Lost Animation – A Goofy Movie

I’m honestly not sure if A Goofy Movie belongs in lost animation. It is a Disney film. It did get a theatrical release back in 1995 and later video and DVD releases. It even got a direct-to-video sequel, entitled An Extremely Goofy Movie, five years later. And among many of my friends, it remains a favorite. On the other hand, it was not treated as a major Disney release; Pocahontas was the Disney feature for the year. Despite a good-sized advertising campaign, the movie kind of came and went in theaters. It came in second at the box office in its opening weekend, but earned less than half of the first place Bad Boys. It was the fifty-first highest grossing film of the year, well behind fourth place Pocahontas and the year’s biggest earner: Toy Story. I think the film often gets written off as a second tier Disney flick or a movie-length promotion for the TV series Goof Troop. That’s a shame, because A Goofy Movie is a surprisingly good film, both funny and touching.

In the film and the TV series that preceded it, Goofy is a single father to his son Max. Max is in his early teens, an age when most kids start thinking that their parents are irredeemably lame, even if they don’t vacuum up their kids’ worldly possessions or run over the front yard fence with the car. But Max has bigger things on his mind. It’s the last day of school and Max’s last chance to get noticed by his dream girl, Roxanne. Max puts on a concert for his classmates, lip-synching to the latest hit from musical sensation Powerline. The plan works and Max wins both the admiration of his peers and a first date with Roxanne. There’s just one little problem. Max’s concert interrupted the school principal’s deathly dull speech about how to have an educationally productive summer vacation. The enraged principal calls up Goofy at work and tells him that Max is on the road to a life of crime. Desperate to get his son back on the right track, Goofy decides that what Max needs is a father-son fishing trip. Max couldn’t be less interested in this last minute vacation, particularly because it forces him to cancel his date. When Roxanne starts to think he’s not interested in her, Max lies and tells her that he and his dad are actually going to meet his dad’s old buddy Powerline and catch the big concert in Los Angeles. The lie keeps Roxanne from finding another date, but no Max has to figure out how he can appear on stage at a concert he’s not even going to.

Though A Goofy Movie can be easily understood even if you haven’t seen Goof Troop, the movie retains many of the relationships from the original series and, happily, many of the voice actors. Bill Farmer and Jim Cummings reprise their longtime roles as Goofy and Pete. P.J., Pete’s son and Max’s best friend, is still voiced by the extremely talented Rob Paulsen. Jason Marsden does take over the role of Max from Dana Hill, who played him on Goof Troop. But Marsden did have prior voice acting credits, most notably as Cavin in Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears and the change seems to be an effort to make Max sound older than he does on the TV show, (Dana Hill’s tragic death from complications of diabetes did not occur until 1996, one year after the release of A Goofy Movie.) There are virtually no attempts to promote the movie by giving roles to live-action stars. The biggest name actors in the film are Wallace Shawn as the enthusiastic but hopelessly out of touch principal, R&B singer Tevin Campbell providing the vocals for Powerline, and Pauly Shore as Max and P.J.’s pal Bobby Zimmeruski. Pauly Shore’s performance was uncredited for unknown reasons, so the only publicity Disney got from having him in the film was from viewers recognizing his voice in the trailers. Shore normally raises all kinds of red flags for me, but his role here is small and even Bobby’s friends find him rather weird. It ends up being the one time I can actually tolerate Pauly Shore. (Even his guest role on Futurama rubs me the wrong way.)

There are plenty of movies where a parent and child go on a road trip together and end up closer to one another by the journey’s end. What makes this particular movie so appealing is not just Goofy being Goofy – though that is fun to watch. It’s the characters of Goofy and Max and the oddly believable way they act towards one another, even in the most improbable of situations. Most family road trip pictures place the audience’s sympathies firmly with one party or the other. Either the kids are out-of-control monsters and we’re supposed to feel bad for the parents, or the parents are completely wrapped up in their own ideas of what this vacation should be and we feel sorry for the kids. A Goofy Movie is primarily aimed at kids and mainly focuses on Max’s point of view as a result. But Goofy is still a well-rounded and very sympathetic character. Goofy may not always understand Max and his interests, but he loves his son and trusts him to stay out of trouble, up to the point when he gets the call from the principal that incorrectly informs him that Max is in trouble. Goofy’s inability to listen to Max and understand his needs and desires is due less to Goofy being an out of touch parent and more to Goofy believing that Max needs straightening out and that what Max wants is not what’s good for him. Max being a moody, sullen teenager convinced that his dad couldn’t possibly understand him doesn’t help matters. And yet, it’s easy to see why Max would be frustrated with Goofy, who seems oblivious to his life and – to Max’s eyes – anything cool or relevant to the current decade. How could you not get annoyed on a road trip with someone whose idea of a fun road trip include singing along to “High Hopes” and playing Twenty Questions?

Something that caught my attention on this viewing of the film: when they’re playing Twenty Questions, Goofy correctly guesses that Max is thinking of Walt Disney. In a world where Goofy, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck are all “real people,” who the heck is Walt Disney?

Goofy and Max’s journey towards understanding isn’t a steady climb or even a downward spiral to a low point that forces them to reconcile their differences. They have their good moments and their bad ones. One of the early high points in their relationship comes when Goofy and Max are stuck in their car while Bigfoot rifles through their stuff outside. (Long story. See the movie.) For once, they’re experiencing the same emotion, but it’s frustration with their situation. Goofy manages to snag them a can of alphabet soup for dinner. As it heats up, Goofy starts chuckling over something called “Hi Dad soup.” “Hi Dad soup” refers to how Max used to spell out words with the letters in his alphabet soup when he was little. Since there’s no one else around to hear it, Max doesn’t feel embarrassed by this story. But he’s still a smart aleck, suggesting that he was spelling out words like “ambidextrous.” Goofy protests that they were all little words like “Maxie,” “bye-bye,” and “I love you.” The silence that settles between the two characters when Goofy says that last phrase is palpably awkward and makes it clear that it’s been a long time since Max last said that to his dad. They try moments later to have the heart-to-heart talk they need to, but both start talking at the same time and then just give up. Still, Max is starting to feel a bit more sympathetic to his father. Right before they go to sleep, Max taps his dad on the shoulder and hands him his empty soup cup. Goofy discovers that the remaining letters at the bottom spell out “Hi Dad.” Goofy is completely choked up, but Max has already rolled over in his chair to get some rest. So this won’t be the big moment where father and son come to understand one another, as Goofy only quietly whispers goodnight to his son. They won’t have the conversation they need to without going through a lot more trouble first. But this is a start and the fact that it is such a small gesture and not the turning point in the characters’ relationship is what makes it so genuinely touching.

What “Hi Dad soup” shows is that, underneath all of his anger and frustration, Max really does care about his dad. And Goofy truly loves Max, even if he doesn’t always know the best way to show it. He doesn’t really care if other people are laughing at him so long as he’s having a good time, which is what Max finds so aggravating about him. But he does care about Max. Most of the moments where Goofy expresses something other than happiness are centered around Max and they are all the more effective because Goofy is otherwise so unflappably happy. When Pete, a self-centered bully who can’t stand to see anyone being more successful at anything than he is, reveals to Goofy that Max has been playing him for a sap, Goofy stands up to him. Goofy was previously all to happy to accept Pete’s advice on parenting, but now that Goofy has given Max more freedom in picking the stops along their trip and he and Max are getting along , Goofy has the courage to tell Pete that he doesn’t believe him and he trusts Max. He doesn’t get angry about it or shout, and his quiet response makes a nice contrast to Pete’s overbearing loudness and feels more powerful for being so subtle.

A number of studios had a hand in the making of A Goofy Movie. Pre-production was handled by Walt Disney Feature Animation under director Kevin Lima, a former animator and character designer who later went on to direct Enchanted and co-direct Tarzan. Animation was done at Disney’s Paris studio and their Australia Studio, now known as DisneyToon Studios. Two additional studios took on clean-up and ink and paint. The end result generally looks like very high quality television animation, though with much more dramatic staging than you would find on most animated TV shows. The effect is less Disney feature animation without the budget and more artists making the most of the resources they have. The character animation is great, particularly on Goofy and Max, with all kinds of little touches in the gestures and expressions that really make the characters come to life. The effects animation is also of surprisingly good quality. The choppy waves in the scene where Goofy and Max try to escape a raging waterfall have a nice drybrushed look to them and I’ve always liked the way this soda from Pete’s spit take runs down the TV screen.

One aspect of the production design that helps set the movie apart from the TV show that inspired it is the color palette. There are the usual color and lighting tricks: bright sunlight and strong colors for happy, high-energy moments, clouds and darker night colors for more somber or subdued scenes, and the occasional sunset to give a red backdrop to tense action. But A Goofy Movie goes beyond the obvious choice in picking colors to emphasize mood, from the purples, pinks and neons of the concert scenes to the dramatic blue underlighting in the hot tub where Pete tells Goofy that Max has betrayed his trust to the bright red glove compartment light that showcases the tension when Max makes a fateful decision.

A Goofy Movie shows that, even within a huge company like Disney, a huge budget isn’t always what makes an animated film good. With great characters, a great story, and artists who are able to make the best possible use of the resources they have, an animated film of any budget can be great. Any number of costly films, animated or otherwise, could take a lesson from A Goofy Movie. Movies that focus primarily on the latest visual gimmickry will soon be forgotten, but film built on a solid foundation of story, character, and craft will stand the test of time.

All images in this article are copyright Disney/

Tags: disney, hand-drawn animation, lost animation, movies

Written by Sara on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 9:54 am. Filed under lost animation, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.