Found this gem of a study via a friend Yesterday. Space Jam was my favorite movie as a kid before I realized what a dick Michael Jordan is. But hey he did save Bugs Bunny from alien bullies!
Harvard did a statistical analysis of Space Jam’s box score when the Looney Tunes take on the alien invaders who’d stolen the abilities of Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Larry Johnson, Muggsy Bogues, and Shawn Bradley.
Here is an excerpt:
A quick recap: The Monstars, behind a vicious defense and a quick-strike transition offense featuring the unprecedented three-point-line dunk, seize early control and take a 66-18 lead into the half. Pound (Barkley) and Bupkus (Ewing) are dominant. Things look grim for MJ, Bugs, and crew.
But the Tunes uncork a 48-2 run in the second half to pull within two points late in the fourth quarter. The dearth of offensive production by the Monstars during this stretch is puzzling. Turnovers? Did they abandon the three-point-line dunk? The answer no doubt lies on the cutting-room floor. There’s an equally confusing run at the end of the game. As paramedics inflate Jordan’s assistant Stan Podolak following his lone bucket, the scoreboard clearly shows the Monstars ahead 77-67 with 10 seconds remaining. Yet following his treatment and the surprise entrance of Bill Murray, the score has changed to 77-76 with no time having elapsed. Perhaps Marvin the Martian, the head official, got fed up with the Monstars’ rugged defense—they injured all but four of the players on the original Tunes roster—and issued a slew of technical fouls. We’ll never know. All we know is that the game ends on Jordan’s dramatic, half-court arm-stretching dunk as time expires. How about that: The team with the widest appeal and most marketable superstar wins the big game by some mysterious contrivance. You might say this is ridiculous. I call it verisimilitude.
Find the whole study here.
I’m also not ashamed to admit I sung along to R. Kelly’s ‘I believe I can fly a couple times,’ before I found out R. Kelly is R. Kelly.
