A Goofy Movie

A Goofy Movie is a 1995 animated musical comedy film produced by Disney MovieToons and Walt Disney Television Animation and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The animated directorial debut of Kevin Lima, the film is based on The Disney Afternoon television series Goof Troop created by Robert Taylor and Michael Peraza Jr., and acts as a follow-up to the show. It features the voices of Jason Marsden, Bill Farmer, Jim Cummings, Kellie Martin, Pauly Shore, Jenna von Oÿ, and Wallace Shawn. The film was also dedicated to Pat Buttram, who died during the film's production. Taking place a few years after the events of Goof Troop, A Goofy Movie follows Goofy and his son, Max, who is now in high school, and revolves around the father-son relationship between the two as Goofy takes Max on a fishing trip out of fear that Max is drifting away from him, unintentionally interfering with Max's social life, particularly his relationship with Roxanne, his high school crush.

Disney came up with the idea to make a theatrical animated film starring Goofy while considering ideas for a potential Goof Troop TV special. Lima wanted to flesh out Goofy as a character and "give him an emotional side" that would resonate with audiences. Much of the cast from the show reprised their roles, including Farmer as Goofy, Paulsen as PJ, and Cummings as Pete, whereas Dana Hill was replaced by Marsden as Max's voice due to the character's age difference. R&B artist Tevin Campbell provided the vocals for Powerline, a fictitious music celebrity who prominently appears in the movie, singing the songs "Stand Out" and "I2I".

A Goofy Movie was released theatrically on April 7, 1995, by Walt Disney Pictures, and made $35 million at the box office. Despite receiving mixed reviews, it has since attained a cult following, particularly among people that grew up with the film. A direct-to-video sequel to the film titled An Extremely Goofy Movie was released on February 29, 2000.

Plot
Goofy is the single father of teenager Max Goof, although the two have a tense relationship. On the last day of school before summer vacation, Max and his best friends P.J. and Robert "Bobby" Zimuruski hijack the auditorium stage in the middle of Principal Mazur's speech, creating a small concert where Max performs, while costumed as the pop singer Powerline. The performance succeeds in making Max a school celebrity and impressing his love interest, Roxanne, but he, P.J., and Bobby are sent to Mazur's office. While waiting outside of the office, Roxanne speaks with Max and agrees to go with him to a party where Powerline's concert will be viewed live on television. However, Mazur calls Goofy and forewarns him that Max's behavior may result in him facing capital punishment. Oblivious to Max's plans with Roxanne, Goofy decides to take Max on a fishing trip to Lake Destiny, Idaho, following a cross-country map route he and his father took years ago. Before they leave town, Max manages to stop by Roxanne's house to call off their date, but when the heartbroken Roxanne mentions going with someone else, Max panics and instead fabricates a story about his father knowing Powerline, telling her he will be on stage at the concert.

Despite his son's objections, Goofy plans his own trip, with initially disastrous results. Max hurts his father's feelings after Goofy inadvertently humiliates Max at an opossum-based theme park. Later, Pete and P.J. happen to meet up with them while camping by a lake. While P.J. informs Max of how all their peers back home anticipate seeing him onstage at the Powerline concert, Pete advises Goofy to keep Max under control. Goofy takes his son fishing and shows him the "Perfect Cast" fishing technique, accidentally luring Bigfoot to their camp. Pete and P.J. flee, leaving Goofy and Max to spend the night with Bigfoot. At night, while Goofy sleeps, Max alters the map's route to Los Angeles, where the concert is taking place. The next morning, Goofy decides to make Max the navigator of the trip. The two go to several locations that satisfy both of them. Eventually, they stop by a motel where they meet Pete and P.J. again. When Pete overhears a conversation between the boys, he tells Goofy that Max has tricked him into traveling to Los Angeles. The next day, Goofy and Max come to a junction: one leading to Idaho, the other to California. Max chooses the route to California, making Goofy stop the car at the Grand Canyon and storm off in anger. With the brake loose, the car drives off on its own; Goofy and Max chase after it and end up in a river. After a heated argument, Goofy solemnly declares that no matter how old Max gets he will always be his son, and the two finally reconcile with each other.

After learning of Max's promise to Roxanne, Goofy decides to take him to the concert in Los Angeles. The two nearly plummet to their deaths down a waterfall, but Max saves Goofy using the Perfect Cast technique. Goofy and Max make it to the concert, and while attempting to sneak backstage, they end up onstage and dance with Powerline, watched by Pete, P.J. and Roxanne on separate televisions. Goofy and Max later return to Roxanne's house in their damaged car. Max tells the truth to Roxanne, though she accepts it and admits she always had feelings for him, ever since the first time she ever heard him laugh, "Ah-hyuck!"; thus, a relationship starts between them. Goofy's car suddenly explodes because of damage it had sustained, ejecting Goofy in the process, who then falls through the porch roof of Roxanne's house, and Max proceeds to introduce him to Roxanne.

Voice cast
Additionally, Pauly Shore goes uncredited as Robert "Bobby" Zimuruski, Max and P.J.'s other best friend at school.

Production
A Goofy Movie is based on Goof Troop, an animated Disney Afternoon show that centered around Goofy and his son, Max. When considering ideas for a TV special, Disney decided to produce a theatrical film based on the show, contracting Jymm Magon to write a feature-length script starring Goofy. The filmmakers chose to age up Max, who was shown as a young child in Goof Troop, setting the film several years later and putting him in high school. The movie was the directorial debut for Disney crew member Kevin Lima, who went on to direct the Disney films Tarzan (1999), 102 Dalmatians (2000) and Enchanted (2007). In 1995, Lima said that "Instead of just keeping Goofy one-dimensional as he's been in the past, we wanted to give an emotional side that would add to the emotional arc of the story. We wanted the audience to see his feelings instead of just his antics." The character of Powerline was heavily inspired by real-life pop stars, including Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown.

Although based upon a Disney TV series, A Goofy Movie was jointly produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Television Animation, Disney MovieToons, Walt Disney Animation France. and Walt Disney Animation Australia. Pre-production was done at the main Feature Animation studio in Burbank, California, starting as early as mid-1993. The animation work was done at Walt Disney Animation France in Paris, France supervised by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, with additional scenes animated at Disney's studio in Sydney, Australia under the direction of Steve Moore, and clean-up work done at the main Burbank studio. Additional clean-up/animation was done by Phoenix Animation Studios in Canada, and inked-and-painted by the Pixibox studio in France.

Most of the main voice cast from Goof Troop reprised their roles in A Goofy Movie, including Bill Farmer as Goofy, Jim Cummings as Pete, and Rob Paulsen as PJ. To conform to his difference in age, Max was played by Jason Marsden, who was in high school at the time, replacing Dana Hill from Goof Troop as the character's voice actor. Alternatively, Aaron Lohr did Max's singing voice. Other cast members included Kellie Martin as Roxanne, Jenna von Oÿ as Stacey, and Pauly Shore as Bobby Zimuruski. Farmer, who spent 43 days recording dialogue over the span of 2-and-a-half years, was initially asked by Jeffrey Katzenberg to give Goofy a regular speaking voice as opposed to the character's signature, cartoonish voice, much to the confusion of Farmer, who insisted that audiences wanted to hear the Goofy they were all familiar with. After recording lines in this manner for a week-and-a-half, according to Farmer, Michael Eisner and Roy E. Disney told Farmer to speak in Goofy's original voice, after which the dialogue was rerecorded as such. R&B artist Tevin Campbell provided the singing voice for Powerline, recording the songs "Stand Out" and "I2I". Campbell recorded the songs in front of a green screen while performing his own choreography. The film is dedicated to Pat Buttram, who voiced the emcee at possum park, as he died after finishing voice work for the film.

Music
The score for A Goofy Movie was provided by Carter Burwell. Burwell was the primary composer; after Burwell had recorded his score with Shirley Walker orchestrating and conducting, Don Davis was hired to rework his score rather than write a completely new one. Burwell later wrote: "My score had relied somewhat on unusual instrumentation – banjo, percussion and choir for example – and Disney wanted the sweeping scale and familiar affect of symphonic score". Davis is credited with "additional music" on the movie and the soundtrack album.

The songs "I 2 I" and "Stand Out" were performed by R&B singer Tevin Campbell. The soundtrack album for A Goofy Movie was released by Walt Disney Records on March 18, 1995. Mitchell Musso covered the song "Stand Out" for the DisneyMania 7 album, which was released on March 9, 2010.

Release
A Goofy Movie was originally scheduled for a November 1994 theatrical release, but production setbacks resulted in a push-back to 1995, while The Lion King was reissued to fill in for the film's absence. The film's world premiere took place on April 5, 1995, at the AMC Pleasure Island at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, and was attended by director Kevin Lima and voice stars Bill Farmer and Jenna von Oÿ; two days later, it was released nationwide. The film played a limited engagement at the El Capitan Theatre from August 25 through September 4, 2017.

Home media
The film was first released on VHS by Walt Disney Home Video on September 6, 1995, and included a music video for the Parachute Express song Doctor Looney's Remedy on their video, Come Sing with Us. In the United Kingdom, it was released in theaters succeeding the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain on October 18, 1996, and on VHS in 1997. It was reissued on June 20, 2000, along with a DVD version, as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. This edition includes the Goof Troop episode, "Calling All Goofs", the episode "The Goofy Success Story" from the Disneyland television series, and a "Disney-fied" edit of "Mambo No. 5." To date, this film and Doug's 1st Movie are the only two Disney animated films produced in widescreen that have pan and scan-only Region 1 DVD releases (not counting separate widescreen and pan and scan DVD releases of the two Disney/Pixar films The Incredibles and Cars). However, the film's PAL and NTSC (Japan) counterpart does have a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD, and the film is available in a letterbox presentation on LaserDisc and also in standard-definition widescreen on digital video retailers. The movie was released on Blu-ray as a Disney Movie Club exclusive alongside An Extremely Goofy Movie in April 23, 2019.

Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, A Goofy Movie holds an approval rating of 44% with an average rating of 5.63/10 based on 18 critics.

Writing for the LA Times, Peter Rainer criticized the film's emphasis on "life lessons for the tots", and conclusively wrote "If you're going to make something called "A Goofy Movie," why dampen the goofiness?" Stephen Holden of the New York Times called the film's story "too rambling and emotionally diffuse for the title character to come fully alive." Variety's Todd McCarthy criticized the film's score, calling the six featured songs "unmemorable". He also felt that the personality of Goofy's character, while agreeable enough in support, proved a bit over the top for a headliner, and that "by any reasonable reckoning, he's distinctly overbearing and selfish, and responds with a bland dismissal to any opinion offered up by his son". McCarthy praised the film's technical aspects, calling them "crisp and clean". Louis Black of The Austin Chronicle summed up his review by saying the film was "bland, a barely television-length cartoon stretched out to fill a feature, and not much fun". Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the movie a 1.5/4, and called it an "incoherent mess that jumps from one unlikely, brainless, crash-bang situation to another, with each element of a protracted father-son bonding story increasingly out of synch with the others."

Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars, noting that he only got to see a portion of the film before a technical issue in the projection booth caused the display to turn upside-down. Ebert later got to see the rest of the movie, after which he stated that his initial rating still stood true. Writing for Common Sense Media, Nell Minow gave the film 4 stars, saying that "even tweens will enjoy this road trip with Goofy."

Box office
A Goofy Movie was considered a relative success for Disney, opening in 2,159 theaters at #2 on its opening weekend with $6.1 million - held from the #1 spot only because of the Will Smith blockbuster Bad Boys that opened the same weekend, with $15.5 million in box office returns. It ultimately ended its run at the US box office grossing $35.3 million.

Accolades
The film was nominated for "Best Animated Feature" in the production categories and "Best Production Design", "Best Storyboarding", "Best Music", and "Best Animation" in the individual categories at the 23rd Annie Awards.

Legacy
A direct-to-video sequel to A Goofy Movie, titled An Extremely Goofy Movie, was released on DVD and VHS in 2000. The film centers Max's freshman year in college. Characters that returned for the sequel were Goofy, Max, P.J., Pete and Bobby, but Roxanne is absent from the sequel and is not referenced. Roxanne later appears in the television series House of Mouse in the episode titled "Max's Embarrassing Date", where she is voiced by Grey DeLisle instead of Kellie Martin.

The film has gained that of a cult following, particularly among millennials who grew up with the movie. On August 14, 2015, a 20th anniversary reunion for the film was held at the D23 Expo at Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Those in attendance included Bill Farmer, Jason Marsden, Jim Cummings, Rob Paulsen, Jenna von Oÿ and producer Don Hahn. Wallace Shawn, Pauly Shore and director Kevin Lima also sent video messages. The panel also included musical performances from Farmer, Marsden, and Tevin Campbell. Around 1,000 fans attended the reunion.

In 2016, Campbell uploaded a video of him partaking in a jam session with the band Enfield, in which he performed both "I2I" and "Stand Out". In June 2018, a one-week event titled "Disney FanDaze" was opened in Disneyland Paris, featuring several dedicated performances paying tribute to Disney franchises. Among these was "Max Live! Gettin' Goofy With It", which featured Max Goof performing songs from A Goofy Movie. In an episode of the 2017 DuckTales series, "Raiders of the Doomsday Vault", the characters Dewey and Della Duck are seen singing to "Stand Out" with a Powerline CD near them. That same month, singer Uché performed "I 2 I" during the Top 10 Disney Night of American Idol's seventeenth season.