So Much For Rules: The Zany Sports Massacre of Space Jam (1996)

In 1996, a young 13-year-old me didn’t so much drag my family to see as convince them by osmosis that this would be the most important film of our lives. In retrospect, I was wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that of the animated films for kids in the 90s, Space Jam had a surprising impact. It earned $230mil worldwide on an $80mil budget in an era before one expected a blockbuster film to near or break the $1bil mark. And it spawned new merchandise and even its own video game (not exactly surprising for the era, but still a fun fact).

While folks today look back at the film with humorous horror, critics of the day didn’t exactly hate it. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel both gave it a thumbs up. Leonard Maltin in his 2010 movie guide praised Michael Jordan’s performance and the understandably impressive visual effects for the time. Others were more critical, such as Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones, who apparently did hate it and whose views are understandable given he directed numerous Warner Bros. productions and gave us Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1975)! Meanwhile, 1996 me, a most esteemed critic, would have told you that we repeatedly rented and eventually owned the VHS to Space Jam, and we played it quite a lot.

Today, its present Rotten Tomatoes critics score hovers around 43%, and if you ask people who have seen the film what they think, a good chunk will jump into glorious jokes about how ridiculous it is. A film about wacky cartoon characters convincing a professional basketball player to help them beat souped-up cartoon aliens from an evil capitalist empire run by green-ified Danny DeVito. Who would have thought such a thing could be so bananas.

On top of those critical accolades (and detractions), the film is also infamous for its long-lived 90s website and its delicious (yes, delicious) soundtrack, perhaps even more so than for the film itself. If you were born in the 80s, then you can probably blame this film for the fact that you know the lyrics to Seal’s rendition of Steve Miller Band’s “ Fly Like an Eagle” or R. Kelly’s “ I Believe I Can Fly” or, shocking as it seems, the actual theme song to space jam by Quad City DJ’s. Everybody get up. It’s time to slam now. We gotta real jam goin’ down. Welcome to the space jam. Here’s your chance, do your dance at the…