Space Jam

Space jam. Dir. Joe Pytka. Perf. Michael Jordan, Bill Murray, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird. Warner Home Video, 1996. VHS.

 

            Space Jam combines two great things of American entertainment, a sports superstar and funny cartoons. Space Jam combines the real world and the world of Looney Tunes. Michael Jordan has just retired from basketball for the first time and is trying his hand at baseball. But things aren’t going so well for him in the minor leagues. In the Looney Tune world a group of small aliens from an intergalactic amusement park arrive to take the Looney Tunes back to their world to be slaves and work in the amusement park forever.  The small aliens’ boss is very demanding and cruel to his alien workers and sent them to capture the Looney Tunes. The Looney Tunes meet and decide to challenge these aliens to a game of basketball because the aliens are very small in size. Then the aliens go to a professional basketball game and steal the powers from various NBA all stars. The aliens grow very tall after and the Looney Tunes transport Michael Jordan to help them win. After being convinced to play Michael sends Bugs and Daffy to go and retrieve his basketball gear. After a miserable first half of the game Michael gives them some his drink and even though it was just water, they thought it was what made Michael so good at basketball. The Tune squad turned it around in the second half and ended up beating the aliens and retained their freedom.

 

            Space Jam was really the pioneer for making sports entertainment movies. This combined a NBA All star with a very popular cartoon series. This is one of my all time favorite movies because I love basketball and the Looney Tunes, what could be better. This showed how popular both Michael Jordan and basketball was in the 1990’s. It also was the start of how important sports are in our culture today. This is a classic movie that many people still love today and one of the greatest children’s movies of all time in my opinion. This movie paved the way for movies like ‘Like Mike’, ‘Glory Road’, and ‘Thunderstruck’. It also was the first very popular basketball movie released in theaters. I really enjoy this movie and the great importance it provided in establishing the sports movies and the enjoyment it brought to children to see Michael Jordan dunking on aliens.