- [Narrator] This is by far the most important moment
in Michael Jordan's career.
It's early 1995, and we're somewhere in the earth's core.
The domain of the Looney Tunes.
MJ's Tune Squad is down one point
in the final seconds of a high stakes
basketball game against the Monstars.
This is Jordan's last chance to save the game
and his own livelihood but before he tries
to beat the buzzer we need to remember how we got here.
How MJ, who's technically not even a basketball player
came to join a team of cartoon characters.
How that team has competed against
a roster of gigantic monster aliens,
and how those aliens got so gigantic in the first place.
We need to rewind.
(eerie music)
So one thing you'll notice about MJ
is that his arm is stretched well beyond his 6'11 wingspan
as if he's not subject to real world physics.
That's because he's not.
Jordan is in tune world.
This chain of events all started in October 1993.
Jordan was coming off the most successful
but challenging stretch of his NBA career.
After years of falling short, MJ's Chicago Bulls
broke through for back to back to back Championships
in 1991, '92, and '93.
But the summer following that third ring
was a dark time for Jordan.
His gambling habit was under scrutiny after a book
shed light on his compulsion for high stakes betting.
And tragedy struck in August,
when Michael's father, James Jordan was found dead,
the victim of a roadside shooting.
Exhausted and depleted of the motivation
to build on his accomplishments,
Michael surprised the world by retiring from the NBA
to spend more time with his family.
And in early '94 there came another surprise.
Jordan signed a contract to play minor league baseball
in the Chicago White Sox system,
pursuing a lifelong dream of his father's.
Though merely an okay baseball player,
Jordan was still a big time celebrity
with the AA Birmingham Barons and improving day by day.
But a couple things started to push him away from baseball.
One was the looming major league strike
which threatened to interrupt his progress
since he had no intention of crossing the picket line.
The other, was the time he went golfing with his friends
Larry Bird and Bill Murray only to get lassoed
by Yosemite Sam and pulled through a hole deep underground
where he was tortured by Looney Tunes characters.
And now he's playing alongside his captors
in a basketball game so we should
probably talk about what their deal is.
These Warner Brothers cartoon creatures
came about in the 1930s, gaining popularity
in World War II propaganda.
And throughout the 20th century,
the characters of Looney Tunes
cemented themselves as American icons.
Their immense success seemed unstoppable,
until earlier this year
when an existential threat appeared.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a fleet of aliens
called the Nerdlucks plunged through
the earth's surface into tune world.
They'd been sent there by their overlord, Mr.Swackhammer
who was desperate to pivot the business plan
of his failing amusement park, Moron Mountain.
His attractions no longer appealed
to the children of outer space
so he commanded his Nerdluck minions
to capture earth's foremost entertainers
so he could enslave them, capitalize on their talent
and keep Moron Mountain afloat.
Friends, this is why you need a strong Union.
In the middle of a work day, the tunes labor committee
called a unit wide meeting to confront the invaders.
Though the Nerdlucks had superior firepower,
they proved open to negotiation
and granted the Looney Tunes characters
an opportunity to defend themselves.
After some brainstorming, the tunes achieved consensus
and convinced the Nerdlucks to stake
their freedom on a basketball game.
It seemed like an easy win.
The Nerdlucks were short and component
and unfamiliar with the game of basketball.
Emphasis on were.
The Nerdlucks have a lead now.
That's because they're not really Nerdlucks anymore.
I wanna take us back to last Spring.
Back to earth's surface.
Without Jordan, the Bulls' dynasty ended
and in the power vacuum, a new top dog became clear.
Houston star Hakeem Olajuwon emerged
as the league's best defender and MVP in the regular season.
And he dialed it up in the playoffs.
Hakeem's Rockets crushed Clyde Drexler and the Blazers,
won a hard fought series against
Charles Barkley and the Suns,
coasted through the Western Conference finals
against Karl Malone, John Stockton and The Jazz,
then outlasted Patrick Ewing's Knicks
in a grueling dramatic seven game final series.
Oh, and the OJ chase happened.
Sports have been very exciting since Michael Jordan retired
and got kidnapped by cartoon characters.
Why is any of this relevant?
Well, here you had a new pecking order of superstars
and they all got back to work trying to unseat
their new ruler Hakeem in '94-'95.
By January, Barkley and The Suns
were on pace to be the Western Conference one seed
while Ewing's Knicks trailed the Magic
in the Eastern Conference standings.
The Suns-Knicks match-up on January 29, 1995 was thus
an important battle in the build-up to the '95 Playoffs.
The Knicks crushed The Suns that night in New York
but the occasion was more notable for another reason.
In the middle of the game,
Barkley suddenly became feeble, almost lifeless.
It vexed Suns teammate Danny Ainge and Coach Paul Westphal.
Especially when Barkley's stagnation on defense
allowed Ewing a wide open dunk.
But Ewing himself would suffer
the same symptoms soon thereafter.
Pat couldn't catch a pass.
He couldn't even hit the backboard with a free throw.
His teammates were befuddled.
And the mysterious affliction appeared
to be spreading outside MSG.
- Five NBA players have been placed
on the disabled list in the last 24 hours,
all suffering from the same mysterious ailment.
- [Narrator] The league spiraled into a panic.
The Lakers refused to enter the Great Western Forum
without gas masks and the building was eventually
quarantined in a giant HAZMAT tent.
Super agent David Falk declared a lockout
on behalf of the players.
They wouldn't take the court again
until someone figured out what the hell was going on.
- There will be no more basketball this season.
(crowd shouting)
- [Narrator] The answer is right here.
Ewing and Barkley's talents didn't just disappear.
They were stolen by the Nerdlucks
who absorbed said talents to morph
from miniature basketball noobs
to humongous slam dunking superstars.
That was a good plan by the Nerdlucks
but looking at this narrow lead they're holding,
I've gotta quibble with the execution.
By stealing from Barkley and Ewing,
the Monstars acquired All-Star talent
if not the best of the best.
They, for instance skipped over everyone on
the prior season's All-NBA First Team.
And in filling out their roster of stolen talent,
The Nerdlucks seriously underperformed.
Their team needed a point guard.
The obvious option, Barkley teammate Kevin Johnson
was out with a thigh injury the night
The Nerdlucks visited New York,
so maybe that's why they passed on him.
But skipping over all these other elite point guards
to settle for 5'3 Muggsy Bogues, who is awesome
if not an elite talent, was a questionable choice.
The Nerdlucks showed no such discernment
for injury red flags when they invested in the talent
of Bogues' Charlotte teammate Larry Johnson.
While quite a famous persona and still fairly productive,
LJ is recovering from a debilitating back injury.
Instead of rounding out the squad with,
I don't know, maybe some shooting?
The fifth Monstar talent came from an additional big man.
Not Olajuwon, not Shaq or Shawn Kemp
or David Robinson, but Shawn Bradley.
A young center who's decent but better known
for his extreme height then for his basketball skills.
So, I don't know if it was just a matter of convenience
or bad scouting or what, but these aliens
seemed to have placed just as much value on
guys who are funny heights or have commercial appeal
as they did on, you know, actual All-Star basketball talent.
It's almost like they care more about appealing to kids
than they do excellent basketball.
It's almost like that super agent we saw before
represents most of these players
and orchestrated their inclusion.
Huh.
Anyway, that's how the Nerdlucks got large and competitive
and countering that, of course
is why the Looney Tunes added MJ to their roster.
And he has dominated this game!
The Monstars have skills belonging to guys
Jordan vanquished when he was in the league
so it's no surprise to see MJ cross them up in this context.
Or dunk on them, or cook 'em with
the occasional pull-up jumper.
But let's not forget that Jordan entered the company
of these desperate cartoon beings against his will.
Then they abused him.
What's motivating him to ball out like this?
First of all, the Monstars got cocky.
The first time they met Michael,
they called him chicken and baldy.
- Baldy?
- [Narrator] And they folded him into a ball
and passed him around,
then they smashed Tweety which was uncalled for.
Thing number two, MJ loves a bet
and he raised the stakes for himself.
In the second half, Jordan made a heroic,
if extremely reckless proposition.
- If you win?
- [Mr. Swackhammer] Uh-huh.
- You get me.
- Good deal, boss!
- [Narrator] Instead of the Looney Tunes,
Jordan volunteered himself as the captive
basketball playing talent on Moron Mountain
if the Monstars win this game.
And the other end of the deal doesn't even benefit MJ.
If the Tune Squad wins,
- You give the NBA players their talent back.
- [Narrator] That'll be a big relief
to a bunch of former Jordan rivals
who've been hospitalized and psycho-analyzed to no affect.
They're still worse at basketball than literal children
and they can't wrap their heads around what happened.
A fortune teller was the only expert to accurately
diagnose the problem but they laughed in her face.
So, MJ's assumed a prominent role on this team.
He was introduced as player coach,
as part of a starting line-up also featuring Bugs Bunny,
Taz, Daffy Duck, and talented newcomer Lola Bunny.
And facing first half deficits as big as
"kinda one-sided isn't it" to 18,
Jordan encouraged the use of
performance enhancing substances
though I should note that he knew full well
this secret stuff was really just water.
- Play along.
- [Narrator] The dude is cut-throat!
And the placebo PEDs did help
the Tune Squad into a second half run.
The second unit in particular came through
by employing their signature moves.
Wile E. Coyote dipped into his ACME arsenal,
Yosemite Sam exploited tune world's
archaic stand your ground laws,
Pepe Le Pew flummoxed the defense with his stinky ass.
But still, especially in his role as coach,
MJ's been fighting an uphill battle.
Many of his substitutions have gone awry.
Putting Tweety Bird on the floor
at the same time as his nemesis, Sylvester the Cat
was an obvious misstep.
Foghorn Leghorn literally got roasted by the opposition.
Sniffles the Mouse got smooshed by the ball.
And frankly, Jordan was kind of naive
to trust that the aliens made that
second half bargain in good faith.
- Crush 'em!
- [Narrator] As soon as the deal was struck,
the Monstars got more violent.
Coyote, Pig, Fudd, Leghorn, Devil and Bird
have all been incapacitated.
Daffy Duck is in concussion protocol.
Bugs put himself in harm's way
because he's so horny for Lola.
In need of a fifth player, Coach Jordan called upon
his obsequious, unathletic publicist Stan Podolak.
Podolak got the Tune Squad a key bucket
but only because the Monstars flattened him
so forcefully that the ball squirted
out of his hands and into the basket.
Which brings me to an important problem.
A game with this much at stake
should have the best of the best officiating
but there is exactly one referee.
Marvin the Martian.
On the surface, Marvin seems like
he'd be an impartial official.
He is, after all, both space alien and Looney Tune.
But even a cursory background check would've raised flags.
For instance, if you go back to
1952's Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century,
you'll see Marvin attempting to colonize
a newly discovered planet and you'll see Marvin
coldly executing Daffy while Porky looks on.
He is a threat to both outer space dwellers and tunes
with conflicts of interest all over this court.
And Marvin's calling the game like it.
The dude does not blow his whistle.
Not when a Monstar slaps Bugs across the face,
not when Stan gets caught on a one man Spygate mission,
not when Sylvester pantses a Monstar with a fishing rod
which is a flagrant one in the rule book.
Marvin is corrupt beyond belief
and there's no better evidence than what just happened.
After Stan got pancaked,
which wasn't called a foul by the way,
medics came to re-inflate him and in doing so,
revealed the score to be 77-67 Monstars,
with 10 seconds left.
Fast-forward back to present
and with no game time having elapsed,
the Tune Squad has gained nine points.
If Marvin whistled a bunch of technicals
or flagrants for that pile-up, we didn't see it
and it still wouldn't add up.
There's no accountability!
But in any case, the Monstars got the ball back up one
with 10 seconds left.
They just had to run clock to win the game
and take Michael Jordan prisoner.
So how did we get here with the Tune Squad
in possession as time expires?
Clearly, the Monstars aren't very clutch
but it's not just that, it's this guy.
Bill Murray.
Murray doesn't need to be here.
His career is in a good place.
After some time spent mostly away from film,
Murray has re-entered the scene in recent years
with starring performances in hit movies
like Ghostbusters II and Groundhog Day.
He's back on top!
But Bill wants something else, something more.
He wants to hoop!
As soon as NBA players started losing their talents,
Bill wondered aloud if he might
have an opportunity to fill in
only to be disparaged by the retired stars in his midst.
- Listen, it's a man's game and you can't play.
- [Narrator] Even after Michael got sucked into a hole,
Bill was more fixated on his NBA potential
than he was on his friend's disappearance.
- Now if Mike is gone,
the NBA is gonna need some new people!
- [Narrator] It's an obsession.
So, I guess we shouldn't have been surprised
when moments ago with the Tune Squad
in need of an emergency fifth player,
Murray suddenly showed up somehow already in uniform.
And despite what MJ and Larry said about him before,
Murray has proved instrumental in the final seconds.
Yes, he initially drew up an offensive set,
not realizing the Tune Squad didn't have the ball.
- We're on defense!
- [Narrator] But once he caught up to the situation,
he vastly improved on Jordan's play call of-
- Somebody steal the ball, give it to me!
- [Narrator] By pulling Daffy Duck aside
and coaching him to dive dagger-like
into Pound the Monstar's heart,
thus forcing a loose ball which Murray himself stole.
Bill then showed off some
pretty impressive dribbling skills,
tossed a heads-up outlet pass to Jordan,
then after some frantic ball movement,
dished off the last second pass that
if MJ can finish, will constitute the game winning assist.
And if MJ can pull this off, it'll be
the most important buzzer beater of his life.
It'll save him from a lifetime
of servitude on Moron Mountain.
That was a fate once reserved for the Looney Tunes cast
but after their alien invader's pirated NBA skill
from somewhat questionable sources,
the cartoons made a bold move in the talent arms race.
And it has paid off!
Despite, or perhaps thanks to shady officiating
by an individual with a checkered pass,
Jordan has taken up the Looney Tunes cause as his own
and has lead them to the brink of an upset win.
If he pulls it off, he'll owe Bill Murray an apology.
Jordan lampooned Murray's basketball dreams
but his golf buddy has come through
when the Tune Squad faced unpreparedness at crunch time.
Okay, we're here.
Let's see if Jordan's cartoonishly elastic arm
can reach the rim before the buzzer sounds.
Welcome, to a moment in history.
(intense music)
(buzzer sounds)
(crowd cheering)
(celebratory music)
- The tunes win!
(TV clicks off)