Forgotten Television: The Goofy Movie

Where have all the Disney icons gone? I cannot say—but Mickey, Donald, and Goofy used to shine during the Golden Era in cartoons. Goofy and Donald, in particular, had shows based around their family life. For Donald this meant his three obnoxious nephews.

For Goofy, it meant his son Max. This created an interesting spin on the character who made us laugh with his carefree air and comedic style of approaching life a little differently than everyone else. Suddenly, Goofy had to take on a parental role in which he needed to care for, discipline, and teach Max about the world. That broke the cartoon tradition of having icon characters take on similar challenges only when needing to care for nephews, or little cousins. Mickey, Donald, and most major cartoon characters followed the same formula, though there was a reason behind it: they have few attachments as possible to allow freedom of movement or situations. Or so I theorize.

But whatever the true reason is behind such pairings, it doesn’t change the fact that “Goof Troop” (the series focusing around Goofy and Max) worked very well. Being a father figure just increased the charm Goofy brought to the show, and Max was loveable too. It also helped that Goofy could bounce off his greedy neighbor Pete, which helped create a fun atmosphere in Spoonerville.

The Goofy Movie takes place years after the series ends, while Max is a high school student. Here is yet another circumstance: Disney showing characters have aged. Most cartoons are ageless—and Goofy remains so—but his son eventually graduates and moves out of their house.

The film begins simply. It is the last day of school before summer vacation, and Max stages an impromptu concert at their final assembly to impress a girl he likes named Roxanne. He gets brought to the principal’s office, and Goofy receives a call from the disgruntled school head to say his son is in deep trouble and needs someone to straighten him out before “he winds up in the electric chair.” Fearing Max has gone down the wrong path, Goofy decides to take his boy on a road trip to a special fishing spot his own father and he used to visit during his childhood.

Unknowing of his father’s plans, Max asks Roxanne on a date to watch the concert of a rock star (Power Line) famous with the other students at school—and so he literally faints on hearing about the trip. He does not want to cancel the date with Roxanne, though, and winds up lying that Goofy and he will be on-stage with Power Line during the concert.

As the film progresses, Max tries to figure out how to steer Goofy towards the concert—while Goofy tries to figure out a way to become closer with his son. Their relationship is the top strength of A Goofy Movie, because this attachment most other characters avoid gives Goofy greater depth. For example, you learn Goofy misses the trips he used to spend with his father, and he wants to give those types of precious  memories to Max as well.

There are some fun songs, and the rich animation style is Disney’s through and through. Even if CGI, beside similar programs, have come to mostly replace traditional hand-drawn work in Disney cartoons—A Goofy Movie presents the former format to us in proud honor of Walt Disney pictures.

I won’t give away anything else, except how An Extremely Goofy Movie follows as a sequel to this movie and takes us to college with Max.

So enjoy some laughs and sink back into Disney tradition with A Goofy Movie.

He-yuck!   

Time Capsule

This page becomes a time capsule,

When injected with bound words,

That rest in graceful hibernation,

Until sight stirs them into life.

Locked in their final states,

With inked deliberation,

Sealed tight despite reproofs,

Or warm exclamations.

Arbitrary though they are,

Vibrancy has no greater ally,

Than the force pressed onto white,

And no greater friend.

What the time capsule contains is mystical clarity

A fine testament to our human ingenuity.  

Forgotten Television: Banjo The Woodpile Cat

Don Bluth never achieved quite the same acclaim for his animation as Walt Disney, but you could recognize his work no matter where it appeared—because the environments and characters he created had a very distinctive style. Among his most famous titles were the Fievel Goes West and Land Before Time series, as well as Balto and Pebble and the Penguin. Certain films exhibited more creativity than others, yet some gained notoriety from spurring long lines of sequels that seemed endless.

Banjo The Woodpile Cat was one of the few shorter pictures produced by Bluth. Distributed through the “Children’s Video Library,” and under a half-hour in length, Banjo needed to be succinct and get its message across quickly.

Thankfully, that is exactly what Don Bluth accomplished with this film.

The story follows Banjo, a young country kitten characterized by insatiable curiosity and a knack for trouble. In fact, almost every time you see his parents they are chastising him for causing a commotion or putting his two younger sisters in danger. I’d almost have expected them to look more harassed than they appear in the first few scenes—but that is a small detail.

Anyway, after being scolded for the umpteenth time, Banjo decides to run away from home and hops on back of a truck headed for the city. There he spends an evening being amazed by all the strange sights, until it starts raining and he gets lonely. That is when he really stops to reflect on how his impulsiveness got him into such a predicament, and nearly spends the whole night sleeping in the cold.

Then a kind streetwise alley cat named Crazy Legs comes along and helps Banjo find his way back home, helped by his fellow city cats.

That is the basic overview, which works well for its target audience. It sticks to a simple plot, without trying to make anything too complicated—and there are no real threats aside from Banjo’s homesickness. And Banjo is a likeable character, who doesn’t constantly complain and just wants to have fun. The fact the street cats are so considerate is also refreshing to see.

Banjo The Woodpile Cat shows off Don Bluth’s style well, and I am tempted to say it is one of his better pictures exactly because of its brevity and conciseness. When forced to create a shorter movie, the elements he brings together shine brighter than those projects stretched across several installments.

So for those who would like to watch a fun family film, or who simply want to enjoy Don Bluth’s animation—please check out Banjo The Woodpile Cat.  

Forgotten Television: The Stupids

Acclaimed by New Line Cinema as the “world’s simplest family,” the Stupids could turn the smallest incident into an epic battle between good and evil—while getting lost inside metaphorical paper bags each step of the way. This film appeared during the 90’s and gave us a comedy beyond the norm in the biggest sense, but it is best to explain it through a basic overview of the plot.

This movie begins when Stanley Stupid (Tom Arnold) notices that every week a truck stops before his house and steals away the garage his family puts out. Determined to track down these trash thieves, he hitches a ride on the back of the truck early one morning. Of course, he has not told the rest of his family about this. His wife, Jean Stupid (Jessica Lundy), immediately goes looking for her husband when she realizes he is gone—without telling the children about it.

When Buster and Petunia Stupid discover their father missing, they conclude he must have been kidnapped and decide to inform the police—assuming their mother is doing some grocery shopping. Of course, they decide to leave a note for her, which states the barest facts and seems to turn into a note saying the “police have kidnapped your children.”

After Jean Stupid returns home, she sees the note and fears the police have become hostile towards her family.

General mayhem ensues, which includes a perceived conspiracy for a guy named “Mr. Sender” (Stanley Stupid used to work as a postal worker) to ransom the garage of everyone in America—to a real conspiracy about a military colonel trying to illegally sell arms to foreign countries.

I really don’t want to spoil too much else about the story, because this is a film that is truly “so stupid it’s funny.” You have got to admire, in a slightly twisted way, the manner in which these people can make everything into an adventure. They are like overgrown children who will never mature.

Their discoveries are awe-inspiring as sliced bread. We might take such things for granted, but the Stupids would take one look at the sliced bread and think, “that’s not natural—someone is chopping the bread of honest people. We must put a stop to it!” Every revelation is miraculous, and it is possible to see their exaggeration of the mundane as a hint to appreciate what we can enjoy in our daily lives.  

Note: The best song from the film is entitled, “I’m My Own Grandpa.”

  

Charlie and the Chocolate Exclamation

My family used to visit the movie theater on special occasions before prices rose and 3-D came along—with Tim Burton’s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory being the second-to-last we saw all together. Our curiosity had been piqued over this movie in particular since the Gene Wilder version of Braum’s novel was such a classic we watched it each year around Easter. By the time we were able to get into a showing of the film, though, the crowd in the theater for it had thinned out considerably.

This was fine. Crowds have always made us nervous, and we could choose where to sit in the showing room.

I have to say that the Tim Burton version was much darker than I had expected (nothing could beat the first), but it had a cynical edge we had come to appreciate in our media. It was as if the new socially awkward Willy Wonka and duplicated assistants were laughing at pop culture.

But interestingly enough, the best part of this whole experience was something no one could record.

A scene came where the hopeful Charlie, a picture of sainthood, rips the wrapper off a Wonka bar hoping to find a “lucky golden ticket” beneath. We watched in silence as the tension built up and Charlie gripped the wrapper edge.

He tore the wrapper aside.

There was nothing there.

“Loser!” Someone shouted from the front row. Laughter erupted around the showing room, and my family joined in—because that cry felt so appropriate and shattered the tension.

It is strange how just one word can hold that much power.

The film has long since come out on DVD (and re-released on Blue-Ray), but I’ll always hear that unknown guy shouting “Loser” each time I watch the Tim Burton’s version. It added, more than took away, from my enjoyment of the movie.

And now I have shared that moment with you too. 

Forgotten Television: The Pagemaster

Some admirable films appeared during the 90’s encouraging children to read, and among them The Pagemaster shone brightly for how it introduced the exciting worlds books or libraries could open—combined with a cast of well-known actors and actresses.

The tale focuses around Richard Parker, a safety-conscious boy whose fear to take risks has made him a social outcast among his school classmates. That is, until he winds up in the public library to escape a storm. The librarian, played by Christopher Lloyd, signs Richard up for a library card and tells him that in order to leave he must use the exit door just past the fiction section.

This is where the magic begins, for as Richard wanders through the library admiring the elaborate murals overhead—signifying different literary genres—they melt he gets thrown into an animated adventure. The “keeper of the books” or Pagemaster, tells Richard he must face Horror, Adventure, and Fantasy before he can return to the real world. Along the way, he meets characters in the shape of books from each of these genres to guide him through classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island. Patrick Stewart lends his voice to the swash-buckling pirate book, while Whoopi Goldberg plays Fantasy. And Frank Welker, a master of cartoon sound effects, voices the Frankenstein-like Horror novel. In exchange for their help, Richard agrees to check all three out of the library, which, as they each explain, is what all books in the library long to do.

Always fast-paced, bolstered by clever writing and imaginative characters, The Pagemaster delivers on its promise to make reading fun. Here is a film that should tickle the curiosity of any children learning to read, or who haven’t yet discovered what doors reading can open.

But this story is not only for kids. The Pagemaster is fit for all ages, and a delight to watch.