By Gavin Boyle
Thirty years after its release, voice actor Bill Farmer reflected on the surprising legacy of A GOOFY MOVIE and what playing the titular character has meant to him as a whole.
“Over the last 30 years, it has become the number-one thing that I talk about with fans at events and Comic-Cons and things — they always ask about A GOOFY MOVIE and say, ‘Thank you for my childhood. I couldn’t talk to my dad until that movie came out. It became our movie.’ There are so many great stories. I’m just totally thrilled with the way that it has grown in popularity,” Farmer told PEOPLE.
Though he had no idea just how popular the movie would end up, Farmer had an idea that the movie would mean something to fathers and sons after attending a showing with his own son.
“I knew that it was important because I had taken my son to this particular screening, and it was in Walt Disney’s actual theater in the animation building on the lot and after the movie was over, lights came up and my son was crying a little bit,” Farmer recalled. “And I said, ‘What’s the matter, buddy? Didn’t you like the movie?’”
“He said, ‘Well, when Goofy went over the waterfall, I thought that was you,’” he continued. “So I knew he connected with it in a deep way that I hadn’t realized before.”
Disney is now honoring the cult classic through a documentary that captures how the movie was made 30 years ago. From the inspiration behind the movie to the technology used to stitch it together, the documentary provides an unprecedented look behind the scenes.
“I was a first-time director. I had a first-time head of story. I had a first-time lead editor,” explained director Kevin Lima. “I thought we had the opportunity to make a John Hughes movie in animation.”
Related: Why Disney+’s IT’S A DOG’S LIFE Is a Family Affair
This team of first-time leads was no accident as Disney was not expecting much from the movie before it launched. Even after it launched, it received little fanfare, and though it grossed a profit at the theater, its rise in popularity slowly occurred in the following decades.
One of the aspects that the documentary most captures is just how difficult it was to create a movie without strong support from the Disney. This was especially true during a time when technology inhibited the creative process and teams that were spread out across the world had to mail their work into a central location.
As Farmer has experienced, however, all of this hard work was worth it, and thousands of lives would be very different had A GOOFY MOVIE never been made. The behind the scenes documentary NOT JUST A GOOF is now available on Disney+.
Read Next: A GOOFY MOVIE Documentary Launches on Disney+ on 30 Year Anniversary
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