Gus is a 1976 American film by Walt Disney Productions. Its center character is Gus, a football-playing mule.
Plot[]
Gus is a film about a football-kicking mule ("Gus") and his trainer "Andy" (Gary Grimes).
The film opens with a soccer game, and the Petrovic family watching their son Stepjan win the soccer game. Andy Petrovic works on his farm in Yugoslavia, and can't play soccer at all. A soccer ball is behind his mule, Gus. After saying that he never wants to see a soccer ball again, Gus kicks the soccer ball and Andy tries it with him and he says, "Oyage!" and Gus kicks the ball.
Meanwhile, the California Atoms are a team that cannot do anything right. Debbie Kovac, a woman with Yugoslavian parents gets the Yugoslavian papers, and once Hank Cooper and Coach Venner find out about Gus, they want him over. So with that, Andy and Gus fly over to California and Gus' kicking of the football gets them to agree to keep him in.
Cast[]
- Edward Asner as Hank Cooper
- Don Knotts as Coach Venner
- Gary Grimes as Andy Petrovic
- Tim Conway as Crankcase
- Liberty Williams as Debbie Kovac
- Dick Van Patten as Cal Wilson
- Ronnie Schell as Joe Barnsdale
- Bob Crane as Pepper
- Johnny Unitas as himself
- Dick Butkus as Rob Cargil
- Harold Gould as Charles Gwynn
- Tom Bosley as Spinner
- Titos Vandis as Seth Petrovic
- Hanna Hertelendy Molly Petrovic
- Liam Dunn as Dr. Morgan
- Virginia O'Brien as Reporter
- Kenneth Tobey as Asst. Warden
- Irwin Charone as Hotel Clerk
- Timothy Brown as Calvin Barnes
- Jackson Bostwick as Stjepan Petrovic
- John Orchard as Pemberton Captain
- Richard Kiel as Tall Man
- Henry Slate as Fan
- Larry McCormick as N.Y. Broadcaster
- Larry Burrell as Locker Room Announcer
- Danny Wells as Referee
- James Almanzar as Coach Garcia
- Milton Frome as Lukom
- Iris Adrian as Fan's Wife
- Bryan O'Byrne as Grocery Store Manager
- Jack Manning as Mayor
- James Brown as Mammoth Coach
- Warde Donovan as Butcher
- Jeanne Bates as Nurse
- Dick Enberg as Atoms' Announcer
- George Putnam as TV Interviewer
- Stu Nahan as L.A. Sportscaster
Film information[]
The film did well and was released on home video in 1981. The movie is remembered for two sequences involving a hotel and a supermarket.
This is the only one of their five films together where Don Knotts and Tim Conway do not share any scenes.
Johnny Unitas appears as a commentator with Bob Crane supplying the play-by-play during the football broadcasts. Dick Enberg did the play-by-play for the local games.
The name "Hank Cooper" was later used in the Disney film The Love Bug as the name of the mechanic who meets Herbie (played by Bruce Campbell). Don Knotts co-starred with Dean Jones in the film Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.
A copyright renewal for the film was registered on October 5, 2004.[1]