The Wrestling Episode is our cleverly-named feature wherein we watch non-wrestling shows with wrestling episodes and try to figure out what the hell’s going on in them. You’d be surprised how many there are. You can watch the episode on Daily Motion here. If you have any suggestions on shows that need to be featured in The Wrestling Episode, let us know in our comments section below.
I’ve Never Heard Of Goof Troop. What Is It?
In the 1990s, the television branch of Disney had two good ideas:
- what if our old characters were private investigators
- what if our old characters suddenly had families and were stressed out about it all the time
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the best example of the former. DuckTales is the best example of the latter, and shows like Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin kinda-sorta combined the two. “I have to fight crime of some kind, but also there’s this KID here!”
Goof Troop is a show about how a funny dog has taken a break from filming informational sports videos and helping Sora murder Final Fantasy characters with gummy bear powers or whatever to be a single dad. This concept ran for two seasons and led to two feature length films people will try to convince you are very good, which they really are if you put them up against their peers like Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas or Aladdin: Jafar’s Radical Ramadan.
And There’s A Wrestling Episode?
Eh-yhuck, there shore is!
Episode 42 of season one (LOL), ‘The Incredible Bulk,’ is mostly about Goofy’s next door neighbor and sociopolitical rival Peg-Leg Pete, a fat canine thug from the 1920s who predates Mickey Mouse, is Disney’s first real villain and their oldest recurring character. Goof Troop reimagines him as a used-car salesman who compensates for being brow-beaten by his wife by constantly trying to ruin his friend’s life.
The episode opens with Pete inviting Goofy and Goofy’s son, Max, over to watch WRESTLING FOR DOLLARS, their local wrestling show. Turns out everyone’s a huge fan of Bulk Brogan, which … uh, I believe is a reference to a real wrestler, I’ll have to figure that out.
Bulk Brogan is a completely original creation, like Ricky Rouse or Monald Muck.
Everyone’s into the show, but Pete’s mostly bothered that lanky-ass Barry Windham-looking-ass Goofy eats all of his food. Pete’s son Pete Jr. remarks that Brogan is the “most awesome wrestler there is,” which causes Senior Pete to remind everybody he was on his high school wrestling team and could work circles around him. He shows off some of his signature moves (from amateur wrestling) like the “clean and jerk,” which is literally him just choking Goofy, and the “monkey wrench,” Dave Grohl’s least favorite hold.
After that indecent accident, Pete’s bluff is called: WRESTLING FOR DOLLARS is challenging local “victims of disrespect” to come down to Local Wrestling Facility and step into the ring and last three minutes with him. Anyone who can do it is allowed to “rip his championship belt right off his spleen.” His kids guilt him into signing up, because as we’ve learned from most of these columns, Hollywood thinks wrestling shows are still turn-of-the-century carnival scams where one actual wrestler fights a bunch of fans.
Does Goof Troop Think Wrestling Is Real?
Yes and no. It turns out that “The Incredible Bulk” is played by Myron, an extremely jacked local restaurateur who wants to hang up his boots and serve food, but is being pressured into This Business by a scheming promoter, “Sparky.” Sparky won’t let Myron out of his wrestling contract until he drops the championship, and the only way he can do THAT is by finding someone who can legitimately beat him in a shoot-fight. Is that why Brock Lesnar’s been Universal Champion for over a year and barely ever wrestles? Because he wants to open his own Jimmy John’s?
Pete shows up and tries to stay confident, but decides he wants to bail. Sparky pops in and bullies him into signing up because “The Bulk hates quitters,” and will put him in the hospital if he tries to back out. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, Pete has a brilliant idea: sign up for the fight under the name “Goofy,” so he can get out of the fight AND see his borderline mentally handicapped single dad neighbor get the shit beaten out of him for eating too much at his house.
Wait, How Does That Work?
Master manipulator Pete (who couldn’t figure out he should eat food before he brought it out into the living room, or to just not invite a guy he hates into his house) tricks Goofy into thinking the wrestling show is a weird variety show, and that they’re supposed to simultaneously have a “tag team” wrestling match/eating contest. No idea. This leads directly into a training montage of Goofy learning to be a competitive eater, including this bit where they construct a giant slingshot in his backyard to launch hamburgers at his face.
Pete’s wife starts getting suspicious when Goofy gets overfed to the point of exhaustion — the conceit of Goof Troop is that Disney’s anthropomorphic dog characters have active sex lives — but Goofy wants to go another round. So they head to (get this) his favorite local restaurant, run by his good friend Myron. It’s here that Pete realizes everyone in both families is gonna go to the wrestling show and he’s going to be found out, so he tells them it’s a men only event, no women or children allowed. Yes folks, Pete’s wrestling at the Greatest Royal Rumble.
There’s also a pretty solid joke about how Pete needs to go season some food, revealing that Pete (like Curly Howard before him) is driven to physical madness by a specific scent.
This Is Some Dense Storytelling For A Disney Afternoon Cartoon.
It gets better! On the day of the show, we find out that Pete’s kids stayed up all night making him a wrestling costume as “the Incredible Bulk’s worst nightmare, ROADKILL.” Sadly he’s dressed like actual dead animals, and not the Angry Amish Peg-Leg Pete. Goofy shows up in long-johns looking like he’s been on that Jinder diet, but it turns out he just has an eating disorder and filled his wrestling gear with “emergency snacks.”
Everyone finds their seats and wait for the announcements, and are shocked when Goofy’s name is called as Brogan’s opponent. Pete’s wife is all, “BRUH,” and enthusiastic sportsman Goofy G. Geef botches getting into the ring.
Myron realizes he’s going to be wrestling his friend and considers taking a dive, so the promoter gets in his face, calls him a “cheater,” and reminds him that he only gets out of his contract when somebody beats him “fair and square.” It’s like he asked to be an employee instead of an “independent contractor” or something. So now this episode of the Goofy Dog show is about a man being blackmailed into killing his friend. That’s th’ wrestlin’ business!
But Let Me Guess, Goofy Can Work
Sort of? His first major offensive move is to counter a bearhug by having a pie squeeze out of his shirt and hit Bulk in the face, which may be a callback to Theodore Seville skeeting on everyone at ringside on the wrestling episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
But What If I’m Making Goofy In WWE 2K18 And Need To Fill Out His Moveset, Because I Don’t Think Pie Counters Are Part Of The Extra Moves DLC
You want to make sure you give Goofy the ankle lock as his finish, because that’s what he accidentally puts Bulk Brogan into while trying to be helpful and tie his shoes for him. Convinced that wrestling is truly phony because of Goofy’s performance — ignoring the man’s long history of sporting excellence and killing Sephiroth with magicks — Pete tags in and tries to do a bunch of wrestling moves to impress his kids. Only, you know, wrestling isn’t fake, and Goofy’s just an idiot savant with Domino luck powers who could probably beat Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star in a fight. Don’t @ me.
Brogan viciously shoots on Pete with the “Cake Mix Spin” (a one-handed airplane spin) and breaks his back to make him humble (pictured). When Goofy realizes Pete has to win on the level for Myron to leave This Business for good, he gets the bright idea to dust him with pepper, sending him into an unstoppable sneezing rage. One breaks Bulk’s inescapable submission finish — the Stuffed Chickenwing — and another sends Pete flying through the air and onto Bulk with a splash. Pete is declared the winner for “pinning” Bulk despite nobody wanting to animate a referee, and Myron is free to bake quiches or whatever for a living instead of breaking necks.
Does That Mean Pete’s The Champion Now?
It does, and he’s now contractually obligated to defend the championship against everyone else who signed up to take on The Bulk. Pete’s like, “bro, I said my name was Goofy,” but since Pete’s the one who made the actual pinfall and wrestling’s fake, they’re just gonna go with it.
So, What Have We Learned?
- wrestling promoters don’t have your best interests in mind
- if you hate your neighbor, you don’t have to be friends with him and invite him over to watch wrestling
- if you like to your children about how great you were at high school wrestling, you better be able to back it up
- pies are a great way to escape a bear hug
- Goofy is basically Forrest Gump as an anthropomorphic dog
- Pete’s family owns a regular small dog despite being giant dog-people themselves, which suggests a lot of really concerning things about the Goof Troop expanded cinematic universe
- they’re the Goof Troop, and they always stick together
- ba dabba-do-wop, babba do-WOP! (yeah)
