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

Fun fact: all the constitution says about the speaker of the house is "The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker". It doesn't list any requirements, meaning that the speaker doesn't have to be a congressman or even a US citizen. It also doesn't say that the speaker must be a human. I'm writing a script for a new Air Bud movie based on this, don't steal it.

I’d love to hear John go over the morality of Stuart Little next.

I grew up on the Air Buddies series so it's so funny to see John Oliver make fun of how they became superheroes and not reference how their owners (children) almost got killed by ghosts and they had to save them by talking to a chihuahua medium who used a crystal ball

It’s never too late to take the piss out of a movie that centers around a golden retriever. John Oliver, you are a treasure! This bit just got funnier the more he dug his heels in.

I think it's kind of amazing that J. Oliver is literally just using the format of a cracked article for this web exclusive! D.O.B's come a long way. Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder might not exist anymore, but J. Oliver has managed to keep it alive in some way by hiring Dan O'Brien!!

"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."

FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS IT!!

I love how this show can go from blackmailing congress on week to having a deep discussion on air bud lore the next

Air Bud and his owner were my neighbors back in the early '90s (Saphire in PB). It was amazing watching them practice. I'm sure that dog was a reincarnated athlete. He was just as impressive as a wide receiver.

As a lawyer I thoroughly enjoyed this exclusive; my brain so often 'ruins' children movies for me by noticing such kind of BS, and it's good to see I am not the only one :D... Also, it's an excellent exercise in logic and law, should be used to teach kids these disciplines in school :D

BUDDY (“AIR BUD”) WAS AN ABSOLUTE BALLER AND I’LL PROVE IT!
My rebuttal to this is that John Oliver didn’t give Buddy enough credit for the absolute BALLER he is! Remember, this isn’t the NBA they’re playing in. Josh is 12 at the time of the events of the movie, meaning he’s squarely in middle school. Now I wouldn’t expect John Oliver to know this because he’s British and probably went to Oxford, but in U.S. middle school basketball there are four 6-minute quarters and the average scoring game is 35-50 points. Even if Buddy was only putting up 10 points a game (8 points + 2 free throws), then he’d be scoring 20-25% of an average team’s points! In Air Bud, the final score of the state championship game was actually 83-82. We could chalk it up to the teams being above average since it’s the state championship and all, but in actuality for the championship game the movie used NBA quarter lengths of 12-minutes because in 1997 no one was dissecting movie universes like that since the internet basically didn’t exist in ‘97 and no one thought it would matter.
But here’s the kicker that John Oliver and his team didn’t take into consideration… Buddy only played for HALF of the 4th QUARTER in the championship game! That’s right. Buddy scored 10 points, racked up 5 assists, and 2 steals in roughly 6 minutes! (There’s a continuity error with the game clock after it shows 8:07 left in the game, but again this was 1997 with 1997 equipment, we were watching on VHS, no one noticed until now, and they didn’t think it would matter. The coach says there’s 7 minutes left in the huddle.) If we averaged out those numbers out for the longer 8 minutes that’d mean Buddy would average 60 POINTS, 30 ASSISTS, and 12 STEALS over the course of a game. Which means that even being conservative and acting as if the dog might get tired (which they notoriously don’t when PLAYING) or his productivity would wain over the course of a full basketball game - Buddy would still put up, ON AVERAGE, 50 points PER GAME, 17 assists (even assuming the kids miss some of their shots), and 10 steals. BUDDY WOULD PUT UP A TRIPLE DOUBLE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL BASKETBALL IF HE PLAYED THE WHOLE GAME! Those are NBA video game numbers! Those are GOAT numbers!
I’ve got to acknowledge that those assists aren’t happening without Buddy on the floor - those kids were fouling and injuring themselves out of the game. Which means that those points aren’t getting scored without Buddy on the court. Yes, Buddy scored 10 points in the final 6 minutes of the ship, but SO did the rest of the team combined just from Buddy’s assists alone! (That’s 20 points!) When Buddy checked in they were down 72-58. Buddy touched the ball (either scoring or assisting) on 20 of the next 25 points that the Timberwolves scored to win! That’s BONKERS! And we all know the final shot where Josh drains the 3 is because he looked up and saw Buddy smiling at him. And I’m not even going to say more about how Buddy being on the court drew defenders away from other players to free them up for uncontested or easy shots. So if we’re talking pure basketball skill, was it worth having Buddy on the team? IT’S THE ONLY WAY THEY WIN. They’re just flat out mistaken that he wasn’t that good or putting up numbers - he absolutely was going HAM!
Now I have to quickly address the “rules.” Guess what, this is the ONLY area where they DID do their homework! John Oliver already acknowledged that there is, in fact, no rule that says a dog can’t play. That was and is true. But here’s where John and team slipped up, the coach didn’t just CLAIM that Buddy was a registered member of the team, HE WAS! Watch the movie and you’ll see that Buddy was registered, sitting on the bench, and in uniform (sneakers and all) every game of the regular season after he joined the team. He attended every practice Josh did and was suited up ready to play. They assumed he was just a bench rider, but he was their secret weapon. But he was no less registered and eligible to play at any time. Now the rule of law: I also happen to be a lawyer and sympathize on the whole court thing. But there’s two reasons even that may be valid - (1) Josh could demonstrate that the clown guy ABUSED the dog. That would be enough for him to be taken away and put in a shelter, where Josh could adopt him immediately. Cutting out the middle man is often allowed in these situations. (2) The paperwork that the clown had gets EATEN BY BUDDY. So those papers he has proving that Buddy is his no longer prove anything, which is why they have to go to court! I have to say that the clown hadn’t even named the dog before trying to reclaim him so I have no sympathy his dog ran away and everyone agreed that the dog was better off with a loving, caring home (even after Josh stole him back then set him free).
In conclusion, whether Buddy was Josh’s or not (which he was and should be allowed to stand), he could still be a registered member of the basketball team. (We’d have some interesting questions about if and when Buddy aged out of middle school basketball, but I won’t go there.) He was on the roster and suited up every game and practice and his number was K-9. And Buddy was dropping well over the 30-40 points that John Oliver claims would make this a “very different conversation.” So there you have it. Buddy didn’t start getting called “Air Bud” for no reason just like Jordan didn’t become “Air Jordan” for no reason. I’ll end with this. Michael Jordan has the highest career points average with 30.12 points per game. At a conservative clip, Buddy would be averaging 50 points per game against the most talented team in the state. True, Buddy probably couldn’t play in the League (too short), but for middle school basketball Air Bud is undeniably the GOAT!

This movie had one of the best lines of dialogue in cinema

opposing teams coach "Will somebody guard that dog?!?!?!"

This is the award winning breakdown and analysis that I’ve come to expect from John Oliver. Two paws up.

John killed it with his delivery of this web exclusive. He killed it like it was Josh's dad.

Fun Fact: Air Bud is not even the first Disney kids movie involving an animal who plays sports where someone has to invoke the rules of the sport to allow the animal to play. Does anyone remember GUS (1976) about the mule who kicks field goals in football!

This had EXTREME opcd energy and I am here for that! The line about how mouths are disgusting and the 'I went to oxford, probably' felt so DOB and Johm did an amazing job with the delivery! I am so happy right now!

The nuanced analysis of Air Bud I’ve been waiting 20 years for.

I love these web exclusives. They're mostly nonsense but something about it tickles my brain.

The seriousness and sincerity with which Oliver says "Air Bud, crucially, is NOT Josh's dog" just cracks me up.

As someone who spent more than 30 minutes on a 2nd date giving a dramatic retelling of the movie air bud to my now wife this rant was a highlight of the year.

Best 14 minutes of entertainment in a long while. And a fairly good rundown of any judicial system.