FILM 2173: SPACE JAM (1996)

TRIVIA: When Stanley comes into Michael's hotel room and says "C'mon, Michael, it's game time. Slip on your Hanes, lace up your Nikes, take your Wheaties and your Gatorade, and we'll grab a Big Mac on the way to the Ballpark." All of those things were products that Michael Jordan had been a spokesman for around that time.

After Daffy suggests naming the team "the Ducks", Bugs asks "What kind of Mickey Mouse organization would name their team the Ducks?" This was a dig at the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League, which were established by The Walt Disney Company.

The movie's original promotional website can still be found online, exactly as it appeared in 1996.

Michael Jordan actually wore his North Carolina Tar Heel college basketball shorts under his Chicago Bulls uniform every game as a good luck charm.

Towards the end of the basketball game, Daffy asks Bill Murray, "Exactly how did you get here?" To which Bill responds, "The producer is a friend of mine.", referring to producer Ivan Reitman.

The concept for this movie originated from a series of highly popular Nike ads where Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan faced off against Marvin the Martian and his alien henchmen in basketball.

To keep Michael Jordan happy while filming, Warner Bros. built him his own basketball court.

The hat that Bill Murray is wearing at the Bulls game at the end of the movie is the Saint Paul Saints, a minor league baseball team of which Murray was a part owner at the time.

When flying towards "Moron Mountain", the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) can be seen at the very right edge of the frame floating in space.

The U.S. VHS release included a collector's coin inside the package that had the Tune Squad on one side and the MonStars on the other.

The first animated film to have been edited for content for TV airings.

While praying in church for the return of his basketball skills, Charles Barkley says, "I'm never gonna go out with Madonna again." This refers to his own fling with Madonna.

The couple sitting next to the aliens when they steal the talents of Barkley and Ewing are Patricia Heaton and Dan Castellaneta.

In an interview a couple of years after the films release, long time Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones was highly critical of the movie. Jones felt it strayed too far from the source material, in particular, saying that Bugs would never openly recruit others in his battles. Jones further maintained that the Bugs he worked on would have single handedly dispatched with the aliens in short order. Jones also took exception with some of the film's dialogue, feeling that some one-liners were inconsistent or inappropriate, relating to the characters who said them.

Joe Pytka wanted Michael J. Fox to play Stan, but he was overruled by the studios. Jason Alexander and Chevy Chase were also considered.

Bill Murray accepted a role in this movie after expressing regret at missing out on the chance to star in another animated live-action film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

When in the therapy session, Shawn Bradley says, "or I could go back to the jungle and be a missionary again." This is a reference to him being a Mormon and going on a two-year church mission.

Bill Murray, who stands at 6'2, joked how he felt puny around Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, who stand, respectively, at 6'6 and 6'9.

Bill Murray's jersey number, 22, is a nod to his film Groundhog Day, which occurs on February 2nd or 2-2.

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This is featured on the podcast How Did This Get Made Episode #233 - https://www.earwolf.com/episode/space-jam-live/