SPACE JAM (1996), JETSONS THE MOVIE (1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor,* (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

I avoided SPACE JAM studiously for over twenty years, and I probably would have continued to do so if not for my current interest in crossovers. All the clips I'd seen for the show back in 1996 seemed incredibly lame, the result of a "movie-by-committee" with nothing on its mind but monetizing the association of Michael Jordan and the classic Warner Brothers cartoon stars.

Jordan's performance amid the capering cartoons is no better or worse than one could expect given the circumstances, and the same is true of all the human actors, who just do what's required of them by the flat, boring script. It's a totally workmanlike story of how aliens come to Earth to abduct the Looney Toons, who manage to put off the ETs by challenging them to a basketball game. When the Loonies realize they're outmatched, they call in-- guess who.

As for the cartoons themselves-- who, for me at least, will always possess an entertainment legacy far greater than Jordan's-- the writers don't manage to write one line, create one pratfall, that proves worthy of any of the characters. And I don't mean just the Big Guns who get the most screen time: Bugs, Daffy, Pepe, Elmer, Porky, Sylvester and Tweety, Coyote and Road Runner, and Tasmanian Devil. The misbegotten excuses-for-writers couldn't even manage one decent joke with the now-obscure WB character of Sniffles the Mouse.  The one new creation, a potential GF for Bugs, is Lola Bunny, but though adequately designed she's not funny either, and exists only to produce a small "girl power" vibe.

JAM was utterly safe and kid-friendly-- that is, the opposite of many of the edgier WB cartoons of the forties-- and so it made good box office, though I can't imagine it being entertaining for anyone but the smallest children. The only tiny pleasure I got from it was the "audience-scenes" for the game, which the animators packed with a few dozen obscure WB characters from yesteryear.

JETSONS-- THE MOVIE also probably wouldn't entertain any older kids. However, the "first family of space" was never as celebrated as the WB Looney Toons, and so one could say that even a total failure (which this is not) would be a case of "not having as far to fall."

The sixties teleseries, one of the few prime-time cartoons launched by Hanna-Barbera in its long history, was a one-joke concept: an ordinary nuclear family (husband George, wife Jane, teen daughter Judy and grade-school son Elroy) have silly sitcom misadventures on a far-future Earth, along with their maid Rose, dog Astro, and George's yell-happy boss Spacely. All seven characters appear in the movie, which was the last to be directed by the team that pioneered the company, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

While ongoing sitcoms usually keep the principals in one constant location, a common trope when adapting such serials into movies is to put the protagonists in some new locale. And so, after fifteen or so minutes of setup, George finds himself elevated to the position of vice president of a mining-colony that provides parts for Spacely Sprockets. But to accept the new position, George and his family have to leave their apartment and take up residence on the colony-world. The kids naturally have the usual objections to being uprooted, but they acclimate to their new surroundings with remarkable alacrity.

Further, George finds that the factory he has to oversee is fully automated, his only companion being a robot subordinate. (Actually, in all the seasons of the sixties series, I don't think I ever saw any human employees at George's regular job except George and Mr. Spacely.) But George's main problem is that some mysterious entities are sabotaging the factory. At first George is just worried about losing his job-- until the mysterious beings put the snatch on him.

These "devils in the dark" are actually cute little aliens who were displaced when the Earth-people built their factory, and so the Jetsons have to find a way to preserve the little guys' home while not torquing off Spacely by losing his profitable business. But seeing these little ETs causes me to recall that although the sixties show had lots of robots, I don't remember any aliens. JETSONS has the relocated family meet a handful of alien neighbors, and since none of them do very much, they're probably just reflections of the movie's basic theme of interspecies brotherhood. The movie never equals the show's sharper moments of writing, which in my book were always the stories about George butting heads with his boss. But there's some very creative background art in many scenes, and I note in passing that comics-artist Ric Estrada is credited with "pre-production design." 

Many of the show's original voice actors reprised their roles here, such as Penny Singleton, Don Messick, Jean Vander Pyl, George O'Hanlon, and Mel Blanc. JETSONS was the last round-up for both O'Hanlon and Blanc, who both died shortly after production. Janet Waldo recorded the dialogue of Judy Jetson but the studio substituted a track by renowned singer Tiffany, who also contributed three song-stylings. I certainly can't blame the studio for trying to import a modern celebrity's cachet, since I don't know how much currency the franchise had by 1990. The movie enjoyed modest box-office success, though today I imagine its main significance is that of nostalgia for the old TV show.