Ranking the Top Performances in 'Space Jam'

Twenty years after its release, Space Jam still stands tall as a cultural phenomenon.

The film holds such powerful sway that Barack Obama jokingly referred to Michael Jordan as "the guy from Space Jam" during this year's Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony. Forget the six NBA championships and five MVP trophies; some will consider defeating the Monstars his career highlight.

In the 1996 film, the world's greatest basketball player joined forces with the world's most popular cartoon character and the world's funniest comedian. No wonder it remains an adored cult classic with a reputation adults like Toronto Raptors forward Patrick Patterson want to protect.

His Airness did most of the work to save the Looney Tunes from Moron Mountain, but he's far from the only reason Space Jam remains an unstoppable force of nostalgic delight. Friends and foes of both the two- and three-dimensional variety made this campy flick a relic.

Which performances have aged like fine wine? Even if the No. 1 contenders seem obvious, let's break down the film's top players.

Honorable Mentions

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Larry Bird

At no point in Space Jam does Larry Bird appear to express any interest in being in Space Jam. There's a solid chance Jordan invited him to golf without telling him about the movie.

And for someone who watches his friend get dragged into a golf hole, he acts unfazed by the magnitude of this situation. His lack of energy, however, plays well off the frenetic Bill Murray.

Psychic

Desperate for answers, the five NBA players who lose their talent—Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Shawn Bradley—visit a psychic for answers. She delivers them on a silver platter with complete accuracy, but they laugh.

Why bother going to her if they had no intentions of taking her practice seriously? If she knows about life existing outside of Earth, what other information could the clairvoyant have shared?

Michael Jordan's Kids

Cartoon characters break into their house to bring their missing dad—do they realize or care that their father is missing?—clothes for a basketball game against aliens. They sure take this information in stride.

Marvin the Martian

Come on, Marvin. Do your job and call a foul. Shooting and/or trampling an opponent is not a legal basketball play.

8. Muggsy Bogues

The Nerdlucks from Moron Mountain messed up by stealing Bogues' talent.

They absorbed NBA players' skills because they were too short to win on their own merit, so why select the league's shortest player at the time? No offense to the former point guard, but he averaged a mundane 7.7 points and 7.6 assists per game over his career. He would have been better suited as a reserve Monstar.

Yet in addition to helping the Looney Tunes, choosing Bogues made Space Jam a better movie.

Among a five-man group featuring Barkley, who would have expected the 5'3" Bogues to steal the spotlight? The then-Charlotte Hornets guard did just that, delivering the "Basketball Jones" montage's best joke while speaking to a psychiatrist. 

"What are you saying? That I'm trying to disobey my mama?"

"I didn't say that. You did, Muggsy."

"But I love my mama."

 It's hard to see John Stockton landing that line as well.

7. Daffy Duck

Daffy Duck is treated like the class clown who never grew up. None of his peers, particularly Bugs Bunny, takes him seriously throughout the film, and he's greeted with silence during the pregame introductions.

That doesn't stop him from serving his role as Bugs' unheralded sidekick.

Although eager for the stoplight, Daffy also proves his loyalty by joining his more popular team captain on a trip to Jordan's house to retrieve his gym shorts and sneakers. Not knowing what dangers abound on this unfamiliar planet, he follows anyway.

Clearly starting out of position at power forward, the duck takes a beating against the Monstars. Near the end, he has endured enough damage to mistake one for his mother, begging him to let him "stay home and bake cookies with you."

Yet nobody cares enough to make sure he clears concussion protocol. He keeps playing and sacrifices his body, launching into a Monstar to force a crucial turnover over the closing seconds.

For all the punishment inflicted on Daffy Duck, he's one of three Looney Tunes (Bugs and Lola Bunny) to finish the game.

6. Nerdlucks/Monstars

The Nerdlucks followed orders they are unqualified to fulfill. Despite their nonexistent intelligence and basketball knowledge, they nearly succeed.

From the beginning, Bugs Bunny shows no respect to the minions. At the first sight of the tiny aliens, he turns to the camera, breaks the fourth wall and deadpans, "Diminutive, ain't they?"

They were, and they also were not smart enough to realize their advanced weapons put them in a position of power. Rather than turn down the basketball challenge, they readily accept before asking the important questions, such as "What's basketball?"

As the Looney Tunes prematurely celebrate, the Nerdlucks craft a surprisingly brilliant plan. Using their ability to change matter, they invade NBA stars' bodies and absorb their talent. Not a bad idea for five shrimpy stooges.

Of course, their execution had flaws. If they knew more about the NBA, they would have subjugated superstars better than Bogues, Bradley and Johnson. But how would aliens figure out that a middling minor league baseball player was Earth's premier basketball star?

As menacing as the Monstars are, their smaller inhabitants are good-hearted creatures trying their best to please an overbearing boss. At the end, they see the light and catapult Mr. Swackhammer to another planet so they can live peacefully with the Looney Tunes.

5. Stan Podolak

Stan Podolak just wants to help. He makes this clear on a regular basis, but he's ridiculed for caring about his job and mistakenly believing Jordan is his friend.

Played by Wayne Knight—better known to some as Newman from Seinfeld—the mild-mannered publicist yearns to please Jordan. Not because he's a famous athlete, but because that's his job. For caring about his job, he's treated as a loser throughout the film.

Jordan may not consider Podolak a friend, but guess who is the only person shaken by Jordan's kidnapping? As Bird and Murray leave to joke about enhancing their putt scores following the abduction, Podolak spends every free moment digging in a last-ditch effort to save his client.

Jordan's family doesn't care that he's missing, but Podolak does. He also spies on the Monstars during halftime to uncover the truth of their sudden growth spurts. 

When finally given a chance to play—only because the Tune Squad didn't have enough healthy players left—he sacrifices his body to score before getting flattened. Perhaps he is Space Jam's true hero.

4. Lola Bunny

Lola Bunny deserves to be higher on this list. If the Tune Squad realized what it had, she would have starred as its Scottie Pippen and surpassed the male bunny as the team's most valuable Looney Tunes member.

Instead, the squad failed to maximize her exceptional talents.

Despite challenging their once-shorter adversaries to a basketball game, none of the Looney Tunes possessed any basketball experience. As they make a mess of their first practice, another ringer miraculously struts into their gym. Lola quickly flaunts her superior skills by literally tangling Bugs into knots before dunking.

In one of her rare scoring opportunities, she jumps to a Monstar's level, kicks him in the face and jams on the much larger defender. With moves like those, how does she not get the rock every time Jordan is quintuple-teamed?

She enters the animated world by proving her worth and chiding Bugs for calling her "doll." By the end, she decays into the damsel in distress when Bugs pushes her out of the way of a Monstar body splash.

If a rematch happens, her usage rate should skyrocket.

3. Bill Murray

When repeatedly watching Space Jam as a child, the weird guy playing golf with Bird and Jordan didn't seem to matter. Dusting off the film in 2016, Bill Murray provides all the top laughs in a tour de force performance.

Wherever he goes, Murray immediately becomes the life of the party. Space Jam is no different. Right from the beginning, he steals his opening scene by talking to his golf ball a la Carl Spackler with an umbrella hat.

After Jordan shuts down the actor's NBA chances, Murray questions if it's because of his race. When Jordan directs him to Bird, the funny man replies, "Larry's not white. Larry's clear." 

Entertaining the possibility of replacing the professionals who lost their talent, he instead somehow discovers the Warner Bros. universe just in time for the closing seconds. Although zeros flash across his stat line, he made an indelible impact. 

Despite admittedly not playing defense, he devises the plan for Daffy Duck to force a game-saving steal with seconds remaining. After corralling the loose ball, he executes his original idea by feeding Jordan the ball so he can "go to the hole and dominate."

In The Tao of Bill Murray, author Gavin Edwards dives into numerous tales of Murray wrestling or stealing from a stranger. The celebrity allegedly follows his bizarre actions by whispering, "Nobody will ever believe you." 

Well, perhaps it's all payback for his brief basketball career concluding with the ultimate "Nobody will believe you" tale. While attending Jordan's NBA return in a bittersweet ending, he bites his tongue as Bird tells him to quit dreaming of basketball glory.

2. Bugs Bunny

He's the group leader. The team captain. The one who saves his friends from certain enslavement and keeps their eyes on the prize when the going gets tough.

The Looney Tunes could have surrendered to their new overlords immediately, but Bugs Bunny sensed an opportunity. Testing their absent wits, he quickly conducted a handbook stating all captors must give the captured a chance to defend themselves. 

At times, Bugs Bunny doesn't seem to take the circumstances seriously enough. He's oddly nonplussed when first seeing the Monstars, even though it ruined his plan to play a sport with a built-in disadvantage for his tiny foes.

But a good leader needs to put on a calm face. Bugs constantly sets a strong example for his followers, most notably lifting their spirits by selling a water bottle of Jordan's "Secret Stuff." It's just water, and it's weird he's the only animated character smart enough to understand the ruse, but a good captain knows how to motivate his troops.

Is he the best basketball player? Not really. Lola left him spinning in practice, so he's at best the third option. He's also, however, an unselfish point guard more concerned about getting everyone else involved. Along with knowing what makes every teammate tick, he's a master of manipulation and mind games.

The Tune Squad wouldn't have stood a chance without Jordan, but there is no Tune Squad without Bugs Bunny.

1. Michael Jordan

Who else was going to top the list?

A one-man wrecking crew, Jordan carries the Tune Squad to victory. Although rusty from his baseball detour, he leads the inexperienced, undersized crew as the player-coach. Just think: He had nothing on the line besides helping cartoon strangers until willingly agreeing to join them as slaves at Moron Mountain if they lost.

Not understanding the refined laws of cartoon physics until 10 seconds remained, he was playing with a handicap. 

And for what it's worth, Jordan the actor handled himself far better than a viewer might have anticipated. While an elite NBA superstar, he was never a magnetic, charismatic presence destined for Hollywood. Yet he stripped away his iceman persona to let a more welcoming side shine.

The real Jordan may have relentlessly ridiculed Porky Pig in practice and cursed out Yosemite Sam for missing a screen. Space Jam Jordan was calm, cool and collected, even when they got their butts kicked in the opening half.

Then again, a selfless team player would have helped the Looney Tunes recruit Scottie Pippen and other NBA stars to their cause rather than single-handedly playing the hero. Nevertheless, anyone who wins the game with a last-second dunk from half court undoubtedly deserves MVP honors.