Almost Plausible

Ep. 30

Space Jam Sequel

23 August 2022

Runtime: 00:47:14

We shake things up a bit this week by taking a slight departure from our regular format. We still come up with a movie, but on this week's episode we come up with a sequel to the 1996 film Space Jam. We know what you're thinking: Isn't there already a Space Jam sequel? There is, but it's terrible, so we set out to come up with something better. We're pretty sure we succeeded.

References

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
The jig is up. The word is out. There’s no putting the cat back in the bag, all of the idioms about that sort of thing.

[Shep]
Why are you keeping cats in bags?

[Thomas]
Well, because you need a pig in a poke. I got more of these.

[Shep]
Because you’re going to St. Ives.

[Thomas]
Yes, that’s right. I need to get several more then. No. I’m coming from St. Ives. If I have the cats in bags.

[Shep]
Aha, it’s a trick.

[Thomas]
It’s a trick. I take my empty sack to St. Ives and get it filled with cats and then pick up a few wives while I’m there.

[Shep]
St. Ives famous for its surplus of cats.

[Thomas]
Of cats and women and really good bath products, interestingly.

[Shep]
What?!

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, Story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take preexisting movies and come up with sequels to them. At least, that’s what we’re doing today. My name is Thomas J. Brown. Also with me are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
On today’s show in case you couldn’t tell, we’re taking a bit of a departure from our normal format. Instead of choosing an everyday object to create a movie about, we’ve decided to take the 1996 film Space Jam and come up with a sequel to that. Why, you might ask? After all, Space Jam already has a sequel. It came out last year. To that we can only reply, “Have you seen Space Jam: A New Legacy? It’s not exactly the pinnacle of cinema.” Surely we can do better, right?

[Shep]
I mean, the original Space Jam was also not the pinnacle of cinema, but it was better than A New Legacy.

[Thomas]
Well, let’s talk about those. Obviously, for our purposes, we’re throwing New Legacy out the window and just pretending it doesn’t exist.

[Shep]
I’m okay with that.

[Thomas]
I mean, it may as well not. It’s a waste of however long that film is.

[Shep]
It’s a waste of potential.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s a waste of the goodwill Space Jam had accrued since 1996.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Yeah, and it’s a waste of time because it’s so long. Unbelievable how long A New Legacy is compared to the original.

[Emily]
It felt so much longer.

[Shep]
The original, if you don’t count credits, is 79 minutes long. That is a tight movie. That is much shorter than you’re imagining it. If you watch it when you were younger, it must have seemed like more of a movie, but it wasn’t.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
It was not even 80 minutes long.

[Thomas]
Space Jam: A New Legacy is 115 minutes. I suspect that includes credits. But still.

[Emily]
It’s still too long.

[Thomas]
What are things we liked about the original Space Jam movie? I think there is a lot to like there.

[Shep]
The soundtrack.

[Thomas]
For sure.

[Emily]
Oh the soundtrack is amazing.

[Thomas]
And we all remember how awesome the website was.

[Shep]
That classic website that lasted until this new terrible movie came over.

[Thomas]
Wrecked it.

[Emily]
They had a website?

[Shep]
They never took it down.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
What?

[Shep]
It was the 1996 original Space Jam website and it was just always there, like Abe Vigoda. It just lasted so much longer than you thought it was going to.

[Emily]
Oh. Oh, I’m sad I missed out on that.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
I mean, we have Internet Archive. I can speak-

[Shep]
It’s not the same.

[Thomas]
It’s not the same.

[Shep]
It used to be the live website.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It was unchanged.

[Thomas]
You’d go to spacejam.com, it was a perfect time capsule of websites of that era.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
In fact, it was actually quite good for a website of that era.

[Shep]
Yes. But you’re right. It was a great snapshot of “This is how websites used to look.”

[Thomas]
And then the new one came along and wrecked it.

[Shep]
Yes, that’s the problem with the new one, is that it ruined everything forever.

[Thomas]
It ruined everything.

[Shep]
It can never be undone, but we’re going to try and undo it tonight.

[Emily]
Well, there’s the joy of Looney Tunes characters. What’s not to love about them being themselves in movies? That was always a positive for me.

[Thomas]
And to see them on the big screen.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I mean, we’re used to seeing them on television.

[Emily]
They were a little more slicked up too.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
A little shinier.

[Shep]
Yeah. Little bit of 3D shading on their 2D characters.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I like that interaction. The live action interacting with cartoons Roger Rabbit style.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Not done quite as well as Roger Rabbit.

[Shep]
Nothing was done quite as well as Roger Rabbit.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Roger Rabbit had the “bump the light.”

[Thomas]
Right. So apart from the killer soundtrack and short run time, what are some other elements of the first film?

[Shep]
Those were my main two.

[Thomas]
Well, how does it work as a story, do we think?

[Shep]
It’s very tight as a story. It doesn’t have much tangents. It’s just the Looney Tunes are in trouble. They challenge the Moron Mountain Folk. What were they called?

[Thomas]
Mr. Swackhammer.

[Shep]
No.

[Thomas]
Oh, the little guys are called…

[Emily]
Monstars.

[Shep]
That’s what they are later.

[Thomas]
They are called…. I have it right here. Hold on, hold on.

[Shep]
The Nerdlingers or something.

[Thomas]
The Nerdlucks.

[Shep]
Nerdlucks.

[Thomas]
They’re called Nerdlucks for some reason.

[Shep]
So they challenge the Nerdlucks to basketball because the Nerdlucks are short.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And don’t know what basketball is.

[Shep]
And don’t know what basketball is.

[Thomas]
They think they’ll be able to dunk on them.

[Shep]
Yeah, but then they turn into the Monstars and then they’re in trouble. So then they need help and they go to Michael Jordan, the most famous basketball player at the time.

[Thomas]
Except not in the film. And that’s why the Nerdlucks don’t grab his skills, is because they see him and they’re, like, “Oh, that’s a baseball player.”

[Shep]
Yeah. So, yeah, there wasn’t any side tangents. There wasn’t any family drama.

[Thomas]
Yeah, obviously they had Michael Jordan, him being, as you said, the greatest basketball player at the time. Who do we get for our film?

[Shep]
I have no idea. I don’t know who the popular basketball players are right now. I say we go for a more ensemble cast.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I agree.

[Shep]
Because we don’t have, I mean, I don’t think there is that one greatest basketball player anymore.

[Thomas]
Not in the same way. No.

[Shep]
Not in the same way.

[Emily]
Not anymore. No. He unfortunately passed prematurely two years ago.

[Shep]
Too soon.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, yeah, I don’t have specific suggestions over who we get.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
I haven’t watched sports since the 90s, so I don’t know who anyone is.

[Thomas and Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I think that’s a problem with all three of us, is we don’t know specific people.

[Emily]
Why did we pick a sportsball movie?

[Thomas]
Yeah, really? Well, what are some things oh, go ahead.

[Emily]
I was going to say maybe we changed it from Space Jam to not be about a basketball jam, but about a progressive rock band.

[Thomas]
Or maybe they start like, a sandwich toppings business?

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
Well I have to throw out my pitches now. None of them match anymore.

[Thomas]
I think the only way you can realistically do a Space Jam sequel, it’s going to have to be basketball, unfortunately.

[Emily]
100%. Yeah. Because that’s what people expect.

[Thomas]
Exactly.

[Shep]
I mean, they did a bunch of other sports for the Air Bud sequels.

[Emily]
They did a lot of things for the Air Bud sequels.

[Thomas]
Do all of them involve air, though? Because jam is a basketball term. And actually, that was one of the things that I was thinking about. You have to have basketball because of the jam. And you have to have aliens or something like that-

[Shep and Thomas]
Because space.

[Thomas]
That’s why it’s Space Jam.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So whatever we come up with. It needs to include that. Let’s talk briefly about Space Jam: A New Legacy and what it got right and things that definitely got wrong because we don’t want to make the same mistakes.

[Shep]
Here’s my list of everything it got right. And now here’s my list of everything it got wrong.

[Emily and Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
The Michael B. Jordan joke was funny.

[Shep]
The Michael B. Jordan joke was okay, it wasn’t the one time that I laughed. The one time that I laughed was at Granny saying “Game, blouses.” But that’s not a joke. That’s just a reference to Chappelle’s Show. It’s not a thing kids would get. All the references were old people references and not jokes.

[Emily]
True.

[Shep]
Now, the original Space Jam did have references. They did Pulp Fiction out of nowhere for 5 seconds. But it wasn’t just that. The original Space Jam had actual jokes. It actually had adult jokes that I did not remember. Watching it recently. I was like, “Oh, wow.” I couldn’t believe they got away with that.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But I mean, kids wouldn’t get it, so it’s fine.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That was an all-ages movie.

[Emily]
Right. And Looney Tunes is known for making those jokes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
They’ve always gotten away with it.

[Shep]
So we got to have some of those.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Definitely. And I think that’s one of the things that I don’t know how much we’re going to be coming up with that sort of thing. It’s very specific. A lot of the jokes and in fact, a lot of the jokes are specific to the individual characters.

[Shep]
So the sequel did not have anything to do with space.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. That was another thing that irritated me.

[Emily]
That was weird.

[Shep]
Was only barely about basketball.

[Thomas]
It was about basketball because the main character plays basketball.

[Emily]
Yeah, let’s talk about that. I did not like how they portrayed LeBron James, and I can’t believe he was like, “Oh, yeah, I can totally do this.” Why would you want to be portrayed as an aggressively asshole father from the get go? You can’t follow your own dreams. You can’t want other things. Life is basketball. You are just my Mini-Me. Let’s continue the legacy.

[Shep]
Yeah. A new legacy. Hey, roll credits.

[Thomas]
So we know we need space and we know we need basketball. Do we have any ideas for a story?

[Shep]
I mean, I have lots of ideas for stories. So Swackhammer was the villain in the first one, but Danny DeVito surely is too old to be acting anymore.

[Emily]
How many seasons of Sunny is there?

[Shep]
Like 200. It goes on forever. But let’s say we get his son Swackhammer Jr. Or daughter, whoever, who comes back and challenges the Looney Tunes again for some prize or for some stakes, I don’t know, to be determined. But that’s your space. That’s your antagonist. This is the sequel. So they want a rematch in the movie. That’s how you keep basketball. You keep space.

[Thomas]
I think the one thing that you’re going to run up against is that the Nerdlucks have switched over to the Looney Tunes’ side.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. They’re not the players on the other side.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s just Swackhammer Jr. shows up-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And maybe they have robot minions or something because the Nerdlucks aren’t following Swackhammer anymore. How much of the pitch do you want me to go into?

[Thomas]
Go ahead. Go for it.

[Emily]
Keep going.

[Shep]
Okay, so Swackhammer shows up, Swackhammer Jr. shows up, offers them something in order to get them to agree to a rematch, they do. They immediately go out, the Tunes immediately go out, and have tryouts and recruit a team of NBA All Stars. This is where you get your ensemble cast. So not just Michael Jordan, but you have five NBA players. And then when it comes time for the game, the enemy team is revealed and Swackhammer Jr. comes out and mind controls the NBA team that they just put together. So that becomes his team or her team. And so they now just the Tunes have to play defensively while they run out and try to get more players. Like players that they just rejected. Because I imagine a lot of NBA players wanted to be in Space Jam 2, and then they didn’t make the cut. So you have these second-string players suddenly recruited to play against these mind-controlled All Stars. Athlete acting is not famously great.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So you have these mind-controlled players. You have them toonified or digitized or however you want to portray it. So it’s not the actual person. And they’re mind controlled, so they don’t speak. This is how you get them to agree to be a cameo. They have a small speaking role at the beginning and then they’re mind controlled for the majority of the movie.

[Thomas]
I don’t know if I like that.

[Shep]
You don’t know if you like that?

[Thomas]
Yeah, I mean, I feel like being mind-controlled works perfectly for mediocre athlete acting.

[Shep]
Ah. So yes, they do talk.

[Thomas]
They’re already sort of stiff and wooden and not very emotive.

[Shep]
Yeah. Okay.

[Thomas]
Plus, the point is to show basketball. Why not use the actual basketball players?

[Shep]
I see what you’re saying. It might take the budget out of bounds.

[Thomas]
Well, yes, that’s assuming that we are worried about things like budget and licensing. And I think what we can aim for is before we get notes from the studio.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Right. This is the first draft. Okay. I think you’re spot on, Shep, with a revenge tale. I think Swackhammer or Swackhammer Jr. is perfect. It makes perfect sense. I mean, Swackhammer feasibly is still alive or has survived, if you remember to the end of the original film (Spoiler if you haven’t seen this 30-year-old movie), he basically just gets shot to the moon.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Not killed or anything. He just gets shot out of the world.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. He doesn’t go back to Mars. He goes to the moon.

[Thomas]
Is it on Mars?

[Shep]
Isn’t it on Mars?

[Thomas]
Is that where Moron Mountain is? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s actually established where it is, is it? Let’s see. Moron Mountain. It just says in outer space, the amusement park Moron Mountain. What I was thinking is the first film establishes that humans and Tunes can move back and forth between the real world and tune world.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And the end of the film is Michael Jordan and a whole bunch of cartoons coming off of a cartoon spaceship. In the real world. The jig is up. The word is out. There’s no putting the cat back in the bag, all of the idioms about that sort of thing.

[Shep]
Why are you keeping cats in bags?

[Thomas]
Well, because you need a pig in a poke. I got more of these.

[Shep]
Because you’re going to St. Ives.

[Thomas]
Yes, that’s right. I need to get several more then. No. I’m coming from St. Ives. If I have the cats in bags.

[Shep]
Aha, it’s a trick.

[Thomas]
It’s a trick. I take my empty sack to St. Ives and get it filled with cats and then pick up a few wives while I’m there.

[Shep]
St. Ives famous for its surplus of cats.

[Thomas]
Of cats and women and really good bath products, interestingly.

[Shep]
What?!

[Thomas]
So Swackhammer survives, and humans know that the Tune World exists, and there is possibility for crossing over. So in my mind, Tune World, becomes a sort of amusement park, a destination that humans go to on vacation. And of course, it becomes the most popular thing in the world because, holy crap, it’s a whole world, that’s a cartoon world, and you can go there and do cartoony things and see all of your favorite Looney Tunes characters and whatnot.

[Emily]
You can get exploded and not die.

[Thomas]
Exactly. You can explode other people and you can explode your kid brother, and it’s fine. So basically, Earth now has this giant theme park, and Swackhammer has this failing or perhaps completely failed theme park and wants revenge. So the stakes that Swackhammer could propose are stealing the theme park, or perhaps Swackhammer comes with an army of robots, zombies, other aliens, whatever, and takes over the theme park. Things like that were kind of what I had in mind. What does Swackhammer have to offer that the Tunes would- because if you think about back to the original one, essentially, the Nerdlucks literally hold them at gunpoint.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so Bugs tricks them into playing basketball. They have to give them a chance. He tricks them into giving them an opportunity to not be taken to Moron Mountain. So what does Swackhammer, either, what does he dangle in front of them, or what does he threaten them with in our film? Or Swackhammer Jr.

[Shep]
The antagonist. What does the antagonist have? Why do the Tunes agree to play again?

[Thomas]
Does Swackhammer trick them this time? Can Bugs be tricked?

[Shep]
So here’s the thing about Bugs. In the original Space Jam. Classic Bugs would have no trouble dealing with the Nerdlucks entirely on his own. The whole reason that he, quote unquote “struggles” against them is just so you can have an ensemble cast with the other Looney Tunes.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
So Bugs can’t be tricked. Bugs is omnipotent, essentially.

[Emily]
Bugs is God?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So the other thought that I had to sort of help deal with that and maybe get some other Tunes featured is trapping Bugs and Daffy and Porky and maybe some of the bigger faces in the human world. And so they can’t get back to the Tune World because of something that Swackhammer or the antagonist does. So we’ll see them running around in the human world doing things from time to time, but they can’t come and participate and help because you’re right.

[Shep]
So why can’t they go into the Tune World? If humans can go into the Tune World, what is stopping-? If Bugs and Daffy can run around in the real world and humans can go to the Tune World, what am I missing?

[Emily]
Some kind of mysterious device? Swackhammer developed while on the moon and attached to them.

[Thomas]
Or he’s got a force field generator that he turns on and it traps- anybody who’s not in is stuck out, and anybody who’s in is stuck there. So there are a whole bunch of humans, including very famous people.

[Shep]
How do you get the basketball players?

[Emily]
They’re already there.

[Shep]
Why are all the basketball players there?

[Emily]
Not all of them. Just some.

[Thomas]
So the events of the first film took place in Tune World. There’s that big coliseum on a hill stadium thing. So maybe that’s a big tourist attraction, and perhaps maybe it’s an anniversary of that event. And so a whole bunch of NBA players are there as like a promotional thing.

[Shep]
Oh. Aha! So every year they have a Space Jam at the Coliseum.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
And NBA players come to play in the Space Jam, where it’s just NBA players against Tunes or whatever.

[Thomas]
And you would even very likely have people like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and older players who would come and watch.

[Shep]
Yeah, exactly. That way you could have cameos of whoever you want because they’re just in the audience.

[Thomas]
Right. And because it’s a big special event, VIPs are totally normal.

[Shep]
Yeah. So this is when the antagonist comes back and is challenging them to a rematch. They want to play in the Space Jam because it is an ongoing thing.

[Thomas]
And they’ve got one of those, like, big goofy ass cartoon telescopes so they can see it. Every year they see it happening.

[Shep]
Right. That’s good. That explains why there are players there. That explains why Bugs and Daffy can’t help.

[Thomas]
Right. It creates a barrier. I don’t know if that necessarily creates stakes because what is the antagonist threatening?

[Emily]
To destroy Tune World with all of the humans in it.

[Thomas]
Okay, what if it’s not a barrier? What if it’s like a teleportation sphere? So it creates a sphere around them and zaps them somewhere else. To Moron Mountain.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So they’re all already there. He’s developed some technology to beam the whole Coliseum there, and he’s waited until this moment to do it so Bugs and Daffy and all of them can come back into Tune World, which is where Moron Mountain is, but they’ll come back into the Looney Tunes portion of Tune World. Now they have to travel to wherever Moron Mountain is. And we can make that as close or as far as the story necessitates.

[Emily]
And it requires the use of the Marvin the Martian’s spaceship.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. Perfect. See? And there’s not enough room. They’re all crammed in there. “Watch your elbows.” Whatever. “Don’t touch the red button.” Typical Looney Tunes crap. So do we like this idea of them teleporting everything to Moron Mountain to try to revitalize the- or go with the original plan? “I’m going to make my dad’s vision come true.” Maybe Swackhammer’s there, original Swackhammer’s there, all old or beat up.

[Emily]
Yeah. He should be there, and he should be pushing his son to do this and Swackhammer (Jr.) doesn’t want to do it.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
So we can take the plot line from Space Jam Two and put it where it belongs on the villain side.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Shep]
But that’s kind of the plot from Space Jam one where the Nerdlucks stopped following Swackhammer. I don’t object. It’s like it rhymes.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was going to say that. It rhymes. It brings it full circle again, and we just see that Swackhammer is a sad and lonely old man.

[Thomas]
I think it reinforces the message of the first film. Swackhammer gets ejected once again, this time from his own planet.

[Shep]
That’s good. Now I’m fully on board teleporting the coliseum to Moron Mountain.

[Thomas]
It’s super popular. Moron Mountain starts making money hand over fist. All those weird little cyclops creatures or whatever they were, are coming to see- is there a way that they’re forcing…

[Emily]
Cattleprods.

[Thomas]
I was going to say some sort of like collar, electric collar or it’s the only way they get food is to perform.

[Emily]
Something like that. You act like you’ve never seen a Looney Tunes cartoon Shep. They’re full of violence.

[Shep]
Yeah. And I know this is out there. I would like there not to be any slavery in the sequel. That’s my opinion. I’m coming out against slavery.

[Emily]
That’s a bold choice for you.

[Thomas]
What does it say about Emily and I? White people whose go to was like, “Yeah, we’ll just throw some casual slavery in there. It’s fine.”

[Shep]
“We’ll put callers on them and force them to-“

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s not slavery. It’s just indentured servitude.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
So it’s fine. It’s totally different.

[Emily]
I think we might need to be reiterating that slavery is bad.

[Thomas]
Yeah. In this day and age, it might be worth mentioning.

[Emily]
I think that might be a lesson people need to learn. If it’s through cartoon violence, so be it.

[Thomas]
Well, we’ll have it as an option that we would prefer not to use.

[Shep]
“We’ll keep slavery as an option,” says Thomas.

[Thomas]
Put it on a t-shirt.

[Emily]
We’re going to hell.

[Shep]
Okay. How long are they on Moron Mountain?

[Thomas]
How long did the original film take?

[Emily]
Like a week?

[Thomas]
I was thinking it was like a week. Right.

[Emily]
Two weeks, ten days?

[Shep]
Okay. Let’s just say a week.

[Thomas]
So does our film take a week in total or they are there for a week before the climactic event happens?

[Emily]
So how are they making them play?

[Shep]
Well, they have to be given a chance, that’s in the rulebook. They already know that.

[Thomas]
But now it’s on Swackhammer’s terms.

[Shep]
Right. That was an away game.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Now it’s a home game.

[Thomas and Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s great. Swackhammer has read the rule book and is like, “Oh, best two out of three.” Or something like that.

[Shep]
Yeah. So, teleports them. Except for Bugs and Daffy. So it’s just the other Tunes and the NBA players and whoever’s in the audience, and everyone ends up on Moron Mountain. Everyone’s stuck there for a week. The whole audience is stuck there for a week.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Now you can throw in some other recurring characters, like Bill Murray was in the first one, who’s not a basketball player, but someone famous. And what they do for that week, because they’re not training to play in the rematch game. They’re just exploring Moron Mountain, going on rides or whatever, trying the food.

[Thomas]
That’s funny.

[Shep]
I think it would be funny if one of them got left behind at the end because they happened to not be in the coliseum.

[Thomas]
Yes. Right. They’re on one of the rides or in the bathroom or something.

[Shep]
On one of the rides. Seeing the coliseum disappear, and like “Oh, no.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. On the top of the ferris wheel. “Like, you can see everything.”

[Shep]
“Oh. That’s not good.”

[Thomas]
So I imagine Bugs and Daffy after the coliseum gets teleported. Eventually we cut back to Tune World, and Bugs and Daffy are doing their typical thing where they’re walking and sort of arguing with each other.

[Shep]
Like an old married couple.

[Thomas and Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And there’s just, like, a big divot, like a huge crater where the coliseum was, and they’re like, “Huh.”

[Emily]
“Where’d everybody go?”

[Thomas]
And there’s, like, no one around because everybody was in the coliseum because it’s the big spectacle. And so they call Marvin. Why did Marvin not come? He doesn’t care.

[Shep]
So Marvin wasn’t in the coliseum?

[Thomas]
Okay, so maybe he is.

[Emily]
And they just get his spaceship.

[Thomas]
But his spaceship is parked outside. They didn’t take the parking lot with them.

[Shep]
That’s good.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So they call him on, like, a tricorder or something.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You have a Star Trek reference, and he’s like, “Oh, you can use my spaceship to come pick me up.”

[Thomas]
Or maybe they’re like, “Oh, we need a spaceship.” And they see it, and they get in and they hit a button, and it calls him or something like that. Yeah. “But whatever you do, don’t press the big red button.” So the first thing they do is press the big red button.

[Shep]
Fuckin’ Daffy.

[Thomas]
I said “they”, I was thinking Daffy. Of course it’s Daffy.

[Shep]
So, yeah, Daffy presses the red button. So that’s how they can’t just fly to Moron Mountain immediately.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
They get sent somewhere or something. They have to find their way back. Classic.

[Thomas]
It’s the random teleport button.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Takes you to some random point in the universe.

[Shep]
Well, here’s where you have if you want to plug a bunch of other Warner Brothers properties, this is where you do it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re teleporting randomly. They need to teleport randomly until they get back to their universe. You don’t just put all of those random properties in the audience. That’s… Oh, God, the sequel was so dumb!

[Emily]
That does make more sense, because then, like you said, they can go visit Batman, Wonder Woman, whatever.

[Shep]
Right. Here’s another thing. Why didn’t Superman help them in the sequel? Helping people is his jam.

[Thomas]
You may even say it’s his… jam. No, you said it. Yeah, that would be really great, too. Like, oh, they have to put together a team of aliens and Superman’s there, and they’re like, “What are you doing with the alien team?” Like, “Oh, yeah. He’s technically not from Earth. Dang it.”

[Shep]
So they’re out of the picture.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re the side story that’s going on. The coliseum’s on Moron Mountain for a week. Who’s training for the game? Because you had NBA players in the coliseum.

[Thomas]
You need to have NBA players and Looney Tunes on the team.

[Emily]
We could throw in some WNBA players, too, because they would have wanted to go and participate.

[Thomas]
That’s a really good idea.

[Shep]
If this is a thing that happens, you know, this exhibition game is going on every year or whatever, you’d absolutely have the NBA players and the WNBA players.

[Thomas]
You could have the Harlem Globetrotters. They’re always fun.

[Emily]
That actually would be fun.

[Thomas]
They’re practically cartoons themselves.

[Emily]
They are.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
There was that whole Harlem Globetrotters cartoon.

[Emily]
And they met Scooby Doo.

[Shep]
And they appeared in many cartoons.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So I think they definitely need to be there.

[Shep]
That’s already been done. Although Space Jam has already been done, so what are we even doing?

[Thomas]
Space Jam sequel has already been done.

[Shep]
You shut your mouth.

[Emily]
Okay, so we’ve got some WNBA players and some NBA players and they’re training up the B-roll Looney Tunes. So we got Granny, Tweety, Sylvester…

[Shep]
The classics from the first one.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Lola has got to be there.

[Thomas]
Of course.

[Shep]
Lola is pretty good at basketball, famously. She’s now the team captain because Bugs isn’t there.

[Emily]
Because Bugs has gone. She’s like, “I can do this. We don’t need him. We don’t need Michael Jordan. We don’t need Bugs Bunny.”

[Shep]
Does she mean that or she’s trying to psych herself up?

[Emily]
She’s trying to psych herself up.

[Thomas]
There’s got to be some WNBA player that she’s excited to work with, or who is excited to work with her.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Oh Lola, I’m a big fan.” Yeah, I like that. How many players are there on a team in total? I know it’s five on the court at once.

[Shep]
15 players. Each NBA team can have a maximum of 15 players, 13 of which can be active each game.

[Thomas]
What do the other two do?

[Shep]
Just be on the team.

[Thomas]
They’re for moral support? Anyway. I feel like if we have legacy NBA players in the audience, they could be coaches. Maybe we have famous coaches, although I think players are generally more recognizable, especially to lay people.

[Shep]
More recognizable. Yeah.

[Thomas]
If you had some famous NBA coach, I probably wouldn’t know, but you throw Michael Jordan or Larry Bird, any one of those kind of guys up there, and I’ll go, “Oh, it’s him.” Also, the other thought I had is that they do schoolyard rules where all the potential players are there, and then they take turns choosing who they want on their teams.

[Emily]
Like a pickup game.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So it’s Looney Tunes and NBA players versus Looney Tunes and NBA players.

[Shep]
But who would want to play for-

[Emily]
For Moron Mountain.

[Thomas]
Well, they wouldn’t want to play.

[Shep]
Here’s the problem that I had in the sequel. The audience in the sequel knows that if the kid’s team wins, they’re stuck there forever. And yet when his team comes out, they’re cheering, and it’s like, do you understand what’s going on? It didn’t make any sense. So if the Moron Mountain team picks Looney Tunes or whatever to play for them, why would they be trying to win? They wouldn’t be trying to win. It wouldn’t make any sense unless they were mind controlled. I say, I want to come back to my suggestion that the Tunes pick out an All Star team and then that team, those five players, get mind controlled to play on Moron Mountain’s team.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I like that idea that the antagonist says, “You need to put together a team.” So they do, and he says, “Okay, go to the locker room,” or “My guy will take you to the locker room” or something like that, “to get you fitted for your uniforms.” And they put on their uniforms, and they come back out with Moron Mountain uniforms and looking all zombified, and they’re like, “Hey, what gives?” And it’s like, “Oh, you put together a team. My team. Now put together your team.” And they now realize that that was the instruction. They just assumed that it was their own team they were supposed to be putting together.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And it’s the unsuspecting uniforms have the control collars built in or something crazy like that.

[Shep]
The headbands have a mind control.

[Thomas]
Yeah. There you go. That’s good. They have to wear it. It’s part of the uniform.

[Shep]
Yeah. So now that team is NBA and WNBA players, you got your ensemble.

[Thomas]
So then you have professional players versus Tunes? I mean, there’s still going to be a ton of great NBA and WNBA players available.

[Shep]
Right. But now it’s the second string.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s not the ones that they chose. That’s why they struggle in the first half, because it’s a sportsball movie. They have to be losing in the first half until halftime.

[Thomas]
Do they? We like to subvert expectations.

[Shep]
Hmm…. Would they be winning against the first choice players?

[Thomas]
If Swackhammer’s goal, or the antagonist’s goal, is to humiliate them, then yeah, he would have the abilities turned down a little bit.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
So the bad team has a comeback at the second half.

[Thomas]
Right. He wants to be the underdog and have the glory of the comeback because that’s such a tradition.

[Emily]
Because they’re the home team.

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Why would you do that?” “Because everyone loves an underdog.”

[Shep]
They’re trying to follow the sportsball movie tropes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So what is the halftime speech in the locker room that the Tunes give, if they’re winning? “Don’t give up. Keep going. We’re almost there.” That’s great, because when they come back from the second, from halftime and the Swackhammer Jr. has turned up the skill knob on the mind control device, and they get just dominated by the enemy team.

[Thomas]
Well, speaking of half time, it’s half time for us here on Almost Plausible. Under NBA rules, 15 minutes are allowed for a half time break, but I think we’ll need considerably less than that. We’ll see you in just a moment

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. What else do we need to figure out?

[Shep]
Well, I was thinking we need a main character.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We have an ensemble cast, but we don’t have a focus.

[Thomas]
I agree.

[Shep]
So let’s recap what we have so far. Swackhammer or Swack? No. Swackhammer Jr.-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yes, I like that.

[Shep]
Comes to Toon World because Tune World is hosting the annual Space Jam Exhibition games.

[Thomas]
No. Space Jam Jamboree.

[Shep]
Space Jamboree.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Shep]
And teleports the entire coliseum, all the players and the audience, to Moron Mountain to challenge them to a rematch and to take part in Space Jam because they want to win. Swackhammer Jr. wants to impress his or her father and is following in their footsteps. So I’ve skipped a part. We need to open on a specific player. Pick a player. It doesn’t matter who some NBA player that’s going to be our protagonist.

[Thomas]
Yeah, sure.

[Shep]
Have them talking to their wife or whatever. Wife’s talking about wanting a bigger family, whatever. And then they go to the Space Jamboree. They’re playing in the game, the wife’s in the audience. Swackhammer Jr. shows up. Teleports everything to Moron Mountain except Bugs and Daffy, who missed it. They were out for some reason, they had to go get something from the parking lot. Daffy left something in his car. Whatever the reason, they’re in the parking lot when the stadium gets teleported.

[Thomas]
I wish I could do a Daffy voice because this would be the perfect time for him to talk about snacks. “Snacks” with that way that he talks.

[Shep]
“Just buy them from the concession stand.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“No, they’re so expensive!” So he’s got a big trench coat full of snacks. Very Daffy. So they break into Marvin the Martian’s UFO but press the wrong button and get teleported randomly around Warren Brothers property universes.

[Thomas]
Very good.

[Shep]
Meanwhile, the coliseum on Moron Mountain. Swackhammer Jr. is there to present them with the challenge: Make a team. We’re going to have a rematch. And so the Tunes go through the players that are there. They pick out the A-list players who then get led into the locker room to change. They put on Moron Mountain uniforms and mind control headbands.

[Thomas]
When that A-team is going into the locker room, all of the Tunes are like “Good luck.” “Hope you win.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Cause they don’t know yet.

[Shep]
Right, that’s great. So they come out and they’re on the wrong team. And so now the Tunes have to put together a second team, which is not their first picks of the players. And this includes, the second team, includes that main character who maybe wanted… So maybe they didn’t make the first- Like they had some practice games or whatever and they didn’t make the first cut because they don’t pass the ball. They are selfish. They keep the ball to themselves, they try to take the shot themselves.

[Thomas]
They showboat a lot and stuff.

[Shep]
That’s their character arc.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s the lesson they have to learn is to be part of the team and not try to be- because maybe on their team they’re the star player but they’re not on their team right now and you need to be part of the whole team.

[Thomas]
Right. That could even be a scene earlier where when they are on their own team they kind of hog the ball. Right?

[Shep]
Oh, the goal on their team is get it to this player, they’ll make the shot.

[Thomas]
Oh yeah. But I feel like some of the other players maybe are a bit grumbly about that.

[Shep]
Well, that’s all Michael Jordan was in the first one.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“Get it to me, I’ll score the winning points at the end.”

[Thomas]
Well, to be fair, that was basically how it worked when he played, because he was that good.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So I’m led to understand, because I don’t care. Anyway.

[Shep]
So they’re a ball hog, they didn’t get picked, but they are one of the better players. So they’re on the second team and they’re winning anyway against the mind-controlled players. Yeah, for the first half they’re up a few points. Not an overwhelming amount, but some.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’re winning when they go into the locker room for halftime.

[Thomas]
It’s a comfortable lead.

[Shep]
A comfortable lead. So Lola’s team captain, she gives the speech in the locker room like, “We’re doing really great. Let’s keep up the pressure.” And then when they come out, Swackhammer Jr. has turned up the skill level on the mind control devices to eleven. And now not only do they have all their skill, it’s boosted, and the Moron Mountain team is just dominating. So the Moron Mountain team is taking out players. They’re getting injured on the Tune Squad, and they’re running out of players. So I want to bring back the copy machine that Wile E. Coyote had in the sequel that we don’t talk about. So our main character, since there’s not enough players, makes copies of themself. So now you have a squad of five of the same person, and now he’s playing cooperatively because he trusts himself.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And they are just dominating again. They’re doing really well, but they are also getting injured until they’re just back down to just the one guy.

[Thomas]
Maybe the copies are really fragile for some reason.

[Shep]
Well, I want them to last, but I want them to also get injured so they can’t continue playing.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So it’s just the main guy and whoever has recovered on the Tune Squad, the other NBA players and WNBA players and other Tunes. So Lola takes them aside and it’s like, “Hey, remember that trust that you had with your team. You need to keep doing that. You need to keep passing the ball.” And he does. You have your sports ball finale.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So the main character passes the ball to someone else, and they win the game at the end. So the main character and their spouse reunite and the other copies of him show up because she talked about wanting a larger family. This is where you insert a joke that will go over kids heads. But we know.

[Thomas]
So we have Bugs and Daffy, and we cut back to them every once in a while. Is Bill Murray with them?

[Shep]
Bill Murray doesn’t act anymore. He’s super old.

[Emily]
Yeah. We need a Bill Murray-esque person.

[Thomas]
We have Wayne Knight hanging out with them.

[Shep]
Stop bringing back old people. This is a movie for kids. Whoever’s popular now and is young.

[Thomas]
Mr. Beast.

[Shep]
He’s not an actor.

[Emily]
One of the Chrises. Chris Pines. Chris Evans. Chris-

[Shep]
Yeah. Any of the Chrises. Get Ryan Reynolds, he’ll be in absolutely anything.

[Thomas]
Yeah, there you go.

[Emily]
Actually, yeah.

[Thomas]
That works perfectly.

[Emily]
That does work perfect. I think Ryan Reynolds would be a great choice.

[Thomas]
I can see him in the back seat. He keeps, like, leaning in between them and they’re like, “Oh, God. Get back.”

[Emily]
Asking him all kinds of really dumb questions.

[Thomas]
“What does this do?” Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s his fault that Daffy presses the red button.

[Thomas]
Oh, no. I think he reaches forward and presses the red button. “What does this do?” And presses the button.

[Shep]
No, because he’s like a Daffy character where he’s mischievous, so he’s, like, whispering a Daffy’s ear. “What does it do, though?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“But what does it do? Don’t press it. But why not? What happens?”

[Thomas]
“Why would it be there if it says not to press it? But why would you put it there in the first place.”

[Shep]
“If we’re not supposed to press it?”

[Thomas]
“Probably does something really cool and they just put don’t press it so that you won’t find out what the cool thing is that it does.” Yeah, I can totally see that.

[Shep]
“It’s only for the captain to press.”

[Thomas]
Right. “You’re not in the captain’s seat. Maybe you shouldn’t press it.” And then his jealousy of Bugs is what eventually wins over. That’s very funny.

[Emily]
I like it. I had a thought for the celebrity that wanders off and is on the ferris wheel as the coliseum… Paul Rudd.

[Shep]
You can have several celebrities.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Shep]
They’re like, “What are we supposed to do for a week while we’re stuck here?” And then Paul’s like, “Hey, let’s go on the rides.”

[Thomas]
Actually, it’d be kind of funny if there was a group of celebrities who are all really concerned, and Paul walks up like, “Hey, guys, what are we doing now?” They’re like, “We’ve got to figure out how to get back to Earth.” He’s like, “What are you talking about?” He hasn’t even noticed.

[Shep]
Yeah. “We’re at a theme park!”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“We didn’t even have to pay to get in! You’re not taking advantage of-” I love it. You don’t have to pay to get in. He’s a rich celebrity.

[Thomas]
And then is he like, “Oh, churros!” And runs off.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Exactly.

[Thomas]
That’s good. So what are the true stakes here? Your team wins, we put the coliseum back, your team loses, you all have to stay here?

[Emily]
Yeah. Why are they playing?

[Thomas]
If we’re not going to have them be slaves there. Is it the threat of slavery?

[Shep]
I don’t like slavery.

[Thomas]
Right, so what is the threat then? Why-?

[Emily]
Why are they agreeing to play?

[Shep]
Yeah, the stake is they put the coliseum back if they win.

[Emily]
So they get to go home.

[Shep]
They get to go home.

[Emily]
If they don’t, then they have to stay in-

[Thomas]
Well, then they’re just stuck there.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay. Swackhammer Jr. teleports the coliseum there and considers it a done deal. “I’ve succeeded. They’re here. They’re stuck here. Done. And now let’s play.” He proposes they play the game because he wants that honor or prestige or whatever for his dad or their dad, I should say. The Tunes are like, “No, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to help you.” He says, “Okay, well, you’re stuck here. You have nothing else to do.” So do the Tunes say, are the Tunes the ones who set the stakes? “All right, well, we’ll play your game, but if we win, you’ll figure to put the coliseum back” and in his hubris because he knows his plan or they know their plan, they agree? Or do we go back to that “It’s in the book.” Are the Nerdlucks there? And they’re like, “Hold on.”

[Shep]
“Remember, it’s in the rulebook.”

[Thomas]
“Remember, it’s in the rulebook. You have to give them a chance.”

[Shep]
That’d be great if we can bring back the rulebook for something else as well. What would Swackhammer Jr. want to be in the rulebook that they have to follow.

[Emily]
I don’t have any unproblematic answers to that question.

[Thomas]
When the NBA players on Swackhammer Jr.’s team get turned up to eleven, do they start using cartoon skills? They are in Tune World.

[Emily]
Yeah. I was imagining that.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s a good suggestion. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Do the Tunes try to use the rulebook to say, like, “Whoa, you can’t do any of that stuff. It’s not in the rules.” And he’s like, “Well, actually,” because he anticipated that.

[Shep]
Well, I don’t think the Tunes would suggest that. So if you remember the original commercials that led to the original Space Jam, Bugs was just breaking rules left and right, not playing the actual game of basketball, swapping out the basketball mid dunk with an anvil, feeding them lit dynamite in popcorn. It was a lot of very things that aren’t in the role book. Although Bugs isn’t here yet.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right. So they need to show up at the end. Right?

[Shep]
They show up at the end because Swackhammer is not going to honor the deal. They’re already in Moron Mountain.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Swackhammer Jr. would honor the deal because it’s in the rulebook. And their dad is like, “No, we’re just going to keep them. We lied. We’re not going to send them back.” And so this is where you have that rift between parent and child. Oh. Because they’re all about the honor of winning. They’re big on honor. They’ve been told that if they won, it would have been this great honor. And so that’s how they’re thinking of the world. But lying isn’t honorable. Not keeping your word isn’t honorable. So their parent is breaking their trust in them. So Bugs and Daffy have to show up at the end to somehow steal the teleporter or whatever and teleport the coliseum back.

[Thomas]
Does Swackhammer, early in the film give their kid a big speech about having to follow the rules?

[Shep]
I don’t know if Swackhammer would, because he’s not big on the rules. It was the Nerdlucks that were following the rules.

[Thomas]
It’s his house, his rules, that sort of thing. He has his own rules, and maybe his rules are completely arbitrary. Basically, “You have to follow the rules. Those are the rules.”

[Shep]
I could see that. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, that would work.

[Thomas]
Just so that later he’s like, “Well, you are always saying I have to follow the rules.” And he’s like, “Well…”

[Emily]
“Yeah. The rules I make up when I feel like it.”

[Thomas]
Right, yeah, “My rules. And my rule is I’m in charge, therefore I rule.”

[Emily]
Sounds like a very cartoon villain line.

[Thomas]
So they win the game, and it turns out Swackhammer was lying. He doesn’t honor the deal. And then that’s when Bugs and Daffy show up?

[Shep]
I mean, you have to have the Swackhammer Jr./Swackhammer confrontation before Bugs shows up and solves the problem with his omnipotent powers.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So does Bugs trick Swackhammer with that classic cartoon thing where it’s back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and he pushes it toward him, and Swackhammer pushes it back and he goes, “Fine,” and grabs it and hits the button and teleports the whole thing back.

[Shep]
I mean, it is a classic.

[Emily]
It is a classic.

[Thomas]
Do they get the teleporter away and they have to pass it around like it’s a basketball?

[Shep]
Oh, yes! That’s good.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s a two-part thing. You have to put one piece into another piece. It’s like putting a ball in a basket. Is that where the greedy NBA player tosses it to somebody else, or is that already solved at that point?

[Shep]
I think that we already solved it at that point because their arc is to be a less selfish player to win the game.

[Thomas]
So this isn’t maybe a big thing that goes on for very long. This is just like a couple of minute sequence tops.

[Shep]
Right. This is-

[Thomas]
And immediately Bugs throws it to this player. This player throws it to somebody else.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
They’ve learned their lesson and this is demonstrating they get it. No, more, like, they’re on board with this team player thing.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Okay, I like that.

[Shep]
It’s great because you could have a whole bunch of cameos right here. Where they’re just passing it to whomever. People in the audience, other celebrities.

[Thomas]
How do Swackhammer and Swackhammer Jr. avoid being teleported back?

[Shep]
Well, they, once they get the teleporter control back, before they press the button, they launched Swackhammer in a rocket. “Not again!” This time off of his planet.

[Thomas]
Oh and the hole in the coliseum roof is already there. It’s just like boarded up or something, and they break through it again. And then does Swackhammer Jr. leave before they teleport, like, willingly just step out of the coliseum or go back with them?

[Shep]
Yeah, because no, they have to run the amusement park.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s true. Yeah. So basically they get it back into the thing, it’s ready to go. Swackhammer realizes he’s stuffed and stops trying to get the teleporter back. And then who does the actual launching of-? Are the Nerdlucks there and they do it again?

[Emily]
Yeah. Why not? We’ve already talked about them being there before.

[Thomas]
Right. History repeats itself. “When are you going to learn your lesson?” “Never!”

[Shep]
That’s setting up-

[Thomas]
Opens us up for another sequel. Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
All right. I like it. All right. Is there anything else? I mean, I feel like we’ve got our movie, right?

[Shep]
I think we’ve got it.

[Emily]
I think we do.

[Shep]
We’ve got all the story points.

[Thomas]
Do you like this better than Space Jam: A New Legacy?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
I do.

[Shep]
Although that bar is very low.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think we stepped right over it. All right, well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Was it a slam dunk or did we just commit a foul? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found on AlmostPlausible.com, where you can also find complete transcripts for every episode, as well as links to the many references we make.

[Shep]
And go to the website and leave a comment on who you would want to see as a celebrity cameo.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Take a moment right now to subscribe to the show in your podcatcher of choice. That way you’ll never miss a new release. Emily, Shep, and I will be back on the court next week with another episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Thomas]
How’s my Marvin the Martian?

[Emily]
It is a pretty good one.

[Thomas]
It’s not bad.

[Shep]
It’s like he’s here.

[Thomas]
Well he was… I felt like not himself in the original film. He was very like, “Oh, excuse me, sir.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I always thought of him as much more assertive. And he’s very demure in the film.

[Shep]
Well, the original plan was to have Mickey Mouse as the ref.

[Thomas]
That would have been great because it’s Tune World. Put all the Tunes in there.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That would make perfect sense. Well, this is our film with no budget or licensing issues, so we can if we want. “Oh, gee, guys, we’re all kind of busy over here. Love to help.”

[Shep]
I thought Marvin the Martian was a great choice for referee because he’s a Tune and he’s an alien.

[Thomas]
Oh, definitely. I agree.

[Emily]
And an alien. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Are the Looney Tunes villains really villains? I mean, like Marvin and-

[Emily]
Bugs?

[Thomas]
Well, not Bugs, but Daffy really straddles the fence there. And Elmer Fudd and-

[Emily]
Not original Daffy. I’m going to get on my Daffy soapbox here.

[Thomas]
Yeah. No, not original Daffy.

[Emily]
No original Daffy was Daffy. He was Daffy Duck. He was insane.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He was just bat shit crazy. And I adored him. And then for some reason, he got bitter in the 60s.

[Shep]
Well, they changed his medication.

[Thomas]
They pitted him up against Bugs for some reason.

[Emily]
Yeah. And then he just became bitter. And in my personal opinion, Daffy is the greatest Looney Tunes character ever to exist. And Bugs is always the asshole-

[Shep]
Bugs isn’t always an asshole. But the whole point of Bugs is that he gets bullied first. So that’s why it’s okay that he takes asshole measures against whomever, because he was the original victim. Because otherwise he’s just a bully and an asshole. Because he is omnipotent.

[Emily]
Again, is Bugs Bunny god?

[Shep]
I mean, kind of.

[Outro music]

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