- John Oliver briefly returns to talk about rules as they apply to the movie Air Bud
- Air Bud is about a kid named Josh who tries to fill the void of his deceased father with a dog who happens to be good at basketball
- The movie spawned many sequels and spin-offs that strayed far from the original premise
- There is no rule preventing a dog from playing basketball, but the question is whether the dog should play basketball
- Air Bud's basketball production is not impressive and he is a liability on defense
- Air Bud originally belonged to Norm Snively, who trained him to perform party tricks
- Snively loses Buddy, who is then retrieved by Josh, and the movie ends with Buddy choosing to live with Josh

- The author questions the logic and rules in the movie Air Bud regarding dog ownership
- They argue that the movie promotes the importance of rules but disregards them when it comes to dog ownership
- The author poses hypothetical scenarios to challenge the idea that only certain people should own Buddy based on their abilities or health conditions
- They express confusion and frustration over the lack of consistency in the movie's rules
- The author also briefly mentions their dislike for kissing scenes in movies
- The overall message is that there are no rules against discussing these topics, hence the purpose of the video

John Oliver discusses rules, moral intention, and 1997's Air Bud.

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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, deez

-♪ Specifically, though, I want to talk about rules as they apply to 1997's Air Bud.

A movie that is quietly about grief, but is loudly about a dog playing basketball.

If you've never seen it, I'm gonna show you 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.

So, the dog scores a basket, grins 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 win 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.

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 gonna ruin 1997's Air Bud for you.

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.

If you haven't seen Air Bud, then you almost definitely haven't seen the many sequels and spin-offs that it 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 roots.

These rings have given us some epic power!

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.

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.

But I will say, I do appreciate your use of the phrase content units.

I'm a material generator who distributes content units designed to occupy your time between now and death.

I'm not talking about Air Bud Because I have to.

Now, even if you are not an Air Buds superfan, you are probably familiar with the oft-cited line about basketball rules that has been repeated and parodied for years now.

You check in your rule book, but you won't find anything in there that says a dog can't play.

Ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball.

Yes, ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball.

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.

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.

-♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ Now...

-♪♪ Obviously, we didn't get Kevin Durant for this bit.

It's the playoffs right now, plus this is a web exclusive about Air Bud.

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 Bud's basketball production.

Here's what we know about Air Bud, or Buddy, which is his given name, based on the game tape that is available to us.

2 steals, 5 assists, 2 free throws, and 4 field goals.

But is that dog an asset to the Fernfield Timberwolves?

And it's honestly shocking to me that a coach so focused on teamwork, cooperation, and ball movement would allow such a distraction to dominate the team's narrative.

Now, if he's putting up 30 to 40 points a night, we're having a very different conversation right now.

And apart from the steals, he's a complete liability on defense.

But there's an even bigger question when it comes to should Air Bud be playing basketball, and that is that Air Bud, crucially, is not Josh's dog.

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.

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.

yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah

And a not terrible argument could be made that Snively was the 1 who gave Buddy the fundamental training that resulted in him being able to play basketball in the first place.

Snively gets a lot of shit 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.

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 Snively's yard and steals Buddy back.

And if you're saying, John, if you're saying, John, hang on now.

If you're saying, John, just stop, listen to me.

Snively was an alcoholic, failed birthday party clown who wasn't properly taking care of Buddy, and even though, yes, he had the paperwork documenting proper provenance of the dog, it was obviously receiving much better care through Josh and his family.

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 Air Bud 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 offscreen.

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.

Instead, instead, Snively attempts to regain the ownership of Buddy, even contacting a judge.

The judge, in his wisdom, decides 2 things.

1, he will ultimately only make a ruling on this case outside on the lawn, which...

-...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 whomever 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.

The legal system does not normally work that fast.

The fact that I believe 1 of the movie's producers can attest to firsthand.

Look, here is the most reasonable argument I've heard in defense of Josh's ownership of Buddy.

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 Air Bud.

Air Bud 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-blood the film is so keen for you to forget, here's what I'm really trying to say here.

And if you are gonna try and throw the spirit of the law in my face, oh, fuck you.

Let's definitely talk about that, because suddenly it's subjective, isn't it?

Let's say the disease Snively suffers from isn't alcoholism, it's diabetes.

Now, should that count against him as a dog owner?

He's an unsuccessful party clown with diabetes.

Let's say instead of being good at basketball, he absolutely sucks at it.

Now, now, do we now care where Buddy ends up?

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'm not mad that the Timberwolves won state as a result of Buddy's middling performance, though not to hammer at the 0.4 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 that Buddy's real legal owner not only lost his dog, but remember, got physically carted off by police in 1 of the most flagrant examples of America's fetish for carceral solutions ever committed to film.

The rules that are supposed to be so foundationally important to the Air Bud story.

And if you're thinking, John, come on, enough.

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 hip dog in the hands of a grieving child.

-♪ ♪ -♪ Now, is this the worst thing to happen to movies?

The worst thing to happen to movies is kissing.

No 1 likes the sound of it and no 1 likes mouths.

The pandemic was actually great for 2 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.

And yet, you're probably thinking right now, -"Wait, really?

Oh." -"Yeah." Why would you waste so much of your time and ours on a web exclusive that's quietly about Air Buds but loudly about nothing?


Speaker 0: -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ 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, deez

Speaker 1: nuts.

Speaker 0: -♪ Specifically, though, I want to talk about rules as they apply to 1997's Air Bud. A movie that is quietly about grief, but is loudly about a dog playing basketball. If you've never seen it, I'm gonna show you 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.

Speaker 1: Fine. You can play.

Speaker 0: ♪♪ -♪♪ -♪♪ Yeah. So, the dog scores a basket, grins 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 win 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 gonna ruin 1997's Air Bud for you.

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 1 of those things. Dogs die and 9-11 will happen.

If you haven't seen Air Bud, then you almost definitely haven't seen the many sequels and spin-offs that it 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 roots. -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪

Speaker 1: Whoa!

Speaker 0: -♪ ♪

Speaker 1: These rings have given us some epic power! Just think of the good we can do. Oops.

Speaker 0: Yeah, but they have superpowers now. 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 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.

I like it. 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 Air Bud Because I have to.

I'm doing it because I want to. Now, even if you are not an Air Buds superfan, you are probably familiar with the oft-cited line about basketball rules that has been repeated and parodied for years now.

Speaker 1: You check in your rule book, but you won't find anything in there that says a dog can't play.

Speaker 0: He's right!

Speaker 1: Ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball.

Speaker 0: 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! -♪ ♪ -♪

Speaker 1: CHEERING AND APPLAUSE AND WHISTLING

Speaker 0: ♪ ♪♪ -♪♪

Speaker 1: Now...

Speaker 0: -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ Now... -♪♪ Obviously, we didn't get Kevin Durant for this bit. It's the playoffs right now, plus this is a web exclusive about Air Bud. 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 Bud's basketball production. Here's what we know about Air Bud, or Buddy, which is his given name, based on the game tape that is available to us. 2 steals, 5 assists, 2 free throws, and 4 field goals. That is it.

That is his entire box score. Now, I'm not saying that 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, cooperation, 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, 4 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 Air Bud be playing basketball, and that is that Air Bud, crucially, is not Josh's dog. -♪ ROCK MUSIC PLAYING ♪ -♪

Speaker 1: LAUGHTER

Speaker 0: ♪ 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. -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh,

Speaker 1: yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah

Speaker 0: ♪ -♪

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah ♪ -♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah

Speaker 0: ♪ Yeah, pretty impressive, right? Everyone had fun. And a not terrible argument could be made that Snively was the 1 who gave Buddy the fundamental training that resulted in him being able to play basketball in the first place. Snively gets a lot of shit 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 Snively's yard and steals Buddy back.

And if you're saying, John, if you're saying, John, hang on now. If you're saying, John, just stop, listen to me. Snively was an alcoholic, failed birthday party clown who wasn't properly taking care of Buddy, and even though, yes, he had the paperwork documenting proper provenance 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 movie's 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 Air Bud 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 offscreen. 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, Snively attempts to regain the ownership of Buddy, even contacting a judge.

The judge, in his wisdom, decides 2 things. 1, he will ultimately only make a ruling on this case outside on the lawn, which... Sure, I'm not getting into that. But 2... -...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 whomever 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 1 of the movie's producers can attest to firsthand. 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 Air Bud.

Air Bud 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-blood 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 gonna try and throw the spirit of the law in my face, oh, fuck you.

Let's definitely talk about that, because suddenly it's subjective, isn't it? And then things get much muddier. Here is 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 Buddy. 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 0.4 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 that Buddy's real legal owner not only lost his dog, but remember, got physically carted off by police in 1 of the most flagrant examples of America's fetish for carceral 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 buddies? 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 hip 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 1 likes the sound of it and no 1 likes mouths. The pandemic was actually great for 2 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. -...

-... And yet, you're probably thinking right now, -"Wait, really? That is all? There is no twist here? Oh." -"Yeah." Why would you waste so much of your time and ours on a web exclusive that's quietly about Air Buds 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.

Speaker 1: You

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