The players on Arnold's team are Tucker, Gerald, Stinky, "Robert" (blonde kid with the glasses that appears in other episodes, usually in a green shirt), Lamar, Frankie, and Ravi.
Grandpa wanted to join the circus as a kid, as a trapeze artist. Instead, the only circus job he had was cleaning up after the elephants for 13 years.
Two of the elephants were named "Jumbo" and "Big Nelly".
Arnold claims that there are 9366 little dots in the surface of a basketball ball.
Morals:
Don't show favoritism over your teammates. Be a good team player.
Favoritism inside a team can be root for low morale, personal quarrels and loss of confidence on leadership.
Avoid over-reliance in a single team member.
To build a good, solid team all members must improve and evolve their skills and capabilities together. A solid team would be able to cover the absence of any of its members.
Airing[]
This episode aired almost a month before the basketball movie Space Jam, starring Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes, was released in theaters.
The YMAA could be a reference to the world organization YMCA.
The banner in this episode however spells it as "YMMA".
Coach Wittenberg mistakenly thinks that Canadian bandleader Guy Lombardo originally said, "There is no 'I' in team." He may have been thinking of Vince Lombardi, even though he probably was not the originator of the phrase either.
Continuity[]
Stinky speaks again after 16 episodes since Field Trip.
This is the only episode that Tucker appears. He is not seen or mentioned throughout the remainder of the series.
Story Analysis[]
Coach Wittenberg was using favoritism of his son, Tucker, rather than the whole team. He even, ironically, motivates his players by asking them to remember that "There is no 'I' in team" while making Tucker the focus and center of the team.
While not explanation is given in this episode on the reasons for Coach Wittenberg's attitude towards Tucker and the rest of the team, it is revealed on next episodes that he is obsessed to winning any competition on his way due to a personal challenge between his wife Tish and him.
It is actually the correct way for Arnold to pass the basketball to Gerald when Tucker was not open, because if Arnold would've tried to pass it to Tucker, the other team would steal the basketball and Arnold would've cost his team to lose anyway because he would've passed it to the opposing team.
