Sad – The greatest NBA player of all time Michael Jordan has passed away…
How Air Jordan Became Crying Jordan
In 1991, Gatorade debuted its first commercial featuring Michael Jordan. The minute-long spot features shots of Jordan on the court intercut with children mimicking his signature moves, all set to the tune of a brand-new hit song composed especially for the commercial: “If I could be like Mike,” sung by a chorus of children’s voices, which functions as a stand-in for people of all ages. Although Jordan had been featured in national advertisements for years, this was his crowning achievement.
Michael Jordan’s athletic greatness was obvious then and remains so now. But his charm, a quarter century later, has become tougher to recall. It’s there, though, in the final seconds of the Gatorade commercial, when Jordan lifts his eyebrows, rolls his eyes, and turns, smirking, away from the camera, as if recognizing the essential strangeness of just how famous he had become. This was an early version of the Jordan Shrug, which was enshrined into sports lore the following year, during the first game of the N.B.A. Finals. Jordan made six three-pointers in the first half of the game and, after hitting the last one, he looked to the sidelines, turned his palms upward and shrugged his shoulders, pretending to be baffled by what he’d just done. Don’t ask me why I’m so good, the gesture said: you figure it out.
It’s getting harder to distinguish Jordan from the pictures that were marketed to customers. He wasn’t a marketing cipher, though. The things that advertised him as cool were, in fact, cool: his deadpan sense of humor, his easy smile, his shiny, perfectly round bald head, his acrobatic jumps, his wagging tongue, and his clutch shots on the grandest platforms. The Jumpman insignia that adorns his Nike footwear and clothing sub-brand? He truly was able to jump that high.
