SERIOUSLY FUNNY

A Goofy Movie has stood the test of time because of characters and emotion

- CARLOS AGUILAR

“If we listen to each other's heart / We'll find we're never too far apart,” sang fictional pop star Powerline (voiced by Tevin Campbell) during a 2017 screening of A Goofy Movie at El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

The ecstatic reaction from those in attendance confirmed to Kevin Lima that the first movie he ever directed, originally released on April 7, 1995, had indeed amassed an adoring fandom.

“I sat amongst an audience who was singing along, repeating back dialogue with the characters on screen, dancing in their seats,” Lima recalled during a recent video interview from his home in Mill Valley, California.

A Goofy Movie (streaming on Disney+) observes the often hilarious, and at times thorny relationship between Goofy (voiced by Bill Farmer), the lanky anthropomorphic dog from Disney's classic cartoons, and his teenage son, Max (Jason Marsden), as they go on a road trip that will bring them closer.

Unlike most Disney films made during that time, this heartfelt father-son adventure was a contemporary story entrenched in the 1990s via its upbeat pop music and the characters' wardrobes. Lima described it as “an animated film that feels like a John Hughes movie”.

Produced mostly in Paris by Disneytoon Studios, a television division with a far smaller budget than those for projects at Walt Disney Animation Studios, A Goofy Movie made a modest US$35.3 million, not adjusted for inflation, during its domestic theatrical release, according to Box Office Mojo.

Yet with time, it found its audience among young millennials watching it on home video, namely VHS.

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