Aug 12: How Air Bud: Golden Receiver Nearly Killed the Franchise
Plus weird '90s celebrity couples, Macho Man on Arsenio, monster cereals, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
August 12th, 2022 • Issue 112
How Air Bud: Golden Receiver Nearly Killed the Franchise
24 years ago, on August 14th, 1998, Air Bud: Golden Receiver hit theaters.
There have been 14 movies in the Air Bud cinematic universe. I’m guessing you didn’t know that — because I’m guessing no one, not even the team behind Air Bud knows that — but it’s true. Fourteen.
Like any long-running series, Air Bud had to survive the awkward stage where it was finding its footing. The Fast and Furious series managed to survive its second and third movies. The Marvel Cinematic Universe managed to survive The Incredible Hulk.
And Air Bud managed to survive Air Bud: Golden Receiver. But barely.
That movie was nearly a franchise killer. It was almost a Speed 2: Cruise Control. A Three Men and a Little Lady. A Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous. A Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
To understand why Air Bud: Golden Receiver is worthy of such ignominious stature, we need a quick rewind to the origins of Air Bud.
The first Air Bud movie (in which a dog joins a high school basketball team) came about organically. At least as much as you could arrive at that premise organically.
There was an actual dog named Buddy, later Air Buddy, from southern California. His owner, Kevin Di Cicco, found him on the streets and trained him to make baskets. Buddy made it onto America’s Funniest Home Videos and then David Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks segment. From there, Di Cicco began talking with Hollywood types about making a movie.
Disney liked the idea, threw a small budget at a movie — and Air Bud was a surprise success. It grossed $27.8 million against a $3 million budget and, despite middling reviews, was quite popular with its target demographic.
The sequel was inevitable — but seemed cursed from the start. First off, Air Buddy played basketball, not football. A dog playing basketball was already asking audiences, even child audiences, to take a massive believability leap. Now they wanted the dog to play football? Where people would ostensibly try to tackle a poor dog?
Then real-life tragedy struck. Air Buddy passed away from a rare form of cancer at age nine. Replacement dog actors had to come in to fill the role.
The plot and script were questionable, but Air Bud: Golden Receiver still received an $11 million budget and a full theatrical release. (The movie did feature an unexpected cameo by Warren Moon, so maybe that went a long way.)
Lightning did not strike twice. The movie received horrible reviews and even worse attendance. It wound up losing money, grossing $10.2 million.
The franchise was at a crossroads. But fate tipped its way thanks to fortunate timing — and Disney’s, well, newfound lack of shame.
By 1998, Disney was ready to go all-in on its direct-to-video sequel model. Essentially: Take a popular piece of IP, crank out a low-budget sequel, release it to home video, and watch parents buy it for their kids en masse.
That model began in 1994 with The Return of Jafar and continued through the ‘90s with sequels and spin-offs to everything from Beauty and the Beast to the Honey, I Shrunk franchise.
The Air Bud series was a great fit. Quality might be tough — but quantity was not.
Sure, a single, $11-million, theatrically released Air Bud movie flopped. And in different times, Air Bud: Golden Receiver would’ve been a franchise kneecapper. But with the home video market where it was in 1998, Disney quadrupled down.
They reduced the Air Bud budgets back to around $3 million and planned to rip out a new sequel more or less every year.
At least, it seems, until they ran out of puns.
Soccer movie Air Bud: World Pup went straight to video in 2000. Baseball movie Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch followed in 2002. Volleyball (not javelin) movie Air Bud Spikes Back came out in 2003.
Then came the spin-offs. Air Buddies, a movie about Air Bud’s five children (who, unlike Air Bud, can talk) came out in 2006. And also marked the final film of Don Knotts’s career.
Eight more movies with the Buddies would follow, including two Christmas movies, the last of which had its straight-to-video release in 2012.
All in all, the franchise has grossed $220 million, making it one of the top direct-to-video franchises ever. (Only Disney’s series around Tinkerbell has generated more revenue.)
And most of that revenue came after Air Bud: Golden Receiver — the film that nearly reduced the franchise to a two-movie, one-pun footnote.
Other momentous moments from this week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
August 12th
1981 - IBM’s first PC, the 5150 Personal Computer, went on sale.
1988 - Young Guns hit theaters.
1988 - Mac and Me hit theaters.
1989 - Richard Marx’s single Right Here Waiting hit number one.
1990 - The T-rex skeleton called “Sue” was discovered in South Dakota.
1991 - Metallica’s Black Album was released.
1994 - Major League Baseball’s strike began.
1994 - Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex was released.
1994 - Woodstock ‘94 kicked off.
1994 - FOX aired its first NFL broadcast.
1997 - Usher’s single You Make Me Wanna was released.
1997 - Puff Daddy’s single Been Around the World was released.
1997 - The Backstreet Boys’ debut album was (finally) released in the U.S.
August 13th
1981 - The series finale aired of The Waltons on CBS.
1982 - Fast Times at Ridgemont High hit theaters.
1993 - Street Fighter II was released for Super Nintendo.
1993 - Searching for Bobby Fisher hit theaters.
1999 - Bowfinger hit theaters.
1999 - Detroit Rock City hit theaters.
August 14th
1987 - Can’t Buy Me Love hit theaters.
1993 - 95 South’s one hit, Whoot, There It Is, peaked at #11.
1993 - 4 Non Blondes’ one hit, What’s Up, peaked at #14.
1993 - Fu-Schnickens’ one hit, What’s Up Doc, peaked at #39.
1994 - Inside the Actors’ Studio premiered on Bravo.
1995 - Nintendo’s Virtual Boy went on sale in North America.
1995 - The first female cadet enrolled at The Citadel.
1998 - How Stella Got Her Groove Back hit theaters.
August 15th
1975 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in movie theaters for the first time.
1979 - Apocalypse Now was released.
1981 - Joey Scarbury’s one hit, the theme song to The Greatest American Hero, peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts.
1981 - Diana Ross and Lionel Richie’s duet Endless Love hit number one.
1987 - Metroid was released for NES.
1991 - Aaron Neville’s Everybody Plays the Fool was released.
1992 - The Larry Sanders Show premiered.
1992 - Are You Afraid of the Dark? premiered as part of Nickelodeon’s new SNICK Saturday night programming.
1995 - Los Del Rio’s Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix) was released.
1998 - Big Pun’s Still Not a Player peaked at #24 on the Billboard charts.
1998 - The Bondi Blue iMac went on sale.
August 16th
1984 - John Z. DeLorean was acquitted on cocaine charges.
1985 - Madonna and Sean Penn got married.
1986 - Madonna’s single Papa Don’t Preach hit number one, as did her album True Blue.
1986 - Bon Jovi’s album Slippery When Wet was released.
1995 - The Usual Suspects hit theaters.
1996 - Tin Cup hit theaters.
1996 - The Fan hit theaters.
August 17th
1979 - Life of Brian was released in theaters.
1986 - Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen played his first concert since losing an arm.
1989 - James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow got married.
1992 - Woody Allen admitted to his affair with Soon-Yi.
1994 - David Caruso quit NYPD Blue to begin his movie career with Jade.
1995 - Yo! MTV Raps aired its series finale.
1996 - Ross Perot was announced as the Reform Party’s first-ever presidential candidate.
1996 - Dishwalla’s one hit, Counting Blue Cars, peaked at #15.
1997 - VH1’s Behind the Music premiered.
1999 - Brian McKnight’s single Back at One was released.
August 18th
1981 - Herschel Walker took out an insurance policy on himself while at the University of Georgia.
1989 - Uncle Buck hit theaters.
1992 - Larry Bird announced his retirement.
1994 - Ini Kamoze’s single Here Comes the Hotstepper was released.
1995 - Mortal Kombat the movie hit theaters... with a PG-13 rating.
1995 - The Baby-Sitters Club movie hit theaters.
1998 - Aerosmith’s single I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing was released.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
Blink-182 got karmic revenge on the group that drove them to add the random number “182” to their name.
Blink-182’s name was originally just “Blink.” But they added the number — a random number — when an Irish band called Blink threatened to sue them. Some years later, Blink would wind up opening for Blink-182.
Bryan Adams did not have a coming-of-age teenage summer in the summer of ‘69.
Though Bryan Adams had a huge hit with Summer of ‘69, he was actually nine years old during the real summer of 1969.
Nike adopted the slogan “Just do it” in 1988… even though it had a very dark origin.
“Just do it” were the last words of a murderer before his execution in Utah in 1977.
Tom Brady wasn’t just a low draft pick in the NFL… he was also a low draft pick in MLB.
Tom Brady was drafted out of high school by the Montreal Expos in 1995 with the 507th pick of the draft. He decided not to sign and went to the University of Michigan to play football instead.
Electric Light Orchestra holds the record for the most top 40 hits without a number one.
They had 20 top 40 singles between 1974 and 1986… but none that landed higher than fourth. (Don’t Bring Me Down in 1979.)
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
A live-action Pac-Man movie is in the works.
The Predator prequel Prey was the top premiere in Hulu history across all movies and TV shows.
The ‘90s music festival Flannel Nation was all set for this weekend in San Pedro, Calif., but had to cancel — when Sugar Ray, Candlebox, Everclear, and Filter all dropped out. And just having Soul Asylum, Sponge, Cracker, and Fastball wasn’t enough.
FOX used a hologram of Harry Caray to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at their annual Field of Dreams game yesterday. Let’s just say it received mixed reviews.
The A League of Their Own reboot series comes out today on Amazon Prime.
Lisa Kudrow says the first time she met Jerry Seinfeld, he expected her to say “thank you” for the success of Friends. “She’s an under-thanker, George.” “An under… thanker?” “An under. Thanker.” “No ‘thanks’?” “No ‘thanks’!” “No thanks.” Laughs.
Fans are modifying the classic Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye to turn it into The Spy Who Loved Me.
Here’s a list of older rock songs that became popular (or re-popular) after they appeared in a movie or TV show.
Olivia Newton-John passed away on Monday at age 73.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
The Monster Cereals are back. General Mills has resurrected Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, and even the Shemp of the group, Frute Brute, for Halloween 2022. The cereals are all hitting stores now.
On a related-ish note, Kellogg’s is rolling out a Hocus Pocus 2 cereal this month. It’s in honor of the movie sequel and is not a sequel to a prior Hocus Pocus cereal. At least as far as I can tell.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
Forgotten celebrity couples of the ‘90s. Fine, you got me, Buzzfeed. Though there are some on the list everyone remembers (Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are hardly forgotten), I sure never knew Rashida Jones and Tobey Maguire were together for three years. Or that Brandy dated one of the guys from Boyz II Men.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
A 1992 clip of “Macho Man” Randy Savage on The Arsenio Hall Show went viral this week. It’s where Macho answers Arsenio’s question, “Have you ever cried?” with an ahead-of-its-time response.
Have a great week!
-Sam