DuckMonth: Sport Goofy in Soccermania

With the new Ducktales series coming its way very soon, I figured it would be wise to spend a little time taking a trip to Duckburg. It's DuckMonth (Woo Hoo!), where we review some of the media surrounding one of the founding fathers of Disney television animation. So grab your cane, take a dive in your money bin and look after your number one dime, because this is going to be quite the adventure. And to start, we're taking a look at the bizarre "Sport Goofy in Soccermania" an animated short that could be considered a proto-Ducktales of sorts. Though unlike something like "Pryde of the X-Men", that was clearly not its initial intentions.

Before we go into the cartoon, let's start this off by looking at the history of Scrooge in media itself. Scrooge was the creation of cartoonist Carl Barks in 1947 for his Donald Duck comics and eventually became a popular character within the comics. In 1967, Scrooge would make his first animated appearance in the educational film "Scrooge McDuck and Money", where he taught Huey, Dewey and Louie the history of money, the importance of the budget, what taxes do, and so on. It's a fun little short and definitely worth your time.

When Disney released a record adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol in 1974, it would mark the debut of Alan Young in the role of Scrooge. Young was known best for playing Wilbur in the classic 60's sitcom "Mr. Ed". Yes, the man synonymous for playing the richest duck in the world played second fiddle to a talking horse. When Disney brought the adaptation to life in the animated short Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1983, Young would reprise the role and save for Sport Goofy, played the role of Scrooge up until his death last year.

So about Sport Goofy,  what's the deal exactly? Well, I don't know much about it other than it was an attempt to license Goofy playing several different sports, and to what I can tell was used to batch together a bunch of Goofy's animated sports shorts. The special in particular aired in 1987 on NBC on May 27th, 1987, bunched into an hour with, like I said, several of Goofy's sports cartoons. So, with that preamble out of the way, let's dive into the special itself and see how it handles.

We open the special in Duckburg, specifically Scrooge's money bin as he's partaking in his daily dollar swim. He gets interrupted by Huey, Dewey and Louie (all wearing the same red outfit so it's hard to tell which is which), as they ask Scrooge to support their soccer club by buying them a new trophy.   The thought of spending even a dollar forty nine sends Scrooge into a conniption fit, so because he's a skinflint miser, Scrooge opts instead to give the boys a beaten down old trophy he had lying around, thinking it to be worthless.

But Scrooge's hubris immediately comes back to bite him in the tail feathers as when the boys run into the curator of the Duckburg museum, it's soon discovered that the trophy is actually a valuable antique worth millions. After literally going through the roof upon learning the news, Scrooge tries his best to get the boys to give him the trophy back. They relent, saying that the trophy will go to whoever wins the soccer tournament and if Scrooge wants it, he has to sponsor their team.

This is where the titular Sport Goofy comes into the story as while Scrooge and the boys shop for a new soccer ball, they encounter the sporting goods clerk Sport Goofy, who despite his clumsiness, seems to be quite good at... ahem... handling balls. Seeing his chance to win back the trophy, Scrooge employs Sport Goofy to become the coach of their soccer team known as the Greenbacks, which consists of a group of random animals that have never barely know what a soccer ball looks like, let alone ever played the sport.

So yeah, it goes about as well as you'd expect.

But Scrooge isn't the only one eyeing the trophy as the local group of criminals the Beagle Boys (in their first animated appearance) also want the trophy to become rich. Of course they aren't interested in just playing a game of snatch and run, they form a team of their own to cheat their way to victory. We don't really get to see the progression of Scrooge's team, nor the Beagle Boys, outside of some quick newspaper shots, but ultimately both teams make it to the finals. Scrooge, knowing the Beagle Boys are a group of cruel cheaters, is worried he may be unable to win the trophy now, while lovably naive Goofy can't wrap his head around the idea of someone not playing fair.

So it should come as no surprise that Goofy is easily kidnapped by the Beagle Boys on game day. The team is obviously distraught with their coach's life now in peril thanks to the Beagle Boys.

Except obviously Scrooge, who is more focused on his team winning back the trophy than if Sport Goofy is even still alive. And of course instead of rallying the team to do good, he just makes them feel worse for how much of a heel he's been so far.

 What happens next is what you'd expect to see from most sports cartoons. The Beagle Boys intentionally cheat during the game, from slipping up the Greenbacks with an oil slick, to walling up their goal net. It's all seemingly downhill for the Greenbacks. Meanwhile, Sport Goofy manages to make his escape.

In what almost ended up as one of Disney's darker moments. Yikes. 

Sport Goofy makes his way back to the game and helps his team tie things up, all while the Beagle Boys are still giving chase to him. It all comes down to one final shot, where they intend to blow Sport Goofy up, only to press the wrong button and fail. The Greenbacks win the game and Scrooge, learning that his greed can go too far (I guess) gives the trophy to the museum, all while Goofy reminds the audience that the only way to play is to play fair.

Sport Goofy in Soccermania is an okay little animated special. I can't say it's particularly incredible as its plot is basic and it moves at such a breakneck pace that you never have any time to appreciate what's there. The animation, while decent, also feels pretty lacking compared to the quality that Disney was already bringing out at the time, and what we'd get with the likes of Ducktales which was on its way. On the topic of the voice acting, it's fine for the most part. We get the debut of Russi Taylor as the nephews and Tony Pope's Sport Goofy is excellently done to the point I almost mistook it for Bill Farmer at first. As for Will Ryan as Scrooge, he's okay, although I do feel Scrooge's accent seems to fluctuate throughout. But he does a fine enough job at presenting everyone's favorite greedy miser.

Also for a quick bit of trivia, the prototype design of Roger Rabbit can be seen in the crowd during the game. 

Would I say this is worth going out of your way to watch? Not really, but it's not a total waste of time. If you just want a quick piece of fluff starring some Disney ducks that can kill twenty minutes, then the short is available on Youtube in several languages.

Next time in DuckMonth (Woo Hoo), we go into Ducktales proper with the five part "Treasure of the Golden Suns" Pilot story. Does it hold up, or is it a victim of nostalgia? Find out next week!