Retro Reviews: A Goofy Movie!

Michael Wermuth- A Goofy Movie is a movie starring Goofy, and is more or less based on Goof Troop. I didn’t watch Goof Troop often, but knew enough of the show to know who Max and PJ are, enough to wonder why PJ and Pete weren’t in the commercials (and wondering if they’d even be in the movie), and enough to be confused by Max and PJ being older. I was also confused by Max being embarrassed by his father, but I still don’t know whether that was a normal character trait on the show.

Anyway, in A Goofy Movie, Max is a high school student. The tagline for the movie was, “It’s hard to be cool when your dad is Goofy”, and here Max is a laughing stock of most of the school due to his father’s reputation. On the last day of school, Max, with help from PJ and audio visual nerd Bobby, has a plan to show the school that he’s cool, and to impress his love interest, Roxanne. Max dresses up as Powerline, a big rock star, and turns a school assembly into a concert. Max gets caught, but it also makes him popular, and he gets a date with Roxanne to a summer party where they’ll be watching an upcoming Powerline concert on Pay-Per-View. However, the principal calls Goofy about the incident, and over exaggerates on what happened, leading Goofy to believe that unless action is taken soon, Max will be sent to the electric chair.

Remembering past trips with his dad as a child, Goofy decides to take Max on an cross-country fishing trip with no notice and against his sons will. Max does get to explain to Roxanne that he can’t take her to the party, but when she considers going with somebody else, Max not only lies that Goofy is taking him to LA to the Powerline concert, but that Goofy and Powerline are old friends and that Max will appear on-stage at the concert. The road trip doesn’t go too well at first, with an embarrassing experience at a possum theme park and an encounter with Big Foot, but Max soon finds the map and manages to change the direction to LA. Luckily for Max, after this Goofy decides to stop looking at the map and make Max the official navigator (which Goofy had refused to do earlier), and after this they start to bond better, but eventually they encounter Pete and PJ (who are also traveling), and Pete overhears Max and PJ talking about how he’d changed the map. Goofy at first doesn’t believe Pete, but ends up looking at the map and seeing that he’s right. This leads to a climax on the river, and then a happy ending, of course.

This is a great movie. Goofy and Max are both relatable characters – Max is relatable to teenagers embarrassed by their parents, and I’m sure Goofy is relatable to parents whose kids want to distance themselves from them. All of the songs are good (I used to have the soundtrack album), and I can’t decide which I like best between “After Today”, “On the Open Road”, and “Nobody Else But You”. I highly recommend A Goofy Movie.

Disney TV Show Spotlight: Darkwing Duck

Mitchell Stein- Out of all of the original classic Disney Afternoon television programs, Darkwing Duck by far by absolute favorite. With voice actor Jim Cummings as the title hero, the character is an incredibly fun character to watch and Cummings brings a lot of life into him and forms him into the hilarious comedic character that we know him as. Launchpad McQuack, fresh off his debut from DuckTales serves as an assistant to the quirky hero, and provides a lot of the slapstick comedy himself, and I love how the running gag between the two concerning Darkwing’s name (“It’s Darkwing, not DW!”) and Dawrkwing even refers to Lauchpad as LP in one episode. It’s a funny running gag, and it’s done quite well.

Darkwing’s newly adopted daughter, Gosylyn is a good character, while not my favorite, she adds a lot to the show along with Honker, her friend. To be honest, Darkwing is hilarious enough, and could easily carry an entire show by himself, I never feel any of these characters are necessary in that sense, but the other characters are fun to have around and play off well of the terror that flaps in the night.

The villains are so wacky and zany, they’re just perfect. I love Negaduck, Darkwing’s evil diabolical doppelganger. Negaduck is the leader of “The Fearsome Five”, which is probably my favorite villainous element to this series. Some of the other villains of the fearsome five include Dr. Bushroot, Megavolt, and Quackerjack. Other characters Steelbreak is a fun villain, as well as the other agents at F.O.W.L. Many of the show’s elements feel like parodies of other well-known superhero stories, especially with some of the familiarities between this show and other comic book characters, such as Batman and Spider-Man.

I also enjoy the somewhat continuing story in this series. Not many children’s/family cartoon shows take the time to create an entire backstory to the series, but Darkwing Duck has a fantastic two-part pilot episode named “Darkwing Dawns the Duck” where it establishes the entire backstory of DW, and his adoption of Gosylyn and other facts mentioned throughout the show.

Overall, I really enjoy this show a lot. It’s a shame more shows like this don’t dominate the current Disney Channel. I think its fun, quirky and good clean entertainment with a lot of really hilarious slapstick humor. It’s one of those shows that I still enjoy watching today and probably enjoy it more than I did previously. I think it’s safe to say out of all of the classic shows, Darkwing easily comes out in first place. 

The Mickey Mindset: mickeymindset@gmail.com

Good Morning Miss Bliss Streaming on Netflix

Mitchell Stein- Our good pals over at Disney Afternoon Forever just alerted me that Disney's Good Morning Miss Bliss has been quietly streaming on Netflix under Saved by the Bell Season One. Apparently, they've re titled the original series, but have Mills as the headliner in the new credits.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with the two shows, Good Morning Miss Bliss was originally a show created for Disney Channel in the 80's. Disney decided to dump it after only 13 episodes, but NBC picked it up, dumping the character Miss Bliss played by Hayley Mills, added a few more characters and re-titled the series Saved by the Bell and ran from 1989 to 1993. More info can be found at Wikipedia. 

If you're a Netflix subscriber, make sure to check this out soon!

UPDATE: breRNurse in the comments alerted us that the season is also available on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video and Vudu as well. Thanks for the update!

Photo: Tmstash.com

The Mickey Mindset: mickeymindset@gmail.com

Why Darkwing Duck is Such a Great Show

Michael Wermuth- Darkwing Duck is one of Disney’s greatest animated shows. It’s one of my favorites from the Disney Afternoon (and the only one I’ve bothered to get the DVDs of). I watched it during it’s run on The Disney Afternoon, and occasionally caught the ABC episodes. I even had all of the action figures (not sure whether I still have them all). But why is the show so good? Because it is! 

The characters are great. I can identify with Darkwing Duck, wanting to be in the spotlight, though he does a better job at it. Launchpad McQuack, who debuted on DuckTales, is a funny sidekick to Darkwing. Darkwing’s adopted daughter, Gosylyn, is a good character for him to have adopted. And her brainy best friend, Honker, is a good character, one of my favorites when I was younger (though watching it now he does seem a little weak). I also like Darkwing’s girlfriend, Morgana, a lot better now than when I was a kid.

And of course there’s the villains. My favorite villains from the show are Megavolt, Quackerjack, and Steelbeak. Megavolt and Quackerjack are both funny and colorful characters, and it’s a shame he wasn’t in the action figure line-up (but Tuskernini was, and he was only in five episodes. Fun fact: The Tuskernini figure was the first one I had gotten, and I hadn’t even seen any episodes with him. And I chose that one over the others that were in the store that day, can’t remember who else was there but I know the ones I wanted most weren’t).  Steelbeak is also a great villain, kinda the leader type though he’s not really a leader, just a top agent at F.O.W.L ,  the type who could be the big bad of the show, if he did lead the other villains (although the video games and other merchandise imply otherwise, the other major villains weren’t part of F.O.W.L.). And he’s perhaps the shows most notable villain to not be part of The Fearsome Five, which consists of Negaduck (the leader, and another character who could have been the main villain), Quackerjack, Megavolt, Bushroot, and The Liquidator. There’s also some great villains who didn’t appear in many episodes, including the theatrical Tuskernini, hillbilly Jumbalaya Jake, and a group of hat-shaped aliens who take over the bodies of whose who wear them.

Some of my favorite episodes include: “Comic Book Capers”, where Darkwing tries to write a Darkwing Duck comic book but other characters (including Megavolt) manage to add their own creative input. “Twitching Channels”, where Darkwing and Megavolt get zapped into the TV and land in the real world, with humans who are fans of the show (wouldn’t it have been great if this episode could have mixed live action with animation?). “Clash Reunion”, which reveals Darkwing and Megavolt’s back stories (well, one of at least four back stories that reveal how Drake Mallard became Darkwing Duck). “Batttle of the Brain Teasers”and its sequel, “Return of the Battle of the Brain Teasers, Too!”, which feature the hat-shaped aliens and Honker becoming a hero. The two-part “Just Us Justice Ducks”, featuring the debut of The Fearsome Five as a team (and it really is the debut of Negaduck, and due to the episodes airing out of order, Liquidator’s first episode). “Trading Faces”, where the main characters switch bodies. And “Water Way to Go”, in which Darkwing agrees to let Launchpad be the hero for once. And there’s a lot more episodes I’d like to list but won’t here.

I would also like to acknowledge the voice cast, especially Jim Cummings, who voiced Darkwing as well as many other characters on the show. It seems to me like Cummings was the only voice actor on this show to do multiple voices, even though some of the other voice actors did multiple voices on other shows. Other voice actors included Rob Paulsen (Steelbeak), Dan Castlenetta (Megavolt), Michael Bell (Quackerjack), Tito Insano (Bushroot), Terry McGovern (Launchpad), Christina Cavanaugh (Gosylyn), Katie Leigh (Honker), and many other wonderful voice actors.

So Darkwing Duck had a lot going for it. It had great characters (especially villains), a great voice cast, great episodes, I didn’t mention the comic book series from Boom! Because I’ve only seen the first story arc but that was a great comic. At 78 episodes, it’s one of the few Disney Afternoon shows to have more than 65 episodes (though DuckTales has it beat by 100). 

Disney Fan Project: On A Sunny Disney Afternoon

Mitchell Stein- I'm super excited to introduce a brand new fan project by Tim Van Hal, a talented and motivated author (not to mention a major Disney Animation fan of course) named, On A Sunny Disney Afternoon, an all-new book showcasing his love for Disney Afternoon. The book will take a look at the first twenty years of the division and what it moved onto become and how those characters live on to today.
But instead of myself telling you all about it, here's some info from Tim himself!

Tim Van Hal- Hello! I am writing a book on the history of the first twenty years of Disney television animation. The book goes in depth on the forming of the division, the development of series and the multitude of studios that were involved in the production.

Over the last few years, I have gathered many sources and I'm in the process of interviewing the people involved. At the moment this is done by Skype, phone or email, but the time has come where i need access to some people and archives that I can't interview or check out from a distance. For this reason I put up a crowd-funding page to finish the last stages of my research and finish the book.

If the goal of 15.000 dollar is met, I want to use my time abroad by filming the interviews and create a documentary of this wonderful period in animation. The people who help fund my research will (of course) be entitled to a free copy of the book (and the documentary, if the goal is reached).

Here is a link to the Indiegogo page:http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/on-a-sunny-disney-afternoon/x/6078342

There you have it! Feel free to visit Tim's page (link included above) and donate to this special project! 

Disclaimer: On a Sunny Disney Afternoon is not associated with The Mickey Mindset or any of it's writers. The showcased project is an independent fan project and should not be mistaken as a work of The Mickey Mindset, The Muppet Mindset or any of our other website branches. The fundraiser is held on Indiegogo, which is neither associated with The Mickey Mindset. You can donate to this exciting new project at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/on-a-sunny-disney-afternoon

The Mickey Mindset: mickeymindset@gmail.com