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The 1976 NFL season remains noteworthy for the introduction of expansion teams the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buncaneers, the introduction of visible thirty-second clocks on either end of the field, and the Oakland Raiders defeating the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI. But that was just in real life. At the movies, 1976 pro football belonged to a Yugoslavian mule that could kick field goals with the might of, well, a Yugoslavian mule in the namesake Disney comedy, Gus.
With 2014’s gridiron grapples underway, we’re already seeing teams who could benefit from the projectile hoof power of Gus. That got us to thinking about other animals who starred as sports movie heroes, and here’s a robust roster of the most enjoyably ludicrous examples.
The Karate Dog (2004)
Chevy Chase provides the voice of Cho Cho, a wisecracking canine martial arts master who befriends a cop (Simon Rex) during an investigation into the demise of a corporate spy played by Pat Morita, aka Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. CGI fights dominate this ABC Family production, along with a hodgepodge (and dare we say fleabitten?) cast that also includes Jon Voight, Jaime Pressly, Nicolette Sheridan, and Lori Petty.
Bonzo Goes to College (1952)
Bedtime for Bonzo was a warm-hearted 1951 hit comedy starring Ronald Reagan as a psych professor attempting to teach human morality to the chimpanzee of the title. The movie—or more specifically, the name “Bonzo”—comically endured through the years, coming up repeatedly during Reagan’s political career and, most rockingly, in the Ramones’ 1986 anthem “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg.” More directly, Bedtime spawned a Regan-less sequel, Bonzo Goes to College, in which the chimp learns to read, enrolls in a local university, and gets drafted by the football program, where he becomes the BMOC (Big Monkey on Campus).
Ed (1996)
Ed, of Ed, is a chimpanzee who plays third base for minor-leaguers the Santa Rosa Rockets. He’s also the roommate and best buddy of ace pitcher Matt LeBlanc—who stars here in his first big solo movie to cash in on his Friends TV mega-fame (really)—as well being, for the overwhelming majority of the film’s running time, the fakest, clunkiest, and dopiest animatronic contraption this side of the Jaws stop on the classic Universal Studio Tours ride.
Gus (1976)
After an American tourist in Yugoslavia witness a mule named Gus casually power-kick a soccer ball clear into Romania, he recruits the animal to play for a desperate football team, the California Atoms. Everybody wins. Popular enough to be reissued to theaters several times and then rerun frequently on TV, Gus is even more remarkable now for it’s only-in-’70s cast of variously lumpy, crusty, and jumpy male actors that includes Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Ed Asner, Dick Van Patten, football great Dick Butkus and, in his final film role, notorious Hogan’s Hero star and pioneering home video pervert Bob Crane.
Matilda (1978)
Matilda takes a seemingly workable premise for a fun kids’ comedy—a kangaroo becomes a professional boxing champion by taking on the sport’s most popular and colorful prizefighters—and hops off the rails by treating the subject matter with the deadly seriousness of an endangered species documentary. Matilda’s producer even boasted that it would be “quite possibly the most sophisticated G-rated movie ever made” and cast heavy-hitting thespians Robert Mitchum and Elliot Gould in lead roles opposite the titular figure, a guy in a large, uncomfortable, hilariously fake-looking kangaroo suit. Despite McDonald’s promotional tie-ins and a splashy premiere at Radio City Music Hall, Matilda bombed massively, but it will bounce forever as a knockout triumph to of fans of the most insane films ever made.
Mr. Go (2013)
South Korea’s first film ever shot entirely in 3D, Mr. Go chronicles the rise to baseball superstardom of a power-hitting gorilla (that would be the CGI Mr. Go himself) and Wei Wei (Xu Jiao), the fifteen-year-old girl who manages him. Despite the culture shock gags and stylish facial fur of both heroes, Mr. Go is not, in fact, a remake of Tom Selleck’s 1992 Japanese big league comedy, Mr. Baseball.
MVP: Most Valuable Primate (2000)
Jack is a chimpanzee who escapes from a Canadian research lab, befriends a little deaf girl by speaking to her in sign language, and then joins her brother’s ice hockey team where he proves to be an absolute sensation in the rink. The original MVP begat two sequels: MVP: Most Vertical Primate, where Jack turns skateboarding champ; and MXP: Most Xtreme Primate, where our hairy hero hits the slopes as an ace snowboarder.
Soccer Dog: The Movie (1999)
A recently adopted orphan has a hard time fitting in as the new kid in town until he meets a stray pooch named Kimble who possesses an innate talent for soccer. Together, boy and beast become local sports legends as they score goal after goal. Incessant reruns of Soccer Dog: The Movie as afternoon cable TV programming eventually warranted a 2004 sequel, Soccer Dog: European Cup.
Animalympics (1980)
Animalympics almost didn’t make our list due to its being animated rather than a live-action film with actual animals (and countless mechanical and/or CGI stand-ins), but it’s simply too goofy, too vividly remembered by cable TV viewers of a certain age, and too star-studded not to include. Originally commissioned by NBC as a parit of TV specials to coincide with the network’s coverage of the 1980 winter and summer Olympics, the four-legged cartoon competitors of Animalympics suffered the same fate as their real-life biped athletic brethren when the U.S. boycotted the Moscow hot weather games due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The shows were then edited into a single feature film starring the voices of Billy Crystal, Gilda Radner, and Harry Shearer. It never played theaters, but Animalympics was sold quickly to both HBO and Showtime, and it ran relentlessly on each throughout the 1980s. The Disney Channel picked up the movie in the ’90s and subsequently injected a whole new generation with Animalympics fever.
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