S04.E08: The Goof Who Sat By The Door

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Quote

An in depth look at the making of the American Classic A Goofy Movie. 

Original air date 2022.10.27

[buttersister]

Priceless.

[AngieBee1]

I know there are people who think ATLANTA is overpraised but when they pull out episodes like this it's no question why. It's brilliant. Using backdrop of the origins of THE GOOFY MOVIE to front its own nod to THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR with Tom Washington's stumble into power at Disney and giving it the animated film an all-too-vivid and realistic documentary treatment speaking on its "blackness" paralleled to one man's identity struggles. Too good.

Loved all the little great details like in Tom's flipbook the building he goes to after graduating is specifically the animation building on the Disney lot and the Disney font over everything, including footage of the L.A. riots. NY Times's Jenna Wortham adding legitimacy to the piece playing herself. The imagery of the heydays with Tom partying with Kadeem Hardison and Adina Howard!

Is this why Goofy hats were featured so heavily in "New Jazz" last season? Everybody loving on The Goofy movie.

[possibilities]

I'm really impressed that FX lets them make this show. 

[Irlandesa]

It was an enjoyable non-Atlanta ep but my favorite thing about it is that it's one of the few (only?) recent episodes which has an official blurb that actually describes what the episode is about. 

[JenE4]

16 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

It was an enjoyable non-Atlanta ep but my favorite thing about it is that it's one of the few (only?) recent episodes which has an official blurb that actually describes what the episode is about. 

Nice detail. It’s the blurb for BAN’s “The Goof Who Sat by the Door,” not F/X’s “Atlanta.” Now I feel like I need to watch A Goofy Movie. I remember my kids having a VHS tape of it in the early ‘00s. (Are we saying that yet: ‘00s?!) It was interesting that it started off with the old, white animator coming to his college and describing Goofy using archaic prejudices (lazy, stupid) and then Thomas, in the wake of the Rodney King riots, has this opportunity to portray Goofy as a loving father but still with all of the trappings of the Black experience (the convoluted map to avoid the Jim Crow South sundown towns, the lack of a good job opportunity). After what? Like ~50 years of Disney history, this was his one and only opportunity to make a Disney movie about the Black experience, so he obsessed about making it the Blackest movie ever, which led to his unraveling—because how can you fit a legacy of heartache, strife, strength, courage, and hope into one animated movie? I loved the callback to the Goofy hats and BAN (though disappointed we didn’t get any special commercials this time). And having Brian McNight and Sinbad there as superstars of the 90s was a nice touch. I watched this in two parts, so when I finished it this morning, I was particularly struck about how good all this whole cast was at “acting for a documentary.” Even though the content was outrageous, the way the people were “recalling their memories with bittersweet emotion” was really outstanding.

ETA: I can’t believe I neglected to mention the detail that I thought was absolute perfection: those crime scene photos of the Goofy shoes and glove, that Thomas apparently wore, when he went full-on goofy Goofy. They went full-circle with this gesture of love for his son, creating this movie based on their actual experiences fishing together—and it ended up being his unraveling and the location where he took his own life. Which was sad—but that photo of the nice leather Goofy shoes in the murky water with the crime scene tag number also made it so funny at the same time. Perfection! Not to mention the callback to Earn saying he wore expensive leather shoes to work, with the sneaker episode in which they discussed Black men putting an unrealistic value on footwear. Those were some nice, high-quality custom Goofy shoes that I imagine Thomas sporting in the boardroom to prove his worth to all of those old white men who accidentally voted for him.

okay, editing one more time to add, I just remembered that Donald Glover voiced Simba in the recent live-action remake of The Lion King. The original version was mentioned in this show. Kind of funny that he’s sticking it to the company that gave him a job, but no one is off limits from the satire.

Edited October 29, 2022 by JenE4
Those shoes, though!

[Racj82]

6 hours ago, JenE4 said:

okay, editing one more time to add, I just remembered that Donald Glover voiced Simba in the recent live-action remake of The Lion King. The original version was mentioned in this show. Kind of funny that he’s sticking it to the company that gave him a job, but no one is off limits from the satire.

Disney literally owns Fox (FX) so it doesn't even matter what job they gave him. He's literally doing this on a channel Disney owns. That's the crazy part.

[xaxat]

That was a great episode.

Goofy please! (IFYKYK)

The amount of cheese in the African American diet. (I'm old enough to remember the days of Government Cheese.)

In high school, I had a had a color block shirt just like the one young Thomas wore. I was so proud of it.

Not only did Brian McKnight show up, he name dropped Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Janet Jackson and Harrison Ford. The other cameos were great as well. When Jenna showed up, I thought we might be getting a straight up documentary.

Huey Newton's rattan throne.

But the best part, by far, is the idea that a innocuous  Disney property could be re-framed by a kind of  Code Switch.

[Trini]

16 hours ago, JenE4 said:

Now I feel like I need to watch A Goofy Movie.

It's good!

[Bluesky]

On 10/30/2022 at 12:57 AM, Trini said:

It's good!

This was a documentary wasn’t it?  My kids watched Disney movies with their grandma because I couldn’t sit through them.