Sport Goofy in Soccermania is an animated featurette produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation that first aired on television in 1987.
During its debut, it was preceded by a mockumentary called An All New Adventure of Disney's Sport Goofy showing past Goofy cartoons of him always getting everything wrong, leading into this special where the audience is finally shown a competent, athletic Goofy who is the hero.
Plot[]
Huey, Dewey, and Louie ask for help from Scrooge McDuck for their new soccer team by requesting that he donate $1.49 to buy a championship trophy. Scrooge, being his typical stingy self, goes into a rant of "A dollar forty-nine?! That's a lot of money!" and instead gives his nephews an old trophy of his that he thinks is worthless, but the boys meet the curator of the Duckburg Museum of Antiquities, who sees it is a rare artifact worth a million dollars, causing Scrooge to gain a reputation as a generous philanthropist throughout Duckburg.
Aghast at having unknowingly given away such a valuable item, Scrooge tries to persuade the nephews to give it back to him; however, they refuse, and tell him that the only way to get back the trophy is to win it. To win back the trophy, Scrooge is now made to sponsor his nephews and gets taken to a sporting goods store owned by a surprisingly athletic and agile Goofy. Scrooge enlists the aid of Goofy, soon known by the nickname of "Sport Goofy", who becomes the team's coach when the teammates of Scrooge's nephews turn out to be ragtag misfits. The team christened the "McDuck Greenbacks", come together under Goofy's patient coaching, sharpen their soccer skills and register to compete in the tournament.
Unfortunately, the Beagle Boys find out about the trophy's value and enter the soccer tournament as well in order to "walk away with the trophy, all nice and legal" rather than steal it. When one of the Beagles comments that they're out of shape and don't know anything about soccer, their leader says that all they have to do is cheat.
The tournament comes down to the McDuck Greenbacks facing the Beagle Boys in the finals; the Beagles decide that Sport Goofy is a problem and kidnap him. The Greenbacks are disheartened by the loss of their coach and team captain but resolve to go on without him. Despite the excellent playing by the Greenbacks, the Beagles engage in outright cheating and a nearsighted referee keeps declaring the Beagles' goals legit, ending the first half with a score of 10-0. Sport Goofy quietly escapes the Beagles' hideout and gets to the field for the second half. The return of Sport Goofy encourages the Greenbacks into incredible playing that not even the Beagles' cheating can counter, causing a comeback of 10-10.
When the enraged Beagles resort to outright physically assaulting Sport Goofy, Scrooge finally makes the referee wear his glasses and see what is happening, causing the ref to cry foul and set up a penalty shot with only Sport Goofy and the Beagles' goalie. The Beagles' team captain has secretly placed a bomb inside the ball and orders another Beagle to push the red button on a remote control when Goofy is ready to take his shot. Unfortunately, that Beagle is so uneducated that he pushes the green button instead, causing Sport Goofy to easily make the penalty goal past an overconfident goalie, thus resulting in the Greenbacks winning 11-10. All of Duckburg rejoices except for the Beagles, whose angry captain pushes the red button, causing the ball to explode and send all the Beagles flying into a waiting police van.
Now that Scrooge has his trophy back, he donates it to the Duckburg Museum and joins the Greenbacks in their championship team photo.
Production[]
This cartoon marks the first time that Russi Taylor voiced Huey, Dewey, and Louie, as well as the first time that the Beagle Boys and Gyro Gearloose, Little Helper and the Money Bin ever appeared in animation. It was also the first time Scrooge was seen swimming in his money in an animated cartoon, a famously iconic aspect of the character since his earliest comic book appearances.
Joe Ranft and Tad Stones wrote the story. Ranft later went on to work for Pixar while Stones would continue to work with Walt Disney Television Animation, turning the pairing of Scrooge McDuck and Donald's nephews into the TV series DuckTales.
Sport Goofy is one of the few Disney cartoons where Uncle Scrooge was not voiced by his official voice actor Alan Young, but instead was voiced by Will Ryan.
This was Darrell Van Citters' last production with Disney. He would eventually move over to Warner Bros. for a couple of years before forming his own animation company, Renegade Animation.
Deleted Scenes[]
Goofy and a Beagle boy in an animation cell of a deleted scene.
For unknown reasons, a number of scenes were cut from the broadcasted and theatrical versions of the film. One such scene, of which an animation cell is available, showed a Beagle Boy in drag attempting to kidnap Goofy, and another featured Gladstone Gander in a speaking role (where he was voiced by Will Ryan[1][2]). The Gladstone scene was featured along with Grandma Duck and Gyro Gearloose; like the others, he is talking to himself remarking how a tightwad like Scrooge has become so generous all of the sudden.[citation needed]
Characters[]
- Goofy (voiced by Tony Pope)
- Scrooge McDuck (voiced by Will Ryan)
- Huey, Dewey, and Louie (voiced by Russi Taylor)
- Beagle Boys (voiced by Jack Angel, Will Ryan and Phil Proctor)
- Gyro Gearloose (cameo; voiced by Will Ryan)
- Grandma Duck (cameo; voiced by Russi Taylor)
- Donald Duck (appearance in photo)
- Roger Rabbit (cameo)
- Gladstone Gander (cameo; voiced by Will Ryan)
- Jeeves (voiced by Will Ryan)
Trivia[]
- An early version of Roger Rabbit makes a cameo appearance as a spectator.
- The boy from Darrell Van Citters' directorial debut Fun with Mr. Future makes a cameo on a billboard when Goofy is being chased by two of the Beagle Boys.
- Donald Duck is not featured in this special, however a portrait of him can be seen at the nephews' house when Scrooge arrives at their house to reconsider sponsoring their soccer team.
- This special is the first time Russi Taylor provided the voices of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. She remained the official voices for Donald's Nephews until her passing in Summer 2019 with her final performance for the trio being the Mickey Mickey Halloween special The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular which premiered October 8, 2017.
Gallery[]
References[]
External links[]
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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia page Sport Goofy in Soccermania. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. Text from Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. |
