Disney+ has a new feature-length documentary called Not Just a Goof, a look at the making of A Goofy Movie, which has become one of the most improbable nostalgic favorites of the Disney company’s ’90s output. A big reason why the film remains so beloved, the doc argues, is the passion and perspective of its director, Kevin Lima, who is interviewed at length in the movie.
The whole documentary is worth a look if you enjoy A Goofy Movie (and who doesn’t enjoy A Goofy Movie???) but one sequence really stands out because it immediately enters the ranks of all-time classic stories about absurd studio executive ideas.
As Lima tells it, then-Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg felt that because A Goofy Movie was going to be a big-screen release that it needed big-screen talent to help anchor it and attract audiences. So he proposed casting Steve Martin.
Yes, as Goofy. I mean, I guess he is a wild and crazy guy … but Goofy???
Katzenberg thought so. “Wouldn’t that be fabulous?” Lima says Katzenberg exclaimed. “Imagine how you could sell that! That would be great!”
“So that means you want Steve Martin to do the Goofy voice?” Lima replied.
“No no no no no, he’s going to do his own voice, so that we know who he is,” Katzenberg replied.
In the words of a great dog man cartoon creature, gawrsh that sounds like a horrible idea.
You can watch this whole sequence from the documentary below:
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Lima was able to talk his boss out of this potentially calamitous concept by recording a test of longtime Goofy voice actor Bill Farmer playing the character in his own normal speaking voice rather than his distinctive Goofy drawl. (Farmer backs all this up in his own interviews in Not Just a Goof, by the way.) Lima’s stated goal: “We [had] to prove to Jeffrey that it was a bad idea.”
The gambit worked. Katzenberg disliked the results of Farmer playing Goofy in his natural voice. But the mere fact that this was entertained at all — and it had to be shot down by showing it was a bad idea — is unbelievable. I will never again claim any storyline on Seth Rogen’s new TV show The Studio, about the exploits of a group of bumbling Hollywood executives, seems implausible. If an extremely wealthy and successful businessman could try to put Steve Martin into the role of Goofy, no idea is too silly for that TV show.
Not Just a Goof is now streaming on Disney+. So is A Goofy Movie and An Extremely Goofy Movie. Neither one stars Steve Martin as Goofy, unfortunately.
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