9 Chapter Nine: Space Jam (1996)
It’s nearly impossible to sum up Space Jam and the ripples it sent through the world of sports and entertainment in a single book. A lone chapter in a book won’t come close to doing it justice. Released in November of 1996, Space Jam became a worldwide phenomenon and grossed more than $250 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing basketball film at the box office for nearly 30 years until 2022 when it was surpassed by the The First Slam Dunk, a Japanese animated film written and directed by Takehiko Inoue and based on his popular manga series, Slam Dunk.
Released six years after Michael Jordan’s Playground, Jordan had already made his Hollywood debut (even if no one really noticed it) and had gotten comfortable in front of the camera. He was as natural on the silver screen as he was on 94 feet of hardwood. Definitely more natural than he was in the batter’s box of the Double-A baseball stadiums he had been playing in in 1994 as a member of the Birmingham Barons in the Chicago White Sox farm system following his first retirement from the game of basketball.
Jordan’s baseball career served as one of the main plot points of entry for Space Jam, a picture with one of the more fantastical plots of any Hollywood feature in the 1990s. Facing intergalactic enslavement, the Looney Tunes must call on Michael Jordan to help them win a basketball game, and also their freedom, against a ragtag group of aliens who stole the talent of the best players in the NBA, and, oh yeah, the main villain is voiced by Danny Devito.
In no world, solar system, or galaxy, should this film have worked, and yet, it worked perfectly, and it also changed the film industry forever.
Space Jam came out 27 years before Air, but it was made more than a decade after the events of Air was based on took place. And the opening minutes of the film are in direct conversation with the monologue Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro delivers to Michael and his parents in the Nike boardroom. Space Jam opens with 10-year-old Jordan (portrayed by Brandon Hammond) shooting midnight hoops at his family’s home in Wilmington during the summer of 1973. “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly plays in the background. It’s important to note at the time that 1) this song was written specifically for the movie and 2) it was years before we came to understand R. Kelly for the monster that he is.
Michael’s beloved father James Jordan, portrayed by Thom Barry, steps outside to suggest in a fatherly way that midnight may not be the most appropriate time for getting buckets and all the noise that comes with it. When the younger Jordan asks for one more shot, his father relents and eventually allows his son to shoot until he misses.
Michael then alternates buckets with declaring his plans for greatness to his father.
“I wanna play at North Carolina.”
Cash
“I wanna play on the championship team.”
Money
“Then I wanna play in the NBA!”
Bank, swish, and bottoms.
Clearly proud of the ambition on display by his young son, Mr. Jordan suggests before doing all of that it might be wise to get a little sleep first. Never one to be satisfied without getting the last word, Michael informs his father that “once I’ve done all that, I wanna play baseball just like you, Dad.”
“Baseball!” Mr. Jordan responds. “Now that’s a sport. When you’re finished with that, I suppose you’re gonna fly, huh?”
10-year-old Jordan mulls this over. He looks away from his father towards the basket. The rim, hanging 10-feet above the ground is calling to him, to try something he’s never dared to try before. The kid puts the ball on the ground, he takes one dribble, two, three, and then gathers himself to jump higher than he’s ever jumped before. High enough to reach a height most men only dream about. He flies towards the hoop in slow motion. Zack Snyder doesn’t have a directorial credit on Space Jam, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he directed this scene in secret.
When he gets a couple steps away from the hoop, young Jordan kicks off the pavement and leaps from the ground, his arms stretching with the ball in hand, reaching for an infinity he didn’t yet know, but would come to know soon.
It’s a quick scene, exactly two and a half minutes before it’s interrupted by the opening credits, but it’s ground zero for understanding Michael Jordan and the idea of fantasy. It’s structured almost exactly the same as Michael Jordan’s Playground. An elder on one side of the court, passing the ball to an apprentice on the other, daring them to believe. 10-year-old Jordan in Space Jam is quite a bit different from Walt in Michael Jordan’s Playground. He has a plan and he has no problem believing in it, whereas Walt is contemplating the idea of basketball being something he’s forced to do alone forever. Both young men are at different points in their respective journeys, but both are clearly reaching for something beyond their grasp and are finding the inspiration to reach just a little bit further in the sanctuary of a basketball court.
Rewatching Space Jam today, it’s easy to dismiss it as an easy Hollywood cash grab given the silliness of the plot. Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting that definitely happened where some Warner Brothers exec definitely said “How about if a group of aliens led by Danny Devito kidnap the talent of five NBA all-stars in an effort to try and enslave Bugs Bunny and all of his friends, but then Michael Jordan saves the day?”
“Is that all?” Someone had to have asked.
“Don’t worry. Bill Murray’s in it too.”
It’s an absurd movie in so many ways, but it does have more than a few feathers in its cap and deserves praise for a number of achievements. Live-action/animation hybrid films were not commonplace in 1996, and those elements of the film are nearly flawless. For Jordan to share the silver screen with Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes and look natural doing it took a ton of brilliance in pre and post-production. Both Bill Murray as a version of himself who believes he could play in the NBA as a 45-year-old, and Wayne Knight as Jordan’s jovial publicist deliver fantastic comedic acting performances. Jordan’s performance doesn’t quite suggest that acting is his day job, but his acting chops did grow considerably in the time between Michael Jordan’s Playground and Space Jam.
The real triumph of the film and its greatest gift to the popular culture zeitgeist of the 90s is by far the soundtrack. “I Believe I Can Fly,” which won three Grammys, goes right into the opening credit title song “Space Jam,” by the Quad City DJ’s, which went straight to the Billboard Hot 100 and into our heads for the ensuing 10 years. “For You I Will” by Monica was another popular music hit written specifically for the soundtrack. The most forgettable track on the record is Bugs Bunny’s hip-hop debut with a rap called “Buggin’,” but not even Bugs could prevent the soundtrack from selling enough copies to be certified as 6-times Platinum.
The soundtrack’s biggest achievement is its ode to the villains of the film. “Hit Em High (Monstars Anthem)” performed by quintet of rappers B-Real, Coolio, Method Man, LL Cool J, and Busta Rhymes, representing the five NBA players who had their talent stolen by the alien invasion. It’s as good as any movie specific song that’s ever been written. I still remember the first time I heard it when I got my hands on a copy of the soundtrack. It was track No. 5, which followed “I Believe I Can Fly” and all of its hopefulness at No. 4. The last few notes of “I Believe I Can Fly” lingered on the speakers of my very 90s bedroom CD player, and then Coolio, in his best alien voice, announced, “Greeting, Earthling, we have now taken over your radiooooooooooohhhhoooooooohhhh.”
A very jarring musical experience for a nine-year-old. An experience I’ve clearly never forgotten and one that fostered my already blossoming love of hip-hop (in yet another essay for another day, I contend that LL Cool J’s verse on “Hit Em High” is the best verse of his entire career).
Space Jam blurred the lines between reality and fantasy in cutting-edge ways and ended up as a film to stand the test of time. Any history about films of the 1990s is incomplete without its conclusion.
In terms of reality in its realest form, the set of Space Jam is well known in basketball circles to be home to some of the greatest pickup basketball that’s ever been played. The Warner Brothers set was known simply as “The Jordan Dome,” and in the summer of 1995 a better game of basketball couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world. Jordan insisted on the set including a full gym and a full court so he could stay in shape. At this point he was in the middle of his comeback from his baseball hiatus. His late-season return propelled the Bulls to the Eastern Conference Semifinals where they fell to Shaquille O’Neal, Penny Hardaway, former Bull Horace Grant, and the Orlando Magic. Another member of that very talented Magic team, a team that should have won championships, was Nick Anderson, an uber talented shooting guard who would be remembered more for said talent if he wasn’t also guilty of one of the most egregious incidents of someone poking the bear in the history of basketball.
After stripping Jordan of the ball and forcing a key steal to help the Magic win Game One of the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals, Anderson said, “No. 45 doesn’t explode like No. 23 used to. No. 45 is not No. 23. I couldn’t have done that to No. 23.”
“No. 45” refers to the number Jordan wore for a total of 22 games after his return to the NBA. It symbolized a fresh start. Jordan’s father, James Jordan, had been murdered after the Bulls won the 1993 championship, and Michael didn’t feel right suiting up in the No. 23 when his father had been there to see every single game with the No. 23 across his chest. Michael wore No. 45 in high school and opted to wear it in the White Sox minor league system when he pivoted to baseball in 1994. When Jordan ultimately returned to the Bulls, returned to basketball, it was 45, and not 23 stamped in red and black on the torso of the G.O.A.T.
It looked weird. You can’t blame Anderson for saying something about it, and yet, you can absolutely blame Anderson for saying something about it.
The Magic went onto win the series, with Michael wearing the No. 23 and paying a $25,000 fine for a uniform violation for the next five games of the series, but Anderson did not realize the long-term damage he caused by suggesting the Michael Jordan playing in the ‘95 playoffs was anything less than the real Michael Jordan. In Michael Jordan storytelling, it is usually Jordan himself concocting the fantasy, but Nick Anderson inadvertently authored his own chapter by telling a fantasy about Jordan in order to win the ‘95 Eastern Conference Semis.
It worked in the short term, but in the long run, it only woke up the scariest of sleeping giants who ever touched a basketball.
