In his book Wonderful Life, the eminent paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote about the powerful role played by historical contingency in the evolution of life on Earth. Basically, it’s the recognition that every single evolutionary change is informed by a billion changes that have already happened. Therefore, every single thing that exists does so as the endpoint of an unfathomable cascade of events stretching back to the beginning of time. It is through this lens through which Space Jam (1996) is best appreciated.
To be sure, Space Jam is a bizarre, singular creation. It starts with a premise that is utterly untenable: Evil aliens try to enslave the Looney Tunes, and so they get Michael Jordan to come out of retirement and play basketball about it … and then it gets weirder. There’s a whole thing where NBA guys have their basketball aptitude stolen by the aliens. Wayne Knight tries to tunnel into the center of the Earth, where he believes the Looney Tunes live. Lola Bunny is introduced, and with her, innumerable furry fetishes. But no one would spend $80 million to make a movie about Michael Jordan being basketball pals with Bugs Bunny if it was a complete non-sequitur, you know?
The MJ/WB connection already had some cultural currency thanks to a 1991 SuperBowl ad called Hare Jordan. The idea of a human teaming up with cartoons in an animated world is from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and the specific detail of the human being isekai-ed into an animated reality is the premise of Cool World (1992). The idea of a whimsical basketball game operating on comedy logic was well-established by the Harlem Globetrotters. Even a sexy lady Bugs Bunny was predicated by Bugs Bunny dressing as a sexy lady for 50 years.
But here’s the thing: It almost didn’t stop there. When Space Jam turned out to be hugely successful, Warner Brothers immediately set to work figuring how best to continue profiting from this objectively bizarre cocktail of elements and influences, but what was the Secret Stuff™️ that made Space Jam work? After all, Cool World was famously a box office bomb, so WB was understandably cagey about making sure all of their (Daffy) ducks were in a row before greenlighting a sequel.
Though none of these movies actually wound up getting made, it’s pretty easy to see what Warner Bros. suspected the winning formula was: Looney Tunes + generational athlete with crossover appeal + the literal word “Jam,” because here’s what we now know almost saw the light of day.
Golf Jam, starring Tiger Woods
On its face, this might seem most likely to replicate the success of Space Jam. After all, Tiger Woods became bigger than his sport in the exact way Jordan did, so the “generational talent” portion of the formula is definitely there. The major problem is that basketball is a fast-paced, kinetic game, while golf is a leisurely stroll punctuated by polite clapping.
Yes, it worked as a basis for broad comedy in Caddyshack, but Caddyshack mostly uses golf as a backdrop for ritual humiliation of the wealthy and privileged—real Marx Brothers shit. But mapping that dynamic over an unestablished Looney Tunes/Tiger Woods dynamic seems extremely daunting. I feel like Porky Pig would shit in the pool and Tiger Woods would just be like, “Someone has to clean that 😕.”
Race Jam, starring Jeff Gordon
Once again, on paper, this seems great. There’s an established framework for cartoon racing antics—think Wacky Racers, or even Mario Kart—and the attached athlete was huge at the time. Jeff Gordon was such a big deal in the NASCAR world that he got to host Saturday Night Live about it, which sounds fake to me even as I relate it to you.
His turn on SNL, while not monstrously bad like the infamous Steven Seagal episode, nevertheless revealed Mr. Gordon as an absolute black hole of charisma. Incredibly, millions of people were willing to watch the guy turn left for several hours at a stretch, but the second he tries to deliver dialogue, you want to shut off the television and bury it in the backyard.
Let’s also not gloss over the incredibly dicey name Race Jam, which you’d assume to be about 28 other unsavory things before you ever guessed “NASCAR featuring Fogorn Leghorn.” Though I suppose if I did have to pick the Looney Tune most likely to be cancelled in a Hulk Hogan-style race jam, it would be Mr. Leghorn.
Skate Jam, starring Tony Hawk
Before he was famous for self-deprecating tweets, Tony Hawk was the Michael Jordan of skateboarding, even down to being the face of a video game (even if Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City never became a franchise). He was inescapable, even if you were theoretically fleeing him on rocket skates or whatever.
The problem here is that, while Tony Hawk can do crazy skateboard shit in real life without injury, getting hurt is the whole point of the Looney Tunes. How am I supposed to care about our hero nailing a 720° Mondo Weasel or whatever when I’ve seen Wile E. Coyote fall from fucking orbit and walk off muttering to himself?
Spy Jam, starring Jackie Chan
Inject this shit into my veins.
This is a marked departure from the previous pitches in that the plot doesn’t revolve around a famous sports guy. Instead, Jacquard Channing is a famous getting hurt guy, which is the best you could ask for in a human Looney Tunes co-star. But he was on a hot streak in the late 1990s/early 2000s with the Rush Hour and Shanghai franchises, and the timing didn’t work out. Perhaps that was for the best, since this is also the sequel that came closest to getting made.
The script was eventually reworked into Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which is a movie I should like a lot more than I actually do. It’s Brendan Fraser, Steve Martin, and Timothy Dalton in a Looney Tunes film directed by Joe Dante. On paper, our entire society should be based around this movie, and yet.
Joe Dante lost creative control of the project, and we wound up with a mostly-bloodless film that squanders its cast and premise. Incredibly, it does manage to include a gratuitous Jeff Gordon cameo, a grim nod to the Race Jam we fortuitously avoided.
Dethpicable.
