On an internet where very few things are permanent, the rare island of stability can feel especially rewarding. Stumbling onto an old-school diary blog where Ian McKellan talks about making The Fellowship Of The Ring. Seeing Javascript frames in the wild. And, of course, traveling over to spacejam.com, which, for 25 years, has persisted on the internet in all its made-at-the-height-of-Geocities glory, serving up anything you might wish to know about Planet B-Ball, Behind The Jam, Lunar Tunes, and more.
Until today.
You see, as part of its efforts to launch the full push for the upcoming Space Jam: A New Legacy, Warner Bros. made a momentous decision this morning, replacing the venerable original web site for 1996's Space Jam with a new version touting the new film’s trailer. At first glance, it’s a strangely huge blow to internet culture, such as it is. We’ve lost so many touchstones of our shared and stupid history over the years; seeing spacejam.com disappear hit even harder than the day we learned the Dole/Kemp ’96 campaign web site had stopped taking donations.
But there’s a light at the end of the Looney Tunes logo tunnel, friends. Apparently aware that they were toying with the feelings of the literally tens of people who never stop thinking about the original spacejam.com, Warner Bros. has decided to archive this testament to antique web design. A button on the new Space Jam web site will, after a brief warning, take consumers to their true destination: https://www.spacejam.com/1996/, in all its preserved glory.
God, it feels good to be home.