Air Bud: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (Web Exclusive)

hello there internet i'm john oliver host of last week tonight we're off this week but i wanted to briefly come back to talk to you about something important and that is rules think of them as the bones of a well-functioning society which i guess makes common sense and good judgment the blood manners the skin fortitude the heart and this show these nerds specifically though i want to talk about rules as they apply to 1997's airbud a movie that is quietly about grief but it's loudly about a dog playing basketball if you've never seen it i'm going to show you the the moment that our hero josh realizes that his dog has an unexpected talent it's a moment when josh is very sad and then this happens fine you can play yeah so the dog scores a basket grin stupidly and in that moment josh's world changes and we as an audience are set for a wild ride the quickest possible explanation of what happens in air bud is it is the story of a dog playing basketball on a team full of children who then wins state the slightly longer version is that a kid named josh's father dies and he tries to fill that void with a dog the movie generally glides past this point but the fundamental issue here is that a kid who doesn't have a father tries to replace him with a golden retriever who happens to be good at basketball not that good though to be honest he can't dribble or rebound or box out he's not really a playmaker and has little to no basketball iq really he's just quite good at shooting and don't worry i'm not going to ruin 1997's air bud for you if if i wanted to do that i'd say either that the dog who played him is definitely dead by now or or that it must have been nice to make content before 9 11. that's what i'd say i'd say one of those things dogs die and 9 11 will happen if you haven't seen earbuds then you almost definitely haven't seen the many sequels and spin-offs that have spawned and while we don't have time to get into the plots of all of them i do need you to see just how far the franchise ended up straying from its simple dog play sports rings routes given us some epic power just think of the good we can do it yeah but they have superpowers now uh point a is a movie where a dog is kind of okay at basketball point z is a movie where that same dog's children are the avengers but dogs now we don't actually have time to get into the zendaya vehicle super buddies because again i need to talk about the original and i know what you're thinking you're thinking he must get paid extra to do these web exclusives i don't and and if you're thinking well okay but there must be something in his contract that says he has to produce a certain number of content units per season there isn't but i will say i do appreciate your use of the phrase content units unlike it um that is how i think about this show i'm a material generator who distributes content units designed to occupy your time between now and death but i'm not i'm not talking about earbuds because i have to i'm doing it because i want to now even if you are not an airbud superfan you are probably familiar with the oft-cited line about basketball rules that has been repeated and parodied for years now you're checking your but you won't find anything in there that says a dog can't play he's right ain't no rule said the dog can't play basketball yes ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball and it's both stupid and weirdly true there is still literally no rule on the books preventing a dog from playing basketball anyway my main concern is that this is a fundamentally flawed premise i know there's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball i know that i went to oxford probably but it's definitely unfair to introduce a new player and suddenly claim he's a registered member of the team let alone when a state championship is on the line sorry but when kevin durant goes down with an injury in a crucial game the nets don't get to just bring in a random unsigned untested additional player there are no surprise guests in basketball isn't that right mr kevin durant [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now [Applause] obviously we didn't get kevin durant for this bit it's the playoffs right now plus this is a web exclusive about airbud it would have been insulting of us to even ask but look that crucial point there isn't a rule preventing the dog from playing basketball is the central conceit of the film but it doesn't really address the key question which is should the dog play basketball and set aside a moment the morality or the ethics at play here let's talk purely about air buds basketball production here's what we know about airbud or buddy which is his given name based on the game tape that is available to us two steals five assists two free throws and four field goals that is it that is his entire box score now i'm not saying that's bad no one's saying that's bad but is that dog an asset to the fernfield timberwolves the showtime timberwolves i'd submit that he's not and it's honestly shocking to me that a coach so focused on teamwork her operation and ball movement would allow such a distraction to dominate the team's narrative again if buddy was doing numbers now if he's putting up 30 to 40 points a night we're having a very different conversation right now but he's not is he i repeat four field goals and apart from the steals he's a complete liability on defense but there's an even bigger question when it comes to should airbud be playing basketball and that is that airbud crucially is not josh's dog right he belongs to norm snively josh the boy with the dead dad remember found him but buddy was snively's dog he had the paperwork to prove it and everything before buddy discovered basketball snively included him as part of his act as a birthday party clown we see this at the start of the film with snively arriving at a birthday party around the same time it's revealed that the film was produced by harvey weinstein yeah that's how the movie begins anyway we then see snively utterly bombing in front of the kids at the party at which point buddy tries to salvage the act by catching some balls in his mouth [Applause] yeah pretty impressive right everyone had fun and a not terrible argument could be made that snively was the one who gave buddy the fundamental training that resulted in him being able to play basketball in the first place stein he gets a lot of in this film because he's an abusive alcoholic party clown who explicitly hates children and birthdays but you cannot ignore that he is also the kind of person who can diligently and patiently train a dog to perform party tricks that's not nothing is it training dogs is hard and snively put the work in yet snively's made to suffer because he lost the dog who was then retrieved by josh the kid whose dad ate it off camera before the movie started snively even successfully retrieves buddy in the middle of the film but josh then sneaks into snipes in his yard and steals buddy back and if he's saying john if you say john hang on now if you say john just stop listen to me snively was an alcoholic failed birthday party clown who wasn't properly taken care of buddy and even though yes he had the paperwork documenting proper providence of the dog it was obviously receiving much better care through josh and his family i hear your point i really do it's the movies point isn't it the movie fed you that point and no disrespect you ate it up uncritically because for those who don't know let me tell you how airbud ends because it's pretty nuts this movie this movie about a kid who becomes obsessed with a stolen basketball dog after his dad bites it off screen insanely does not actually end with a dramatic basketball moment you would think knowing everything we know about movies that it would end with air bud and the timberwolves winning state and then cut into credits but you'd be wrong dead wrong i'm talking josh's dad dead wrong instead instead snovely attempts to regain ownership of buddy even contacting a judge the judge in his wisdom decides two things one he will ultimately only make a ruling on this case outside on the lawn which sure i'm not getting into that but two on the subject of lawful dog ownership he is convinced to let the dog decide so paperwork be damned buddy the dog will decide who he wants to live with and whoever he chooses will henceforth be his legal permanent owner now predictably buddy chooses the boy who has given him nothing but affection and freedom snively much less predictably is physically carried off by several cops to jail which is ridiculous the legal system does not normally work that fast the fact that i believe one of the movies producers can attest to first hand look here is the most reasonable argument i've heard in defense of josh's ownership of buddy josh is good snively is bad therefore josh deserves the dog okay but what do we mean when we say that right deserves i'm not trying to be controversial here i'm just performing a logical extraction of moral intention based on following the breadcrumbs left by 1997's airbud but loves to position itself as a celebration of rules there ain't no rule that says a dog can't play basketball but as long as we're all pretending that rules or the absence of them are the most important thing in the world how is it that there are rules about dog ownership that it seems air but the film is so keen for you to forget here's what i'm really trying to say here rules either matter or they don't and if you are going to try and throw the spirit of the law in my face oh you let's definitely talk about that because suddenly it's subjective isn't it and then things get much muddier here is here's a thought exercise for you let's tweak some variables shall we let's say let's say the disease snively suffers from isn't alcoholism it's diabetes let's say snively has diabetes now should that count against him as a dog owner snively shouldn't have body he's an unsuccessful party clown with diabetes is that a good argument do you like how that sounds here's another variable let's say instead of being good at basketball he absolutely sucks at it now now do we now care where buddy ends up if he's a dog who's bad at basketball where's the line here does buddy only deserve a better home if he's good at basketball and if the answer to that is yes what does that say about us as a society i want to be absolutely clear here i'm not mad that the timberwolves won state as a result of buddy's middling performance though not to hammer at the point four field goals i'm also not mad that josh got buddy based on a court ruling that took place outdoors with a judge in an office chair i'm not even mad the buddy's real legal owner not only lost his dog but remember got physically carted off by police in one of the most flagrant examples of america's fetish for castle solutions ever committed to film i just want to understand the rules the rules that are supposed to be so foundationally important to the air bud story and if you're thinking john come on enough enough now josh lost his dad have a heart guys i hear you i do that's my point he's reacting from an emotional place does he want buddy or is he like i said 45 minutes ago just trying to fill the void left by his father and if so why on earth are we putting the care and safety of a hit dog in the hands of a grieving child because there ain't no rule against it listen to yourself now is this the worst thing to happen to movies no no it isn't the worst thing to happen to movies is kissing there's too much kissing in movies no one likes the sound of it and no one likes mouths the pandemic was actually great for two reasons it briefly shut down movies and everyone had to wear masks in both cases everyone saw fewer mouths and we were all happier for it i just find it fascinating that a movie the sole premise of which hinges on a strict adherence to rules chooses to discard them so quickly on such a whim that's all you're probably thinking right now wait really that is all there is no twist here oh why would you waste so much of your time and ours on a web exclusive that's quietly about air bud but loudly about nothing i'll tell you why i'll tell you specifically why because there ain't no rule against it thank you so much for watching i have no idea why you did we're back on may 1st goodbye you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 4,039,612

Keywords:

Id: Hk011WMM7t0

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 24 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/oraclestats]

I have no proof. But this has written by Daniel O'Brien all over it.

[u/Englishgrinn]

As someone said in another thread- the nominal "bad guy" went to jail for having his dog stolen. Shit's fucked.

[u/TheJar13]

RIP Josh's dad

[u/Bartholomewtwo]

Glad they showed the other movies covers. I think my favorite is the one of the dog above the volleyball net spiking a volleyball.

[u/D34THDE1TY]

And after getting out of jail he became Mr. Noodle.

[u/Seleene]

This is exactly the kind of in-depth and unnecessary rant I've enjoyed discussing with many friends over the years about different movies or TV shows. John Oliver should post a movie review a week.

[u/jetersucks]

Air Bud should have never been allowed to play in that game. Not because he is a dog, but he has to be at least 30 in dog years. He's way too old to play against children.

[u/Clashin_Creepers]

In terms of weird 90s dog movies for kids, Air Bud has nothing on Bingo imo. That movie is insane, and I love it

[u/alark]

I am digging the obsessive pop culture disorder 2.0 making an appearance today. I wonder if Daniel O'Brian is still on staff over there, I think he is. If you haven't watched it yet, here is about another hour of stuff just like this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-xBh3Qg7E&list=PL_saLI-LH-VoIJCsCXE6Qa2lS37kPS2od