to his orbit to keep the still forming rocky planets safe. Thus, his attempt to cross when Sun wasn’t looking led to the forming rocky planets colliding into each other or him, or falling into Sun’s roche limit. These first rocky planets were animated to be exactly like infants. Understandably, Jupiter, Saturn, and Planet X were horrified at the scene.
• Dramatic Irony: Flashbacks reveal that Proto didn’t believe that obtaining life was possible or even something worth getting. Proto is Proto-Earth.
• Edutainment Show: This show teaches people about the solar system through the lenses of talking planets, other celestial bodies, and a lone astronaut.
• Embarrassing First Name: Uranus for well… you know.
  • Venus is embarrassed of his name because of its meaning. (The Roman goddess of beauty and love.) Doesn’t help that when the other rocky planets learn of it they immediately start teasing him.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Planet X’s introduction.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first episode gives us plenty with Astrodude being shown as a family man at heart who’s stuck with a job that keeps him away from his family but he still loves space, Earth and Venus’s contrasting personalities especially when it comes to Earthlings, and Sun’s Ax-Crazy personality that terrifies the planets and moons.
• Establishing Series Moment: The opening of the first episode. Astrodude begins it with an uplifting speech about his backstory and how awe-inspiring seeing Earth from space is, only for said planet to ruin the moment by immediately calling out a welcome to him, freaking out Astrodude. This quickly establishes to the viewers that while there can be nice moments, the series is a comedy at heart. And of course, talking planets.
• 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.
  • As revealed by Earth’s hallucinations, Proto-Earth seemed to go by just Proto.
• Everyone Has Standards: While Venus and Mars were angry at Earth during the Moon Revolution, they still stood by him and refused to help the moons harm him and his lifeforms. They took quite a beating to protect him.
• Eye Colour Change: Sometimes whenever a character is experiencing an extreme emotion of anger, their eyes change color from white to red.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Pluto is often discriminated against by the other rocky planets for being a dwarf planet, this making him upset. He eventually finds other dwarf planets where he learns to appreciate himself, and all the planets learn they should not worry about "meaningless" labels.
  • Earth is shown to view moons as lower beings than planets, this causing the Moon Revolution where all the moons stand up against the planets for being mistreated by them. The moons take it too far by attacking Mars, Venus and Earth, but in the end Earth apologizes, and the moons also learn their actions were not any better.
• Foreshadowing: In "Dungeons and Dwarf Planets", Lord SolarBall (the fantasy version of the Sun) sends goblin-like asteroids to attack the Dwarf Planets' characters. "Planet X Returns! - Part 3" demonstrates that he can use his gravity to fling asteroids at intruders to the Solar System.
• Forgetful Jones: Neptune is shown to be quite forgetful, as he couldn’t even remember Pluto right after meeting him!
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Unlike Theia, nobody seems to remember or care about Proto. Of course, this could be justified if Proto and Earth are the same characters, but if not…
• 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.
• Freud Was Right: When Mars and Venus explain how planetary collision will result in a new planet being formed, Earth’s line of thinking is to immediately connect it to when his Earthlings make babies, much to Mars and Venus’s disgust.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Earth suffers his second Sanity Slippage due to the reveal of Theia and that it was a collision that formed his current self and Luna.
  • As revealed by Venus during “The Solar System is EMPTY? - Part 2” this isn’t the first time Earth experiences this by the name dropping of Theia.
• Incoming Ham: Sun’s first line in the series readily shows Astrodude (and the audience) what kinda character he is.

Sun: Oh oh I wanna see! [suddenly screaming] HELLO ASTRODUDE!

• 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.
• Improbably Quick Coma Recovery: Astrodude was in a coma for over two months, and yet he was quickly able to get out of bed and soon run around and fly off in a spaceship.
• 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 and ultimately succeeds.
• 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.
• Light Is Not Good: In the Dungeons and Dwarf Planets episodes, the dwarf planets play a tabletop game where the Sun is one of the main villains.

  Lord SolarBall: TREMBLE IN FEAR BEFORE MY SCARY BRIGHT LIGHTS AND SOLAR FLARES, AND ALL THE OTHER STUFF THAT HAPPENS OUTSIDE THE KUIPER BELT!

  • Though in all fairness, the actual Sun isn't much better.
• Love Triangle: As revealed by Mercury in an argument to Venus, this happened in the early Solar System. Venus was in love with Theia, but even though he wanted to achieve life just like her, she chose Proto over him. It’s still left unclear what made her pick Proto, considering the two interactions we see of them they don’t seem to get along.
• Multi-Part Episode: Has now become a staple of the series.
• Meaningful Rename: In the beginning of the series our moon just went by “Earth’s Moon” or even just “Moon,” but during the Moon Revolution decided to start going by Luna to distinguish himself as an individual.
• Morality Pet: Oddly enough, Charon is this for Ceres.
  • Theia is seemingly set up to be this for the entire Solar System, the fact that Sun didn’t even want to talk about her clues us into this.
• 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.
  • The “Big Bang” arc of three episodes acts as this for Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Planet X and briefly shows Uranus and Neptune.
• Out of Focus: Has happened over time in the series with Astrodude, as the series shifted focus onto the planets and moons. A total of three episodes were focused on him after months of his absence, and even then it took even more months for him to be back into the series.
• Papa Wolf: While he’s getting disillusioned by them, Earth still cares very deeply for his Earthlings and will be upset if any other planet or object hurts them. When it seemed like Venus killed Astrodude, Earth refused to talk to him and called him an “Earthling Killer,” and the moons’ grand plan to hurt Earth was to kill them off as payback over what he said. Word of God has confirmed that Earth views his Earthlings as his children.
• Planet X: He’s one of the characters of the series.
• Poor Communication Kills: A majority of the problems in the show can be pointed at this issue. You’d think being billions of years old, the planets and moons (and star) would know how to talk to each other.
• Previously on…: Since the arc episodes have started, each video now begins with this as a narrator explains what is happening so far.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: After Sun banishes Ganymede and Europa in the finale of the “Solar System Trials” he’s portrayed as the one in the complete wrong with everyone, including Earth, stand up against him calling it too far to banish the two. This is despite the fact that they planned on wiping out all life on Earth, even after he apologized, and still don’t feel sorry for trying.
• Put on a Bus: Happens to Astrodude after he crashes on Dark Side of the Moon. In-story reason why is because he was in a coma for two months following said crash.
  • Dark Side of the Moon himself is going through this. As of now, there’s even been a story arc with his name in the title and he still doesn’t show up once.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Seen with Europa, Sun, and now Venus. When a character’s eyes turn red, it’s a warning that their anger is taking over.
• Red Is Violent: Venus hides his pearly white atmosphere, so his character is that of his reddish-orange surface. He’s also the most hot-headed character in the series.
• Rejected Apology: Even after Earth apologizes to Titan and the other moons over how he behaved, Europa and Ganymede still try to kill his lifeforms.
• The Resenter: Planet X towards Jupiter.
• Revenge by Proxy: The moons’ grand plan during their revolution was to kill all lifeforms on Earth as payback over what he said about them. This is because it was to, “knock him off his pedestal,” despite the fact that Earthlings themselves didn’t do anything to them and were innocent.
• 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.
• RPG Episode: Dungeons and Dwarf Planets.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Triton attempts to do this when the Moon Revolution’s final plan is happening, but stops when he recognizes that he just can’t leave the other Neptunian moons behind.
• Sentient Cosmic Force: The four forces of the Universe (Strong Nuclear Force, Electromagnetism, Weak Nuclear Force, and Gravity) all make appearances throughout the show.
• Shipper on Deck: Phobos and Deimos were like this when it came to Titan and Titania.
• Sinister Sentient Sun: The Sun commonly embodies this. On top of being Ax-Crazy he also rules the solar system with an iron fist, often forcing the planets and moons to participate in activities that only he finds enjoyable. He also threatened to destroy the other characters during his Red Giant phase at one point.
• Skewed Priorities: Sun, upon learning that his entire Solar System is empty (minus Mercury and Venus), makes his first priority to replace Earth with another planet to have life in the system. Despite the fact that he knows Earth doesn’t do well physically outside of his orbit.
• Shapeshifting: Neptune has this ability to change the shape of his body. Much to the disturbance of Uranus.
• 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!”
• Stealth Pun: At the end of "Are Aliens Among Us? - Part 2", after AstroDude's ship crash-lands on Luna's dark side, Luna hums the chorus of Pink Floyd's "Breathe." The name of the song's album? "The Dark Side of the Moon".
• 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. This leads to-
• 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.
• Test of Trivia: In the Battle of Planet X episodes, the moons challenge Planet X to a series of rounds after Planet X replaced Jupiter, if the moons win then they get Jupiter back. Round 2 involves the contenders being told descriptions, then they have to correctly answer which celestial body fits that description and what its radius is.
• There Are No Therapists: Subverted when Mercury took on the role of being a therapist for Earth after his attempted suicide. But come more recent episodes, especially when Mercury calls Earth’s attempt a “stunt”, and it becomes apparent that none of the planets or moons can qualify for a therapist, who is very much needed in this dysfunctional group.
• Token Evil Teammate: While not “evil” per say, Venus is definitely the rudest of the rocky planets and tends to enjoy tormenting and mocking the others, especially Mercury.
• Token Human: While there are other humans in the series, other than Astrodude they all stay on Earth. Astrodude to date is the only human to interact with and know about the Genius Loci situation going on.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After the Moon Revolution arc, Titan went down this path in refusing to acknowledge his involvement in the revolution and place all the blame for it on Ganymede and Europa. The other moons don’t buy it.
• Trauma Button: Multiple characters have this. As of now for Sun it’s collisions, for Earth it’s about his dinosaurs for obvious reasons, and for everyone in the Solar System (minus the moons) it’s any mention of Theia.
• Un-person: Sun, believing that Planet X willingly left the Solar System, was so furious at the perceived betrayal he outright banned any talks about him to Jupiter and Saturn. This is why Planet X didn’t just come right back after the two gas giants’ combined gravity stopped pushing him away, he knew he wouldn’t be welcomed back without support.
  • Downplayed and justified when it comes to Theia. It’s not that they want to avoid talking about her, it’s just that everyone recognizes that every time it happens Earth has an episode involving a Sanity Slippage.
• Unrequited Love: Venus towards Theia. Sadly for him, she picked someone else.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Both Neptune and Astrodude take this role when it comes to the Moon Revolution. Neptune for asking where Saturn got his rings, and Astrodude giving an answer to said question.
• Umbrella Drink: Earth has one as he was blackmailing Venus. It’s never explained what he, as a planet, was drinking.
• Verbal Backpedaling: Venus does this when his attempts to convince Earth to stop trying to find out who Theia is fail to work and only make Earth more suspicious.
• Walking Spoiler: Planet X, Proto-Earth, and Theia.
• War Arc: The Story Arc, ‘The Moon Revolution’ has to do with a war against The Planets and The Moons.
• Wham Line: Jupiter drops a big one in "What If We Replaced Jupiter Part 3,":

  Jupiter: After I destroyed the rocky planets, I did everything I could to protect the new ones. Venus, Mars, The Earth, Mercury... even poor Theia.

  • Another one is dropped in "Jupiter is Back Part 2":

  Theia: Ugh! You can be SUCH a jerk, Proto!

• What the Hell, Hero?: Titan repeatedly is faced with these kinds of callouts when after the revolution he tries solely pinning the blame onto Ganymede and Europa as if he didn’t quickly go along with their plan of trying to commit a mass extinction on the innocent Earthlings.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The “Big Bang” arc as a whole, which shows the formation of Sun and the Solar System, plus the beginnings of the giant planets.
• Would Hurt a Child: Planet X had no issues with doing asteroid dodgeball against the moons, even though all of them were not only minuscule compared to him, but many have the mentality of young children.
• Yandere: Europa threatens Ganymede if he ever calls another girl babe again, she’ll push him out of orbit and into deep space.
• Zerg Rush: Basically the moon revolutions final plan. Have almost all of the giants’ moons (of which there are hundreds) to hit Earth with an asteroid in order to wipe out his life.

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