"A Goofy Movie" 30th Anniversary Retrospective

[DeanBurrito25]

30 years ago today, "A Goofy Movie" was released in theaters! While it wasn't the biggest smash at the box office, the impact it made through home media to a generation of 90s kids cannot be overstated, being renowned as a "cult classic" to this very day.

I was nearly a whopping two years old when it was released theatrically, so I definitely didn't catch it until it was released on VHS. I had feint memories of seeing it in latchkey when I was in preschool, and the irony is that I had stronger memories of its direct-to-video sequel "An Extremely Goofy Movie", as my cousin had that on VHS and I would watch it when I went to my grandma's house, among countless other Disney movies. It wasn't until I was a bit older that I actually watched the first again to jog my memory and appreciate it for its merits. I remember snagging a DVD of it at a Toys 'R Us, when those stores were starting to go out of business. Even though it's the cropped 4:3 version (as opposed to the 16:9 widescreen version on Disney Plus), it's nice to have it in any physical capacity.

What's your memory of "A Goofy Movie"?

 

[RoyalRubble]

Bill Farmer & Jason Marsden celebrate the anniversary with another road trip.

 

[CartoonCF]

I unfortunately never saw this movie in theaters, but when I got it on DVD it immediately became one of my favorites(the sequel too). The songs are a blast. I just finished watching the new doc on it & wow, it was great.

 

[Pooky]

This came out in October 1996 in the UK, a whooping 18 months after it came out in the US. At the time a gap between releases was common, but it was rarely much more than 6 months (though I think the first few Renaissance films had been around a year later). It was released to tie-in with the Autumn Half-Term (a week kids get off from school; as far as I've been able to ascertain kids in the UK get less time off over the summer than US kids, but more during the school year).

On the plus side we did get Runaway Brain in front of it. I was a couple of months shy of 10, and did want to see it (I seem to recall a lot of kids magazines had cover stories about it), mostly on the strength of Runaway Brain to be honest, but in both cases I ended up waiting for VHS.

I also remember that a pretty significant portion of animation fan sites in the late 90s were Goofy Movie Fan sites. I'm not sure there was a single site about Goofy the character and his history or Goof Troop, but there were many for A Goofy Movie. These days if you want to show you like a movie you'll share a meme, in those days you'd spend ages building a fan site even if there are dozens already. But hey, maybe yours will have an exclusive WAV.

I remember finding Mickey's cameo based on one of those sites. I showed my Mum and she thought it was cute but warned me not to pause VHS tapes too much, which was probably good advice.

For whatever reason it became one of my grandmother's favorites; she was in her late 60s at the time.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

I’m actually one of the few people who saw this in theaters. I would have been five (well closer to five-and-a-half). My mom took my brother and I to see it and I loved it. During the dream sequence at the beginning i thought it was going to be a fake out and Max was hearing some sort of animal call his name. Im not sure how that makes any sense, but cut me some slack I was five!

I remember that evening, at dinner, my dad asked me what I thought about the movie. I was like “It was funny!” and then my mom said something like it was surprisingly dark (I don’t remember if that was the word she used but she was implying the family drama in that movie was a bit unexpected.) My family never owned this on VHS (even though we had basically every other animated movie ever made). Since it came on the Disney channel all the time it still played a major role in my childhood. I did eventually buy it on DVD when I was in high school. I also have a core memory of being in 5th grade and the other 5th grade class invited my class over to watch A Goofy Movie.

 

[cheril59]

I saw it a few times on VHS, and a few years ago I bought the Japanese widescreen LaserDisc release because it had a music video for Powerline's "I2I" with behind-the-scenes footage.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Anyone watch the documentary Not Just a Goof on Disney+ that was just released? It's worth a watch, they have unused footage from the film (including a couple deleted musical numbers which... I'm kinda glad they excised, frankly), plus a bunch of behind-the-scenes video from back in 1993-1995. Plus some of the interviews got brief animated sequences, which brought the anecdotes to life.

I too was one of the few to actually see it in theaters, though I also watched the VHS a number of times as well. I don't have quite the unbridled love for the movie like some of the fans in the documentary's climax, but it's definitely a solid movie which somehow takes a, erm, goofy character and gives him more dimensions. I also love the cartoony animation in this, which I suspect is one of the main reasons why I watched it so much back then.

 

[John Pannozzi]

Anyone watch the documentary Not Just a Goof on Disney+ that was just released? It's worth a watch, they have unused footage from the film (including a couple deleted musical numbers which... I'm kinda glad they excised, frankly), plus a bunch of behind-the-scenes video from back in 1993-1995. Plus some of the interviews got brief animated sequences, which brought the anecdotes to life.

I too was one of the few to actually see it in theaters, though I also watched the VHS a number of times as well. I don't have quite the unbridled love for the movie like some of the fans in the documentary's climax, but it's definitely a solid movie which somehow takes a, erm, goofy character and gives him more dimensions. I also love the cartoony animation in this, which I suspect is one of the main reasons why I watched it so much back then.

I saw the documentary, and I thought it was good. I actually wouldn't mind seeing (or being able to listen to) the deleted songs in full (though, yeah, they were deleted for the best).

I do find it a bit odd that in the archive footage, Kevin Lima at one point says that basically none of the creative team from Goof Troop was working on the film. I'm pretty sure that Lima himself directed at least an episode or two of that series. Maybe he misspoke. Adding to the oddness of that quote, in doc we only briefly see Jymn Magon (who wrote the film's script, and was a writer and producer on many of the Disney Afternoon-related shows) in archive footage. Given that Magon has contributed to a bunch of retrospectives on his Disney work over the last 15 years or so, it would have been nice if appeared more in this, but you can't interview everyone.

But, yeah, I too saw this film in theaters. I didn't see it until it hit our local second-run theater, which made the film's events more timely since it was around the start of summer vacation by then. I also found it an amusing coincidence that my family and I saw a film in which famous Disney characters go to a dubious theme park the same year we went to Disney and Universal Parks (the ones in Orlando, specifically) for the first time.

I don't have much else to say about A Goofy Movie or this doc, except to say that they're both very good, and as an aside, I think the character of Roxanne may have influenced my attraction to redheads.

 

[Edward Joseph]

I do find it a bit odd that in the archive footage, Kevin Lima at one point says that basically none of the creative team from Goof Troop was working on the film. I'm pretty sure that Lima himself directed at least an episode or two of that series. Maybe he misspoke.

Just checked on IMDB (yeah yeah I know) and it doesn't appear that he worked on Goof Troop.

Anyway, as someone who saw the film a while ago, I've gotta say that's it's a wonderful film. Easily one of the best things done with a classic Disney character in modern times, for my money. Probably would fit right in with the Disney Canon if it counted, as well.

 

[John Pannozzi]

Just checked on IMDB (yeah yeah I know) and it doesn't appear that he worked on Goof Troop.

Wikipedia also doesn't mention him as having directed any episodes of Goof Troop.

It's so weird. Because I have a memory that around the time Enchanted (which Lima also directed) came out in 2007, I looked up info on him, and I remember reading that he directed an episode or two of Goof Troop before doing A Goofy Movie.
Maybe this is one of those Mandela Effects.

 

[Classic Speedy]

^ You might've been a victim of wiki vandalism or something.

Robert Taylor was the supervising director of Goof Troop, but there was no "main" director on any of the episodes. It was just animation directors, both the domestic ones and whatever overseas studio the episodes were sent to.

The reason A Goofy Movie didn't share staff with Goof Troop is actually pretty simple: The feature divisions always had different staff than the TV/DTV division.

 

[John Pannozzi]

^ You might've been a victim of wiki vandalism or something.

Robert Taylor was the supervising director of Goof Troop, but there was no "main" director on any of the episodes. It was just animation directors, both the domestic ones and whatever overseas studio the episodes were sent to.

The reason A Goofy Movie didn't share staff with Goof Troop is actually pretty simple: The feature divisions always had different staff than the TV/DTV division.

I don't recall reading about Lima on a wiki, FWIW.

 

[DeanBurrito25]

I ended this week by watching "Not Just A Goof" last night! Whatever appreciation I already had for this movie multiplied tenfold. With the amount of upper management pushback and productions issues A Goofy Movie underwent, it's a miracle this movie ever got released, let alone one of this budget and scale. It made me a bit irksome that Katzenberg's suggestion to replace Bill Farmer with Steve Martin as the voice of Goofy made Farmer question himself...so it's interesting that Katzenberg was the only exec vying for the movie's creation by the time he parted ways with Disney, despite his, erm, leadership skills.

I couldn't imagine having two whole decades pass before realizing the creation I poured my heart and soul into made a cultural impact. I'm a sucker for a good underdog story (under-anthropomorphic-dog story?), so this hit all the right notes for me - and that "I2I" reference footage made me smile.

What I found most interesting was that this documentary was originally intended to be independent and not a Disney Plus original, so its creation is an underdog story in itself.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Now Disney+ just needs to finally put The Sweatbox on there.

 

[John Pannozzi]

^ You might've been a victim of wiki vandalism or something.

Robert Taylor was the supervising director of Goof Tru'roop, but there was no "main" director on any of the episodes. It was just animation directors, both the domestic ones and whatever overseas studio the episodes were sent to.

The reason A Goofy Movie didn't share staff with Goof Troop is actually pretty simple: The feature divisions always had different staff than the TV/DTV division.

It seems that you were right.

Kevin Lima's Wikipedia page used to say that he was a director on Goof Troop.

 

[zakawer2]

Not Just a Goof isn't on Disney+ in my country at all. Not even in the "extras" section of A Goofy Movie.

However, A Goofy Movie is always available to stream on Disney+ no matter where one lives.

Also, I found that Powerline has some serious rizz, especially during the part where he performs "I2I" live.

 

[dumbfoolkid5]

Happy Birthiversary

Sent from my SM-A356U using Tapatalk

 

[PeteHale]

I have not seen the documentary but I always liked the movie. I need the Powerline shirt...

 

[RoyalRubble]

Disney Debuts ‘A Goofy Movie’ VR Experience for 30th Anniversary.

 

[DeanBurrito25]

Disney Debuts ‘A Goofy Movie’ VR Experience for 30th Anniversary.

What a fun surprise! Nice to see Disney keep the anniversary festivities going.