"Space Jam" is the title track for the 1996 film of the same name, which is a major meme on the SiIvaGunner channel, as the fourth-most recurring joke behind "The Nutshack", "Snow halation" and "Meet the Flintstones".
Overview[]
Space Jam[1] is a 1996 film starring professional basketball player Michael Jordan and the main cast of the Looney Tunes franchise that combines live-action and animation as they face off against the extraterrestrial Monstars in a game of basketball in order to remain on the Tune's world or the Monstars will send them to Moron Mountain. Even though the film has a mixed critical reception, it was a box-office success and managed to be fondly remembered as an animated film. The film soundtrack's title track, "Space Jam", was performed by the Quad City DJ's and was released as a single in December 1996.
Starting in 2004 (one year after the release of Looney Tunes: Back in Action), the "Space Jam" theme would start to be used in memes,[2] starting with a mashup of it and the chiptune "Funky Stars" by Quazar, in a tribute to the wrestler Randy Savage. In the beginning, "Funky Stars" was heavily associated with "Space Jam", and most derivatives involved the two being used together, rather than just "Space Jam". This would gradually become less of the case, culminating in the 2008 fan-game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. This game used the "Funky Stars" mashup as its main theme, and is significant for associating Charles Barkley with the Space Jam theme, which would fully morph the meme into its current shape.
"Space Jam" has since grown to become a significant part of mashup/SoundClown culture, for example /r/Mashups becoming "Space Jam"-themed as an April Fools' joke.[citation needed] The film received a 2021 standalone sequel, titled Space Jam: A New Legacy, which focuses on more recent basketball star LeBron James teaming up with the Tunes to get his son back from a evil A.I. Quad City DJ's were seemingly going to return to make a new theme song for it, though this never came to fruition.[3][4]
Rips[]
- See also: Category:Rips featuring Space Jam
On the SiIvaGunner channel, "Space Jam" is one of the most frequently-used songs in rips. However, even since the early days of the channel, "Space Jam" mashups have been treated as a cliché by the SiIvaGunner team due to how easy they are to make. As such, it appears most frequently two kinds of rips: medley rips, and rips of songs not in the common 4/4 time signature (the latter being noted in the rip "Main Theme - Superman 64"). Less frequently but more notably, "Space Jam" is also used for intentionally unsynced mashups. This is partly an ironic way to mock the tiredness of the "Space Jam" meme, although this also shows up when there is a need to reference the concept of unsynced mashups as a whole, such as "Google Stadia Startup - Console/BIOS Music" or "Airship BGM (NTSC Version) - Super Mario Bros. 3".
In 2021, the Space Jam Charity SLAM! charity livestream, which included 285 brand new "Space Jam" mashups, was held on the SiIvaGunner channel. From July 24th to August 28th of that year, weekly SLAM!turday events occurred to give these mashups individual rip uploads. In a stark departure from previous usage of the meme, these are almost entirely solo appearances of "Space Jam" and are, with a few exceptions, not bad for the sake of irony. The song was also used frequently during the Sports Day event.
In all of the Charity SLAM! rips and most of the intentionally bad rips, as well as occasionally in other "Space Jam" solo rips, the image displayed in the video will have Charles Barkley's head superimposed on any visible characters and words crudely replaced with Space Jam-relevant terms (for example, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure would become "BARKLEY'S BizarreSLAMventure", and Deltarune would become "Deltaslam!"). The effort put into these thumbnail edits varies per game, with ones such as Breath of the Wild being more intricate and detailed (such as the words being more seamlessly airbrushed out of the original logo, new letters being made in the style of the original logo and the Charles Barkley head being blended into one of the letters) and others such as Mario Kart Wii being more crude (such as the logo using white boxes to obscure the original text, resulting in the blue circle in the background being partially obscured, and the custom font not matching the original lettering).
The song is also represented in lore through Barkley's appearance as part of the Rapper's Union within The SilvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis.
Lyrics[]
To show the lyrics, click "Expand".
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[Hook] |
Gallery[]
- For all the edited thumbnails, see Category:Space Jam thumbnail edits.
External links[]
- Rips featuring Space Jam - YouTube playlist by Aidan Zamboni.
References[]
- ↑ "Space Jam" on Wikipedia
- ↑ "Slam Remixes (Vs Quad City DJs)" on Know Your Meme
- ↑ Instagram post by Quad City DJ's
- ↑ Archive upload by Triple-Q
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