You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

The Product:
Nike sneakers

The Promotions:

The Pitch:
“This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Who could have foreseen what these ads would bring?

It’s not that they’re ordinary ads. The fact that Nike already had basketball superstar Michael Jordan promoting the Air Jordan brand sneakers, and decided to also have Bugs Bunny shill the shoes in the same commercial? Certainly an unusual bit of hat-on-a-hat marketing. And coming not too long after Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was a massive success, this sort of live-action-actors-meet-cartoon-characters thing was still pretty fledgling. Even without what followed, these’d still be unusual and noteworthy commercials.

But with what follows? With the knowledge that someone in power looked at these ads and went:

“Kids like Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny teaming up to play basketball. And they like Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny teaming up to fight aliens. We need to make something where they do both.”

“Okay, a third commercial where Bugs and Michael-“

“No, no, not a commercial – a movie. Feature length, in theaters, dramatizing Michael’s triumphant return to basketball, done to save the Looney Tunes’ secret underground world from a bunch of alien slave traders.”

“But that’s … I mean … it’s just … can Michael Jordan even act? Do the Looney Tunes really live undergr-“

“And we’ll call it Space Jam.”

…
“Genius!”

“And in a quarter-century, we’ll do it again.”