Sport Goofy in Soccermania

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Rumpelstiltskin
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Sport Goofy in Soccermania

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

According to Wikipedia, this cartoon was originally meant to have a theatrical release. But in the book Pulling a Rabbit Out of a Hat: The Making of Roger Rabbit Paperback, by Ross Anderson, we learn it was it was actually produced by the television animation division.

Anderson has a blog where he has posted excerpts from the book:

https://pullingarabbitoutofahat.com/com ... ccermania/
The plug was pulled on further development work on Roger Rabbit at the Disney studio in 1983. Darrell Van Citters was assigned as director of a Special Projects unit. This unit was set up off the Disney lot on Glen Oaks Blvd. in northern Burbank. They eventually began work on a ‘Sport Goofy’ project. ‘Sport Goofy’ was a Disney Marketing initiative. It was intended as a vehicle to renew the library of Goofy sports-related ‘How To…‘ shorts. They saw it as an opportunity to put the Disney brand on a wide range of sports merchandise in anticipation of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

The film was never intended to be of ‘theatrical-release’ quality. By early 1984 there wasn’t nearly enough urgency on the featurette as there should have been… with the 1984 Olympics almost upon them.

Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, and Jeffrey Katzenberg joined Disney in September 1984. Not long after, they deemed Sport Goofy in Soccermania as ‘unreleasable.’ The Special Project unit came under the control of the Television Animation Group and Van Citters felt that he had been blind-sided again. Van Citters’ and Giaimo’s version of ‘Sport Goofy’ was zany and quirky. Ward Kimball was brought in as a consultant… to ‘fix’ it. Even Ward thought that it was bizarre and stayed only long enough to make notes and suggestions. Eventually, Matt O’Callaghan was brought in as the new director. The story was modified considerably and new animation was created. The Sport Goofy in Soccermania featurette was finally released in 1987.

An early version of Roger Rabbit can be seen in a crowd scene… clapping wildly in the middle of a group of other ‘funny animal’ spectators at a soccer game.

Sport Goofy in Soccermania was almost impossible to find in North America until recently. One had to buy foreign language VHS videotapes from eBay in order to see it. Nevertheless, it can be seen as the direct antecedent of the DuckTales television series.
So apparently the featurette was in development for years, and released three years after the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The fact that they even bothered to keep working on it after that is impressive.
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blackcauldron85
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Re: Sport Goofy in Soccermania

Post by blackcauldron85 »

It was perfect timing with DuckTales coming out; when they started working on Sport Goofy, back then did it also include the DuckTales characters? It's interesting if so to have them appear so far before the show came out (I know Scrooge was in Mickey's Christmas Carol, though).
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Rumpelstiltskin
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Re: Sport Goofy in Soccermania

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I haven't seen the cartoon myself yet (I noticed it is on youtube), but if I should guess I don't think any of the characters created specifically for DuckTales is in this cartoon. Still, it would be cool if I was wrong.
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Re: Sport Goofy in Soccermania

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Here's a link to the video: https://youtu.be/ggmVm2ljDuw

It does have DuckTales characters, so it's just interesting that it was being made prior to the show's debut by years.
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Re: Sport Goofy in Soccermania

Post by Rumpelstiltskin »

Makes you wonder if DuckTales had ever been made if they had just scrapped Sport Goofy in Soccermania when it was clear it would never be finished in time for summer 1984.
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