Goof Troop
Goofy as a single dad in the suburbs, his son Max trying to survive him, and Pete next door as the used-car salesman whose life Goofy keeps ruining. The Disney Afternoon sitcom ran just one season from 1992, but it rewrote Goofy for a generation and set up A Goofy Movie.
Goof Troop was created by Robert Taylor and Michael Peraza Jr. at Walt Disney Television Animation. The premise moved Goofy back to his hometown of Spoonerville as a single father with his son Max, and dropped them next door to his old high-school friend Pete, now the owner of Honest Pete's Used Cars, with Pete's real-estate-agent wife Peg and their kids P.J. and Pistol. Max and P.J. became inseparable, the comedy came from Max's ordinary teenage personality clashing with his father's, and Pete was driven steadily up the wall by living beside Goofy. Bill Farmer voiced Goofy, Jim Cummings voiced Pete, and Phil Perry sang the theme.
Disney launched it hard. In June 1992 Buena Vista Television signed a "Get Goofy" promotional campaign valued at $100 million with Kellogg's, Burger King and Pacific Theatres, so the fall brought Goof Troop figurines in cereal boxes, Burger King Kids Club tie-ins and Pacific Theatres collector's cups, with a Pizza Hut Kid's Pizza Pack following in January 1993. After previews on The Disney Channel and a two-hour syndicated special, regular episodes began on The Disney Afternoon on September 7, 1992, and a Saturday-morning edition debuted on ABC five days later. The ratings were strong: within days it tied Fox's Batman: The Animated Series, by late October it was the highest-rated series of the week among children two to eleven, and by April 1993 it was Disney's most popular show.
Even so, in February 1993 Disney announced there would be no second season, citing network license fees and rising production costs. The run came to 65 syndicated episodes plus 13 made for ABC and a Christmas special, and the show went on to a long life in reruns on The Disney Channel from 1996. Its real legacy was the Goofy-and-Max relationship. Jeffrey Katzenberg commissioned A Goofy Movie, inspired by a planned car trip with his own daughter, and the film reached theaters on April 7, 1995, with An Extremely Goofy Movie going straight to video in 2000. Goofy, Max, Pete and P.J. stayed part of the Disney furniture through House of Mouse and the Mickey Christmas specials, and in 2023 the refurbished Goofy's house at Disneyland got framed photos of Goofy and Max.
Similar items
A Goofy Movie
The father-son road trip Disney barely believed in — a fishing trip to Lake Destiny that was really about a teenage kid terrified of turning into his dad. Max lip-synced Powerline, pined for Roxanne, and inherited the laugh anyway. A modest theatrical performer in 1995, A Goofy Movie built its legend on home video and became a generation's comfort watch.
Darkwing Duck
"I am the terror that flaps in the night... Let's get dangerous." The Disney Afternoon's masked mallard fought crime across St. Canard with a giant ego, a gas gun, and a new self-introduction every episode — while trying to raise his adopted daughter Gosalyn on the side.
TaleSpin
Baloo from The Jungle Book, reimagined as a hotshot cargo pilot flying a seaplane out of Cape Suzette. Air pirates, a scheming Shere Khan in a business suit, and a theme song that has never once left your head.
Bonkers!
Chewy rectangular fruit candies with a tangy center, sold on the back of some of the most surreal commercials of the era — a giant piece of fruit dropping out of the sky to flatten some unsuspecting bystander. 'Bonkers! Bonks you out!'