Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Wednesday. So today I'm reviewing the 1995 Disney animated movie, A Goofy Movie, which stars Bill Farmer as Goofy, Jim Cummings as Pete, Jason Marsden as Max, and Rob Paulsen as PJ. Let's get into it!
It's hard to believe that this movie came out 30 years ago. The movie was directed by Kevin Lima, who would go on to direct Tarzan for Disney, which was released in 1999. He's also married to Brenda Chapman, the first female director of an animated movie produced by a major studio. She directed The Prince of Egypt, which was released in 1998, and she also worked on various animated Disney movies in the '90s.
A Goofy Movie was based on the Disney Afternoon animated series, Goof Troop with Bill Farmer, Jim Cummings, and Rob Paulsen reprising their roles from the show. However, Dana Hill voiced the younger Max Goof in the show, and with Max being 14 years old in this movie, Jason Marsden (Step by Step) was hired to voice the older version of the character. Kellie Martin, who has been in a ton of movies and TV shows, including Matinee (1993), voices Max's crush, Roxanne.
After Max gets into trouble for hijacking the end of the year assembly to perform "Stand Out" by the in-universe popular rockstar, Powerline (singing voice by Tevin Campbell), in order to get Roxanne to notice him, Goofy takes Max on a road trip to Lake Destiny, Idaho, where Goofy's dad had taken him when he was a boy. Of course, because Max had to break his date with Roxanne due to the sudden trip, he did what any 14 year old boy would do to make his crush not be upset over it, and lies to her by telling her that Goofy knows Powerline and that they'll be onstage with the singer for his final number of the concert that Max was taking Roxanne to a party to watch on TV. Now, he has to somehow get Goofy to change course and go to L.A. so that he doesn't look like a loser to Roxanne.
Y'know, the whole plot of this movie, like most plots that involve teenage characters, hinges on the adults being dumb enough not to figure it out. Which is why Goofy didn't know that Max had changed the route on the map until Pete mentions it to him while him, Goofy, Max, and PJ stay at a motel together at the end of the second act of the movie. And Pete only found out because he overheard Max and PJ talking about it. And, because Pete is naturally suspicious of kids, particularly teenagers, he knew to listen closely to what Max and PJ were saying, without them realizing he was there.
I love the music in this movie. Powerline is basically Michael Jackson and Prince rolled into one. Because of this, the music reflects that. It has a very pop sound to it, though there's one ballad in "Nobody Else But You" sung by Goofy (voiced by Bill Farmer) and Max (singing voice by Aaron Lohr, who played Dean Portman in the second and third Mighty Ducks movies). My favourite songs in this movie are "After Today", sung by Max at the beginning of the movie, and "On the Open Road", which was sung by Goofy and Max as they drive down the freeway at the start of their trip.
There are a couple of Disney references. The first being when Max says, "Oh, uh, Donald Duck?" when Goofy tells him that he's going on vacation with his best buddy. Mickey and Donald actually show up during the "On the Open Road" musical number. The weirdest one though is when Goofy mentions Walt Disney. Does that mean that there's a version of Walt Disney that exists, or existed, in this universe? If so, what did he create since Mickey, Donald, and Goofy all exist in this universe as real people? Oh and Goofy had a Disney keychain.
A Goofy Movie was a VHS watch for me when I was a kid. We didn't rent it though. I actually got the 1995 VHS release of the movie as stocking stuffer for Christmas that year. Because I was strictly tube fed in 1995, putting apples and oranges and tons of chocolate in my stocking didn't make any sense. So Santa, put books, comics, toys, or VHS tapes in my stocking instead. I don't remember if this was Nana and Grandpa Santa, Grandma and Grandpa Santa, or Mom and Dad Santa. I just know this was a stocking stuffer.
One thing I find interesting about the 1995 VHS release is that on the U.S. version of the tape, after the Disney Interactive Storybooks preview and the home video trailer for Gargoyles: The Movie - The Heroes Awaken, there's a music video for a song by singing group, Parachute Express, which had albums released by Walt Disney Records. However, that music video doesn't appear at all on the Canadian version of the North American VHS release. So that's interesting.
I loved this movie when I was a kid, but I think I appreciated it so much more as a teenager. Particularly at 14 years old, when I was the same age as Max is in the movie. I could identify with Max because I wanted my own life, separate from my parents. Especially when it came to dating and having friends. In my case, it was actually my mom and I who had the big arguments about me wanting to do things with my friends, and about the friends I had in general. I even remember my mom telling me to get new friends after her first encounter with one of the friends I'd made at school when I was in grade 9, at the age of 14 no less.
Also, I identified with Max because of the girl situation. I had a few awkward moments with girls I wanted to date at that age. Especially when I actually asked them out. Not just at 14, but all through my teenage years. In fact, I don't think that's actually gone away. Anyway, regardless, when I was a teenager I didn't want anything to do with my parents, though I also wasn't embarrassed to the point of being mortified by either of my parents. It's just, I'd spent so much time with them when I was younger due to my life's circumstances, since they're the ones who spent hours at the hospital with me, that I was ready to break away from them a bit sooner than most kids at that age.
A Goofy Movie has continued to live on through the years. It got a direct-to-video/direct-to-DVD sequel in 2000, called An Extremely Goofy Movie, with Farmer, Marsden, Cummings, Paulsen, and Pauly Shore (who played Bobby in this movie) reprising their roles from the film. Roxanne wasn't in the sequel, but she does appear in an episode of Disney's House of Mouse in 2002, called, "Max's Embarrassing Date". This time, she was voiced by Grey DeLisle. She also appears in a picture of her and Max that is in Goofy's wallet, which he shows to Donald Duck in an episode of the 2017 reboot of DuckTales. And of course, there's a documentary that came out earlier this year on Disney+ called Not Just a Goof, though it hasn't dropped here in Canada yet for some reason, even though it came out on the movie's 30th anniversary back in April.
Overall, I still love this movie. It has its ups and downs of course, but I still love it, even thirty years later. I watched it on both VHS and DVD last night and it was so much fun. Despite having headphones on for both viewings, I kept mouthing the words to all of the songs both times I watched the movie. The Bigfoot scene was hilarious and I loved Wallace Shawn as Principal Mazur, who is probably based on the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, except that Mazur is completely out of touch with the pop culture of the '90s...and probably even pop culture in general and doesn't even make an effort to make himself liked by most students. I love how everybody was cheering for student president, Stacey, but there's nothing but crickets when Mazur comes on the stage just before Max hijacks the assembly.
That's it for me for today. However, I'll be appearing on the VHS Club Podcast on YouTube tomorrow night at 9 pm Eastern to talk about the movie further with Katie and Nat. And I'll be over at The Star Trek Journal to review this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Friday. So, until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.