Space Jam

For generations, kids have grown up delighting in the fun and whimsy of Warner Brother's Looney Tunes. They're silly, they're quotable, they're animated...and apparently highly skilled at basketball.

So perhaps it seemed like an unlikely scenario that our old cartoon standards were tearing up the court, but in 1996, that's exactly what they set out to do. Even to highly imaginative children, it seemed seemed improbable that Bugs Bunny and the gang were going to excel basketbally. That is, until we found out they were enlisting the world-famous skills of none other than 90s basketball superstar Michael Jordan.

Rewind a decade or so, to a time before Michael Jordan was just the guy engaging in cheesy banter with Charlie Sheen in the tagless Hanes tees commercials. Once upon a time, Michael Jordan was every kid's hero. He was the Jordan of our Air Jordan sneakers, our favorite Dream Team player, and the man who brought fame and success to our beloved (at least in my corner of the world) Chicago Bulls. That was, until he pretended to play baseball. But that's a story for another time.

Kids everywhere looked up to Michael Jordan. They believed he could do anything. In fact, they almost believed (wait for it, wait for it)....

He could fly.

(And don't you worry. We'll get to that Quad City DJs song in another post. You didn't think I could leave that one alone, did you? Did you??)

So when we all eagerly lined up at movie theaters, settled in with some buttered popcorn, and heard R. Kelly's lyrical interpretation of a young Michael Jordan believing he could fly, we were right there with him. MJ had been a kid. We were kids. Remember, this was before we knew that R. Kelly liked kids, so it was still acceptable get caught up in the fantasy. Ours, that is. Not his.

Space Jam was a child's dream. It's hard for me to imagine any contemporary basketball star calling up his agent and saying, "You know what I really want? To act in a feature film with cartoons. Make it happen." Call me cynical, but it seems doubtful Lebron or Kobe would be up for such shenanigans (although, to their credit, they have appeared in those Most Valuable Puppet commercials). No, this was a different time, and Michael Jordan was a different player. It had all of the ingredients of child-friendly greatness.

The plot begins as a tongue-in-cheek play on Jordan's real-life rocky transition from legitimate basketball hero to semi-respected minor league baseball player. Meanwhile, planets away, these weird little space bugs (Nerdlucks, if you will) are dispatched on a mission to kidnap the Looney Tunes to serve as in-house entertainers. I know what you're thinking, it makes perfect sense. Now bear with me here, because it gets even more logical as the plot curdles...er, thickens.

So these Nerdluck fellows find their way to earth, they get ahold of the Looney Tunes crowd and seek to take them back to the Nerdluck home planet, Moron Mountain. Still following? It's okay if you're not, I won't tell. Anywho, the Looney Tunes manage to convince these space critters that the only way to settle this is through a basketball game. Given their advantage in stature, it seemed like a fair bet.

Apparently these Nerdluck guys were some kind of magical, because they traveled to earth and managed to zap the basketball powers out of many prominent 90s NBA players. Lucky for us, countless big-name basketball stars were willing to embarrass themselves to this end:

Please, PLEASE tell me you recognized Dan Castellaneta, aka Homer Simpson, as that bald fan sitting next to the Nerdluck disguise. That's just too 90s-tacular to miss.

So now the Nerdlucks are big and scary and according to their jerseys, Monstars. Clever, no?

Bugs and Co aren't about to stand for this. They yank MJ through a golf hole into Looney Tune land to help them step up their game. After all, he's just a sort of crappy baseball player now, how much could they really miss him? So, several cheap jokes and athletic training montages later, here we all were at the ToonSquad/Monstars showdown. May the best man/tune/Monstar win.



Wow, just look at that dramatic Stretch Armstrong-esque ending moment. The crowd goes wild. The kids go wild. The NBA players' skills are restored and Jordan returns to basketball. All is right in the world again.

Looking back, the film wasn't all that well-received by critics, but my peers and I were utterly oblivious to this fact as children. Apparently, kids across the nation (and later, the world) agreed with us, as the film was a huge financial success. Things like plot and character development aren't of particular significance to children.

What really mattered to us was seeing our childhood heroes--animated and athletic--joining together in the bonds of...well, something. And for that single moment of cartoon/sportsman contact, it was magical.

Children of the 90s is Proud to Present...

I have a terrible confession to make. Despite all of my wonderful blog friends being gracious and kind enough to bestow generous blog awards on me, I have been as of late somewhat of a selfish award-taker. That is to say, I have done a terrible job of passing along these awards because I tend to have trouble fitting in the meme-ishness into my daily posting schedule.

Then suddenly, it hit me. I conceived of a brilliant and generous plan/scheme a la Zach Morris. Here's my moment to freeze the action and speak directly to the camera in pure defiance of the fourth wall.

I could make my own award.

Someone has to start these things, right? What if I, Children of the 90s, created my own award?

There were criteria, of course, for creating this award. For one, it needed to fully encapsulate and represent 90s cheesiness. Also, it needed some sort of horrible, cringe-worthy pun. If I was going to create it, well, then, it had better reflect all my god-awful punnery.

So, after innumerable focus groups and endless market research, I am proud to present the Children of the 90s award for excellence:

The Write Stuff.



I know, I know...this song was most popular in 1989. New Kids on the Block were legitimately an 80s-90s enterprise, and I stand by my decision to use their cheesy likeness in my award...mainly because it works with the best pun I thought up. You don't want to see the list of rejects.

Yep, I totally made that and there's no taking it back now. Display it on your profiles with pride. Oh, and I suppose it should come with some rules, so here you go:

Give it to whomever you'd like! Alright, we're good on this, yes? Without further ado, several bloggers who most certainly have the write stuff:


Fever Formerly Jakezilla, Lora's blog is truly one of the funniest out there. She covers a full gamut of topics and speaks her mind in a way that always cracks me up.


Well Okay, Sassy Britches! Love her blog, and don't miss her hilarious Birdcage-esque profile description--it's what drew me in in the first place :) Oh, and she'll teach you all about culverts.


Muppet Soul Muppet's was one of the first blogs I got into, she tells a great story and is always very funny.


Couture Carrie A fabulous fashion blog, for all of you who are into that kind of thing. I know I am.


Teasingly Diverse Just an all around great blog, check her out!


Get a Pencil and Your Casebook Thank you, Sadako, for starting this amazing blog. It's new (she also writes Dibbly Fresh) and features some of my favorites, namely Ghostwriter and Are You Afraid of the Dark?


Wild ARS Chase He had me sold not only on his abundant 90s knowledge, but first on his Snuggie photo spread. Brilliant. He's already 'fessed up his iTunes embarrassments, so hopefully the NKOTB picture won't throw him too much.

Insomniac Lolita Andhari just wrote about NKOTB today, how appropriate! She also does amazing hip hop of her own, and writes an all-around great blog.


Would now be a totally inappropriate time for some shameless self promotion? I'm leaning toward yes, absolutely, but what the heck, I'll go for the plug:

Did you know you can be a fan of Children of the Nineties on Facebook? I know, I know, control your excitement. It's tough to keep it all inside, but don't go all Jessie-Spano-on-caffeine-pills on me just yet. You're so excited, you're so excited, you're so...scared? I hope not. I know the whole Facebook fanmanship has gotten out of control, what with our news feeds crammed to the brim with useless declarations of people being fans of Sleep, Hot Showers, or Not Being on Fire. Again, that's Children of the Nineties on Facebook. Have I exhausted the number of times I'm allowed to post that link? Looks great on newsfeeds!

Oh, and you can also vote for Children of the 90s in the 2009 Blogger's Choice Awards. You know, if you ever felt the urge. No pressure.

Okay, that's probably enough of that. The real story here is go check out those blogs, they are wonderful! For all of you lurkers out there, stop by and say hi. You probably have the Write Stuff and I don't even know it yet. Thank you and good night!

All That (Part 1)

What ,you think I could fit a childhood's worth of All That sketch memories in a single post? Well, think again. SNICK was a cornerstone of Saturday night juvenile television programming, and for many years (that is, until I outgrew it) All That was its anchor.

You know a network sees potential in a show when they commission a big name music act to create a custom-made theme song. Nickelodeon asked TLC to perform the All That theme song, which in most of our recollections consisted of a vaguely unmemorable rap and the words "all that" repeated numerous times throughout. The song was catchy though, or at least enough so to keep preview audiences watching the first episode in its entirety in 1994.

All That took the successful format of grown up sketch comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and MAD TV and translated it (read: dumbed it down) for pre-adolescent audiences . They maintained the general outline of a cold open, some sketches, and a live musical guest. For a kid's show, All That actually managed to pull some big names. Legitimate (well, in terms of popularity, that is) musical names such as Usher and Boyz II Men performed on the show. It had all the ingredients of a veritable children's television enterprise.

But was it funny? At the time, most of us thought it was hysterical. I suppose humor is in the ear of the behearer, because thumbing through some of the jokes now makes me seriously question my sanity as a child. This probably indicates that the All That producers got what separates adult humor from children's humor; there's a reason reviewers remark with disdain that gross-out or overly simplistic comedies are "juvenile". To actual juveniles, the show was a real laugh riot.





Like I said, the show had countless memorable sketches, so let's take a look at a few notables and I promise to get back to the rest later:

Good Burger
Arguably one of the most recognizable All That sketches, most prominently because it was later adapted into a movie. How or why movie executives saw fit to morph this three minute non-sequitor into a two-hour full length feature is beyond our grasp as viewers. In the sketch, Kel Mitchell played a dim-witted and literal-minded fast food counter worker, beginning every customer interaction with the phrase, "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?"

It usually went a little something like this:



Kel certainly had some skill in the way of deadpan, and it's easy to see what drew kids to this mode of humor. Children by nature are not abstract, and hence respond best to literal jokes. That's why kids like things that other people think are stupid. Like Good Burger.

The subsequent film received incredibly negative feedback from adult reviewers. I would say, to its credit as a franchise, that you'd be hard pressed to find someone between the ages of 18 and 30 who didn't recognize Kel's opening Good Burger spiel.


Ishboo
Ah, the 90s trope of vaguely foreign exchange students. Like Nadia from American Pie Ishboo had no discernable connection to any actual country, nor did his accent particularly reflect a specific heritage. Ishboo's schtick was mainly that he did stupid things (claiming they were native customs) and everyone felt compelled to copy him to make him feel comfortable and at home:



In typical TV stereotyping fashion, apparently being overweight makes you ageless. If I were Lori Beth Denberg, I probably wouldn't be too pleased to be paired up with ol' male patterned baldy over here. Either way, Ishboo was funny to kids because he wears a skirt and makes people bang their heads on the wall. It's a bit shocking to think its star, Kenan Thompson, was the only one who went on to have a future in sketch comedy. Then again, based on the current ratings of Saturday Night Live, perhaps it's not such a stretch.


Ask Ashley
I'll say this for Amanda Bynes: she was certainly cute as a child. Amanda's spinoff show and subsequent longevity in show business points to her actually being a skilled entertainer. As a child, I always loved her Ask Ashley sketch on All That. The basic premise was that young viewers wrote Ashley with questions seeking advice in the manner of Dear Abby. Ashley appeared the picture of sweetness and innocence, and would begin reading every letter, "Dear Ashley....thaaaaaaat's meee!" It was certainly endearing, but from there things seemed to take a turn:

I apologize for the absolutely atrocious quality of this video, less-than-ingeniusly videotaped from a TV screen. It was the best I could do.

Watching now as an adult, I'm mainly just impressed that she manages to go so crazy on these people without using a single curse word. Bravo, Ask Ashley. Bravo.


Ear Boy
"He's Ear Boy, Ear Boy, his ears are really big!" If that title sequence music doesn't reaffirm the fact that children adore simple humor, I don't know what does. That was essentially the whole gag; Josh Server was Ear Boy, whose ears were indeed really big. For some reason I never quite understood (and perhaps this was due to my limited political knowledge as a child), his nemesis was Ross Perot.

The sketch poked fun at common playground nicknames used to mock people with acne, braces, or glasses by building Ear Boy a gang of cronies named Pizza Face (literally, pizza for a face), Tinsel Teeth (Christmas ornaments in mouth), and Four Eyes (she had four).



I'm tempted to judge this further and increasingly without mercy, until I stumbled upon this more recent photo of Ear Boy Josh Server.


I might just leave it at that.



Vital Information
This was one of the more frequent bits on All That, featuring Lori Beth Denberg as the initial supplier of this Vital Information for your Everyday Life (to be later replaced by a washed up Little Pete and some other kid after the show's Golden Age). Vital Information for your Everyday Life was filled with, well, Vital Information for your Everyday Life. Sort of.



These were sort of one-liners, except they usually made no sense at all. They were completely pointless, which I suppose was the point, the humor being that these items were not Vital Information at all. Her bits of wisdom included gems like

If you flush your friend down the toilet, you either got a huuuge toilet or a teenie little friend.

Well said, Lori Beth. I've got to get me some smaller friends. Or a bigger toilet.


While it may not stand the test of time, it's nostalgia factor is pretty high on the fond memory scale. If it's not making you giggle, set a couple of 9 year olds in front of the reruns for a few episodes and watch them delight in it. Sure, it will make you feel old, but it's better than having to watch the whole Good Burger movie to reaffirm your faith in old-school juvenile comedy.