You’ve got to hand it to George Lucas, the guy must have been raised on a dairy farm cuz he sure knows how to milk something.

The man is well known, and Indiana Jones and Star Wars are his biggest producers to date, but you have to wonder if he can do anything else. Nearly everything Lucas has been associated with over the last 25 years has been directly or indirectly associated with, wait for it..., Indiana Jones or Star Wars, and not all of it is great.

One of Lucas’s latest high profile movies, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, came away with mediocre reviews, but made a bunch of money nonetheless. Now a new TV series based on the characters in The Clones Wars movie is ready for airing on Cartoon Network every Friday night (9PM est).

I didn’t see The Clone Wars, but some of my friends did and said it was OK, but it would have been better if it weren’t for a annoying new character, Ahsoka Tano, who, I’ve heard, whines throughout the movie.

I can see how that would annoy me. I hate whining, even when I do it.

Anyway, to drum up interest in the new Clone Wars TV series, The Cartoon Network is offering a preview, which you can download and watch for free from the iTunes Store. The preview is hosted by Ashley Eckstein, who just happens to be the voice of Ahsoka Tano.

Probably not the best choice given how poorly her character caught on with fans, but Ashley does a good job hosting the show and it is kind of cool seeing how all of the animation gets created, and the interviews will satisfy any fan.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series Preview is a good diversion, but if you REALLY want a diversion check out Spaceballs: The Animated Series.

OK, I didn’t say it would be a good diversion. If listening to Ahsoka Tano whine is annoying to you then maybe listening to lame, poorly timed jokes told by sadly animated characters from a has-been comedy is bound to be an improvement. Or not.

Spaceballs, for those of you who may not know, was a corny farce patterned roughly after the original Star Wars movie, before it was called A New Hope. Spaceballs was the creation of Mel Brooks, the same guy who brought you Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein (pronounced: Fraun-ken-Steen).

Back in the day when Spaceballs, the Movie was first shown it became a cult classic. I seem to remember the humor being better timed and there was significantly less bouncing breasts than what appears in the animated series. Not that I have anything against bouncing breasts, but watching animated ones bounce quickly loses its charm, if it had any to begin with. This is obviously not a cartoon intended for preteen girls with self-image problems.

Just watching the animation becomes annoying too. (Which may account for the breast problem). The 2D figures are coarsely articulated in kind of the same way old Flintstones cartoons were, where the body stood still and the head bobbed up and down when the character was talking. In Spaceballs: The Animated Series, however, the animators tried to make the characters move more convincingly by moving more parts. The end result, unfortunately, makes the whole thing look silly and hard to watch.

The voice work approximates those of the original characters, but you can tell something’s not quite right. For instance, Barf, the Wookie wannabe played by the long gone and sorely missed John Candy in the movie is now unconvincingly done by Tino Insana. In fact, the only voice present in the series that was in the movies is Mel Brooks, and even he doesn’t sound like himself.

The other episode of Spaceballs: The Animated Series is supposed to parody other popular movies the same way Spaceballs: The Movie did Star Wars. If the two free pilot episodes, available at the iTunes Store, are any indication of what’s to come then I’d rather spend my time a bit more constructively. (I think I have a sock drawer that needs organizing...)

Download the first free episode of Spaceballs: The Animated Series. Maybe you’ll like it enough to grab the second free episode. You never know.

Now, if you really want to watch something funny check out The Sarah Silverman Show (Program?). I’m a fan of Ms. Silverman. She’s fresh, funny, insightful, and cute as a button.

If you’re not familiar with Ms. Silverman or her work, now is as good a time as any to get acquainted. The iTunes Store is offering a sneak peek of a Silverman send-up of a fictitious country band, The Loeb Trotters.

It’s silly in a typical Silverman way and well worth the time and effort to grab it. So grab it.

Before I end this I would like to point you to an iPhone app that is just rocks my socks off. I speak of Tap Tap Revenge.

I’m sure most of you savvy iPhoners already have this free app loaded up, but those of you who don’t are missing out.

Tap Tap Revenge is a Guitar Hero-like game where you tap the screen as the moving dots scroll down in time with the music that’s playing. All the music is original and quite good -- and the game is as addicting as gambling, but cost less and won’t brake your bank account. (There’s enough of that going on already.)

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch you need to have Tap Tap Revenge.

OK, that’s it for this week. Be sure to check out more free stuff at the iTunes Store, shown below, with direct links.

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.