Wieden+Kennedy vet Jim Riswold knew what was up, doc, when he conceived the legendary Super Bowl ad that teamed a famous basketball player and a famous rabbit, but he had no idea the ad’s cultural legacy would stretch decades into the future.

Riswold, the agency’s first-hired copywriter and later creative director (and now a professional artist), had worked with Michael Jordan before introducing him to Bugs Bunny in a series of Nike ads with a young Spike Lee playing his character Mars Blackmon from “She’s Gotta Have It.” He’d even worked on two previous Nike Super Bowl ads before taking a turn into wabbit country.

The “Hare Jordan” ad for Air Jordan sneakers, which premiered at 1992’s Super Bowl XXVI, was different from the ones before it. It aced USA Today’s fourth annual Super Bowl Ad Meter and had young fans, including Michael Jordan’s kid, going crazy. The spot was so successful that Warner Bros. and Nike collaborated with Riswold again for Super Bowl XXVII’s “Aerospace Jordan” ad in 1993.

Three years later, Warner Brothers welcomed audiences to the “Space Jam” with the film directed by Joe Pytka, who directed the two ads before it. Now its happening all again in “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” Starring LeBron James and directed by Malcolm D. Lee, the film opens in theaters and on HBO Max this Friday, July 16 (and has proved to be the hottest movie marketing event of the summer).

Ad Age caught up with Riswold to hear about his days on the court with Jordan, his distaste for “Space Jam” and his thoughts about the sequel 25 years later.

You’ve said previously that before your Nike ads, athlete-centric ads had been all sweaty portraits. What made you choose to start crossing into pop culture?

Why not? When I was a kid, I collected baseball cards. And I always found the most interesting thing on the back of a baseball card was not the statistics. There'd always be a little cartoon that would tell you something about the athlete's personal life. Like Ted Williams was a fighter pilot in two wars or something. I just found it more interesting to get to know the athlete, something about the athlete as a person rather than a stat machine. And with Michael, you could see every night on highlight reels that here was the greatest basketball player ever, a bonafide assassin on the court that took no prisoners. So we didn't have to do anything to show that side, we could show the human side of him and have some fun with him.

You created Nike Super Bowl ads a couple years ahead of “Hare Jordan,” “Announcers” and “Heritage.” Why the shift in direction in 1992?

I think the only thing was to do a Super Bowl spot worthy of Michael Jordan. And let's bring Bugs Bunny. That was essentially it. You grew up and you were either a Bugs Bunny fan or a Mickey Mouse fan. Mickey Mouse and company, they made you feel that they were comfortable like a blanket. Bugs Bunny made you fuckin' laugh. Stick it to the man, too, which was a high ideal for like an eight-year-old watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. But, you know, the fucking guy taught me a lot.

I've read that you had issues with Warner Bros. on the content for the commercial. What was the process of writing the ad? Were the writers from Looney Tunes involved at all or was it you only?

It was me only, but we used their animation group [who] did a great job. Darrell Van Citters was the animator. They were all Bugs Bunny fans, but they had their corporate “He can't do this, he can't do that” and like, fuck that. You can't have Porky Pig stutter because there's a guy that will protest? Really? And they were right. I mean, there was a guy that came after us because like, 'Michael Jordan took away Porky Pig's job because Porky Pig had a handicap.' Who thinks of shit like this? After the first one was so successful, to Warner Bros.' credit, they were great fun to work with on the second one. We could do whatever we wanted and we did. And maybe we didn't get out of our own way. We were given such freedom, we couldn't edit ourselves. Well, I couldn't.

When that first Super Bowl commercial was all said and done, was it everything that you'd wanted it to be?

Yes. It was wonderful. And I remember the nicest thing that Michael ever said to me was 'Thank you for making my kid's favorite commercial.'

And how was it seeing the fan reactions and the hype and then eventually the movie? 

I am not a fan of “Space Jam.” Not at all, but to each his own! I mean, I just don't get it. And I can't believe they're making another one. I’ll just say, Sylvester and Tweety Bird do not get along, but now they're playing basketball for Christ's sakes. Don't I sound pretentious?

In previous interviews, you said you worked on the movie for a bit and that didn't work out.

Nope. I got fired. Fine by me. They gave me a few dollars, and they gave me some really cool merchandise—giant statues of the Looney Tunes characters that used to populate my kids’ room. I’ve since given them away because the kids grew up. A few days in the Hollywood system was plenty—even that made advertising seem enjoyable.

Talk to me a little bit more about the immense legacy of the ad. Do you still feel connected to the work or do you want some distance from 'Space Jam'?

Let's say as a sufficiently grumpy, ex-creative, retired person, part of me gets mad when I see that stuff. And then part of me goes that's kind of cool even though I don't like it. I mean they made a movie out of it. Thank God every commercial doesn't have a movie made out of it, but regardless of what I think of the movies, which, to be honest, isn't much, it's still kind of cool. And you know, they make people happy. Good for them. I mean, if somebody would have called and said, 'Hey, you want to help on the new one?' I would have thought about it. I mean, depending on how lazy I was that day. But nobody called. Alas, poor me.

From a marketing standpoint, what have you learned from the legacy of this ad?

Oh, geez. Enjoy yourself. It's obvious that myself and the other people that have worked on the two commercials had a lot of fun. We were invested in the work deeply. And I think it showed. I firmly believe that for a good portion of my life, I was a kid in a candy store. And I got paid to be in a candy store.

Any hot tips on how to create the next 'Space Jam'?

Be vulnerable. You can't be creative, unless you're willing to make a complete fool out of yourself. I remember when I saw 'Space Jam' in the movies. Everyone said, 'Are you upset or not upset?' I said, both. That movie sucked. But I can't believe they made a movie out of our commercial. I just wish they would have made a better movie.