User reviews

I saw this movie at theater when I was 6. I made my dad take me at least 3 times because I could not get enough of it. The Supermarket scene is definitely the best scene in the whole film. I always got scared when Tom Bosley fell into the tank of lobsters because it looks so painful when he limps off down the isle with the lobsters hanging off his pants. Overall, this is a fun movie with lots of slapstick. To this day, I still remember the word that was used to get Gus to kick the ball: "Oyage!!" The live-action Disney film is a lost treasure and they just don't make them anymore like they did back in the 60's and 70's.

This has to be the only football movie where a team does its majority scoring with field goals. Then again if I had a kicker like Gus the mule I might realign my offense as well especially if it was as weak as the California Atoms.

Ed Asner is the owner of the team and he's made what is a foolish bet with Harold Gould that if his team gets to the Super Bowl Gould will tear up the note that he holds on Asner, a kind of team mortgage. But with Gus the Yugoslavian mule and his handler Gary Grimes the Atoms start winning for Asner and coach Don Knotts. Can't forget Knotts he's quite the inspirational coach.

Gould is down but not out. He hires a pair of recently released con men from jail, Tom Bosley and Tim Conway for some dirty tricks. As you can imagine they come up short. The final sequence with them is chasing the kidnapped but escaped mule through a supermarket. It's a page right out of the Marx Brothers and their chase scene in The Big Store.

Bob Crane has a good bit part as a broadcaster with Hall of Fame Johnny Unitas sharing the play by play with him. He's every know it all announcer you just love to hate and loves the sound of his own voice.

This Disney film holds up well after over 40 years and a lot of familiar players get to do their stuff.

Yeah, this movie tone deaf and silly by today's standards, but the utter ridiculousness of this movie makes me laugh. There is a dark undertone considering how awful and aloof Andy's father is to him. That was kinda brutal.

With plenty of years to look back on this, I will say one thing. This movie captures the ridiculous, over the top attitude of sports reporting of modern times. Of course I was not born until 1977 so I have no reference how wild the sports personalities were back then. Anyway, Gus is the greatest animal sports personality ever. Suck it Air Bud!

As others have said, the plot is just totally unreal. But the cast, bless their hearts, play this one straight and before you know it, you're sucked in watching. Tim Conway and Tom Bosley pretty much steal the show--my husband, 6-year-old daughter, and I roll on the floor laughing every time we watch this and it's time for the scenes in the hotel and grocery store. Also, worth mentioning are Bob Crane (as the "Old PepperPot"--a sports announcer who's even more obnoxious than Dick Vitale) and football great Johnny Unitas (who can't get a word in edgewise to do the play-by-play). Oh, yes--Dick Enberg's in this one--it was filmed when he still had hair! This one ends with a little twist, too.

Great viewing for the whole family, or for one of those nights you want to have friends over and just laugh yourself silly. . .

"Gus" is an enjoyable movie. It's far from being one of my favorites but it is an easy movie to watch. The only time "Gus" comes off the tracks in during the supermarket scene. That scene goes on forever and delivers very few laughs. The rest of the movie is just fine. "Gus" doesn't rank on any list of Disney classics but it's not completely forgettable either. It's middle-of-the-road fun and sometimes that just the kind movie that I want to watch. Honorable mention: Tim Conway's character's name, "Crankcase".

Ed Asner is the owner of a failing football team. They didn't score a single point the entire previous season. As a half-time attraction, he hires Yugoslavian Gary Grimes and his mule Gus. Gus can kick a soccer ball far and accurately. It turns out, he can do the same with a football. Asner installs Grimes and Gus as his field-point kicker, and soon the team is on its way to the Superbowl. This does not please Harold Gould, who has been lending Asner money for the team and will get the team if it doesn't win. He hires ex-cons Tom Bosley and Tim Conway to kidnap the mule.

It's based on a short novel by Ted Key. Key was best known for his series of cartoons about Hazel, which were turned into a TV series. Key also wrote juvenile novels, several of which were turned into movies by Disney.

This is one of the gimmick comedies that Disney produced for a couple of decades: lots of comedy gags by old pros like Don Knotts (who plays the coach here), slapstick sequences, and a cute young couple (Grimes and Louise Williams) and a clearly enunciated message in a G-rated setting. This meant that parents could take their kids to the film and snooze through it.

It meant that Disney had a stranglehold on G features, and given the situation, they simply ran the same stories over and again. It might be Herbie the Volkswagen Beetle, a cat from outer space, or a dog as a district attorney, the plot would center on a non-threatening focus.

GUS depends on performances to be interesting, and while everyone clearly tries hard, most of the performers give the impression that it's a paycheck job. Conway and Bosley have a long slapstick sequence in a supermarket that looks far more calculated than funny. Grimes should be speaking with an accent, but there's never one that's apparent, doubtless to avoid distressing any Americans about a foreigner from a Communist country getting the girl. While I'm sure that it made a profit for the company, and I didn't snooze through it, it's one of the unmemorable kid-safe comedies that came out in the 1970s. If it's remembered with especial fondness, it's through the lens of nostalgia.

This is a really cute, silly and fun watch about a donkey who ended help helping a football team out. I am talking American football here. I loved all the times they times to kidnapped, or hurt the donkey and how he was able to Bounce back and he'll the team win. This show is funny, silly and has great characters, character development, storyline and plot in it. This movie is super children friendly. I loved donkey and his human partner they were great. I recommend this movie to everyone who loves sports, or animal. It great for all ages to watch.

Frustrated by the losing performances from their pro-football team the Atoms, owner Edward Asner and coach Don Knotts recruit a kicking mule from Yugoslavia to score the kind of field-goals no human athlete could dream of. This is strictly "The Absent-Minded Professor" minus the Flubber, though viewers didn't seem to mind, making "Gus" a big hit in 1976 with matinée audiences. However, the general pacing is very slow and all the actors look too old for their parts (with the exception of Asner, whose snide one-liners give the movie a little mule-sense). Knotts is still doing his Barney Fife shtick, while Liberty Williams is the perky token female. If you do watch, see if you can figure out why the faux-football footage at the beginning is run in slow-motion. In fact, the whole movie feels in slow-motion. * from ****

I first saw GUS theatrically when I was a kid in 1976. I quite liked it then. But I watched it again recently; it is still reasonably entertaining, but it does show its age. Rear-screen projection is used throughout, which makes the movie look very cheap by today's standards. You can tell the performers are not really in a packed football stadium.

A couple of notes: Don Knotts has second-billing, and his name has been consistently used to promote GUS, both theatrically in 1976, and in the home media issues of recent years. But actually, he has very little to do, and he is off-screen for long periods at a time. This always surprises and disappoints Knotts' fans.

To the opposite extreme, HAPPY DAYS star Tom Bosley has a much larger role than his ignominious 12th-billing would lead you to believe. This is very odd---as he was simultaneously starring on the most popular tv sitcom right at this time, you would think Disney would have wanted to play him up. Did Bosley do something that angered the studio during filming, and was his billing placement punishment? Who knows?

GUS is worth a look as long as you aren't expecting a classic.

This is indicative of most 70's Disney fare: it looks more like it was written by a ten year old, rather than for one. It brings up the debate as to who was the bigger jackass: the mule or the executive who gave the green light to this turkey.

Don knots as a football coach is funny enough to carry a sketch, but not of movie. Tom Bosley as a mobster? Bob Crane's character was an all too obvious parody of Howard Cosell,(for those of you too young to remember a longtime ABC sportscaster who spoke in a long-winded monotone and was part of the Monday Night Football broadcast team from 1970 through 1983) Funny given pro football's popularity that nobody's really put out a good film about pro football. (yes that includes Any Given Sunday)

Good old Tim Conway.

No matter what, you can always count on Tim Conway for a good laugh; in the movies or TV.

Especially here, in "Gus".

Never mind the fact that Asner, Knotts, Dick Butkus and a field goal-kicking mule provide big laughs here, this is Tim's movie.

Never was there a modern-day pratfall king like Tim, and the scenes featuring him and Bosley (as two losers who kidnap the mule to make Gus' team forfeit) give this movie the laughs that it has.

You'll love the supermarket scene. Guaranteed.

Eight stars. All for Tim's work. He's a national treasure.

Oh, and a nice mule, too.

Gus is a very strange film. It's about a donkey that starts to play professional football. It was released in 1976, and really feels like it was released in 1976. It's got a wonderful cast, but they are not given anything to work with. I've never understood these films where animals play professional sports because obviously they wouldn't be able to do that even if it's not against the rules. And setting aside the whole question of whether it's against the rules or not, it's just not funny for me. Films where animals can talk, and they express their feelings and emotions, a sports playing animal, seems a little bit too much of a stretch for me. I'm sure there's somebody out there who really loves these kinds of movies because they keep getting made. Not sure if this was the first movie of its type, but certainly it was not the last.

Gus is yet another of those movies that I feel has been judged too seriously. It's intended to be a football parody, being purposefully made to look goofy and cheesy.

The actors succeed very well at their awkward, funny roles. You may even recognize some of the actors, like Don Knotts and Tim Conway. The jokes are actually funnier than the other reviewers here want to admit, and the theme of the movie - a young man wishing for his parents to be proud of him - is actually quite touching for a comedy. This is a good movie for children to see, with the barest amount of mature content.

People who specialize in nit-picking films, however, will probably not like this movie, however. Two scenes of the film - the second and the last - are filmed almost entirely in slow motion. My guess is that the filmmakers chose to do so just so their film could be 96 minutes long. Also, the effects are admittedly very dated, sometimes purposefully, other times not.

Nevertheless, if all you want is a funny family film, this movie will satisfy all of your wishes. Let your whole family and maybe your mule, if you own one, watch it. Just be sure that no mules are around when a character says, "Oich!"

Exaggerated and absurd that became fun, funny, original, improbable, cute... The scenes of the announcers, and the parents of kids are the best strips... Exaggerated and absurd that became fun, funny, original, improbable, cute... The scenes of the announcers, and the parents of kids are the best strips...

This drags.

I actually don't mind how silly the premise to 'Gus' is, yet even so it's such a slow and predictable watch. There's a few decent gags spread across the 96 minute run time, but there's so much plainness with everything else. The plot itself is something that feels seen before, across Disney's many high school/sport comedies from these early decades.

As for the cast, Ed Asner is the best performer as Hank Cooper. Don Knotts (Venner) and Tim Conway (Crankcase) are in a film again, following on from 'The Apple Dumpling Gang'; though they aren't a pair here, Tom Bosley (Spinner) teams up with Conway instead. Regardless, none of the three are all that amusing. There are a few other OK but forgettable roles, while the sports commentator bits are way more annoying than they are funny.

Not a production I would recommend, even if you could pick many worse live-action films from this studio to watch.

In Yugoslavia, the Petrovic family's favorite son Stepjan is a celebrated soccer player. The other son Andy is the failure of the family until he discovers that the family donkey Gus can kick a ball over 100 yards. Meanwhile, the professional football team California Atoms owned by Hank Cooper (Ed Asner) and coached by Venner (Don Knotts) can't do anything right. Hank decides to sign the mule with Andy as his handler and assigns Debbie Kovac as their caretaker to the frustration of her jealous boyfriend football player Rob Cargil (Dick Butkus). With crimpling debts, Hank is forced to take an all-or-nothing bet with loan shark Charles Gwynn (Harold Gould). The winless Atoms has to win the Superbowl or he would lose the team. Hank puts the halftime show mule into the game and the team starts winning. With his bet in doubt, Gwynn and his partner Cal Wilson (Dick Van Patten) recruit bumbling criminal team Crankcase (Tim Conway) and Spinner (Tom Bosley) fresh out of prison to sabotage Andy and Gus.

It's a relatively unfunny one joke movie for the first part of the movie. Even the addition of Tim Conway cannot get it over the top. Over and over again, it's infuriating how simple it is to protect the mule but they don't do it. Neither Andy nor Debbie are that charismatic. Both are somewhat duds. It's also infuriating that Disney and the like keep going back to the animal sports movie. It's one of the least interesting sub-genres.

It is important to always remember that Disney movies, at least then, were made to entertain; to show happiness; success; and a happy ending. Thus, other reviewers perhaps should understand this. You probably would not like Disneyland.

A pleasant story of a man (Gary Grimes), from the former Yugoslavia, who has the chance of a lifetime to come to the USA, and with the help of Gus, his mule, win football games...you know the plot, obviously.

I did not care for the role of Tom Bosley, whatsoever. It was too affected, and very goofy. How ludicrous, that in a hospital or supermarket, no one tried to detain him (or Conway), or otherwise notify the police.

Furthermore, the well-known supermarket scene, was WAY, WAY too long, and very silly.

Still, Disney movies of the 1960s and 1970s never fail to make us happy. The young man (Andy) has a father who does not value him very much.

Great footage, for you football nuts, and the ending is the whole entire movie-priceless.

This show belonged obviously, to Gary Grimes and to Gus, certainly not to Bosley and Conway.

Soon after this, Gary Grimes retired permanently from the whole entertainment world, and today is in charity work.

I remember seeing Gus back in elementary school on those old spinning tapes and a projector in the 1970s. For some reason, the film left an indelible mark on me. Perhaps it got me into the NFL, which I still enjoy immensely to this day. Regardless, this is a low-budget Disney film where most of the money went into the impressive cast.

Hank Cooper (Ed Asner) owns the inept NFL California Atoms who are unrealistically bad. He's going broke because he apparently is in debt to mobsters Charles Gwynn (Harold Gould) and Cal Wilson (Dick Van Patten) but will be relieved of all his debts if the awful Atoms can win the Super Bowl.

As a way to boost attendance, Cooper brings in Yugoslav Andy Petrovic (Gary Grimes) and his ball kicking mule Gus as an attraction. When Gus kicks a 100 yard field goal, Asner instructs his hapless head coach (Don Knotts) to bring him into the game and after finding out it isn't illegal he becomes the new placekicker with Andy as the holder.

The Atoms start winning and Gwynn and Wilson get desperate so they hire two ex-cons in Crankcase (Tim Conway) and Spinner (Tom Bosley) to deal with Gus.

Meanwhile, Andy tries to prove to his parents that he's accomplished something in athletics but Papa Petrovic is not convinced. Andy hopes that he change that.

Gus has a great cast but the film is so hokey and silly that even these talents can't do anything with the story. The film, like Freaky Friday, has a cheap look to it with overuse of the projector behind the actors. Bob " Lover" Crane as Pepper comes off as loud and overbearing as a play by play man. There should have been more of Dick Enberg, who actually was a legend in regards to play by play.

Also, lots of illogical stuff. The California Atoms play real NFL teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams but in the Super Bowl, they face the fictional Minnesota Mammoths? Also, why is Danny Wells always the referee? Why would somebody involved with bookies be owning an NFL team? How could a grocery store allow such tomfoolery for 25 minutes and do nothing about it? I guess children don't care about that.

If you're a Disney fanatic that has to watch everything from the House of the Mouse you'll probably check it out. Otherwise, pass unless you're a die hard fan of the comic actors featured.

Despite the fact it's about a Donkey kicking field goals, GUS is one of the most entertaining Disney live action ventures made during the 1970's. The plot involves an underdog teen from some foreign land who is the younger brother of a perfect, square-jawed soccer star sibling, worshiped by his father. But Gary's Andy Petrovic has something that will make him famous without making him famous, but rather, his pet mule has all the talent: able to kick a football far into the surrounding forest. Although Gary's Andy is not altogether worthless.

Gus only kicks after hearing the important word, spoken by Andy and, for the most part, Andy only: "Oyage!" Thus, mule and boy is witnessed by a football scout for a losing team called THE ATOMS played by Ronnie Schell, voice-star of the second best Disney venture, THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE, who was sent to the Petrovic farm to witness the older brother for his magic foot for the team's punter. But compared to the ball kicking jackass, Soccer boy means nothing.

The best scenes occur when Andy and Gus get slowly, awkwardly warmed up with the team and his fans, and like the first half of most Disney films, our title hero just can't loose. Eventually, Andy gets lost in the mix despite falling in love (and vice versa, which rarely occurs so quickly) with one of the cutest Disney ingenues ever, Louise Williams as Debbie, who, along with Don Knotts, is on the DVD cover (shown above) autographed by Ed Asner, as the team's grumpy coach who really has to put faith into this risky decision, while Tim Conway plays...

So let's center on the bad guys who rule one particular scene that intentionally steals the entire movie; Gus causing two hired thugs, Tom Bosley as Alpha Male ex-con Spinner with his dopey sidekick, Tim Conway's Crankcase, to chase the escaped-kidnapped donkey around in a supermarket. Wide-eyed when experienced on the big screen as a child, this fifteen minute scene, occurring while Gus is trying to return to a big climactic game.

And hell, if this store scene doesn't bring a smile to your face, something is wrong. But poor actor Gary Grimes despises GUS for ruining an already fledgling, at that time, career... And yet, GUS doesn't hurt our career one bit, but provides an eclectic two-hours of one of the most bizarre, wonderfully campy and genuinely creative comedy films ever. And you CAN'T quote the film's star on that, but Cult Film Freak stands behind it fully: "OYAGE, Muthas!"

I saw this film for the first time when I was a little boy, which was when it came out. I remembered two funny parts: 1. The supermarket sequence, where everything gets messed up. 2. A lady's hat gets eaten, showing the woman being bald. As I got older, I understood more of the story and finally was able to tape the film off of TV and then Disney (no commercials). The film is not very realistic, but pretty funny. The opening sequences showing how bad the Atoms team are are so ridiculous that you think a Pee Wee football league could beat them. Also, how come they don't fire the Coach, played by Don Knotts? Could Hank Cooper be such a loyal friend that he can't do that? Also, notice how the owner, Mr. Cooper, is always on the sidelines during the games? What owner does that today? And you also have to wonder why the opposing team doesn't score each time, since the Atoms are so bad, right? Still, it is a fun movie and you can't take it so seriously. It was also nice to see a twist on the winning play, which I won't reveal here. Oh, here's something else. Notice how muddy the field is during the Super Bowl. When has it even rained on that day in real life? NEVER! Would like to see it happen, though, and have the field be so muddy. I'll also mention that the actors are pretty good, especially Gary Grimes as Andy, who feels in his brother's shadow, Ed Asner as the Atoms' owner, Don Knotts as the befuddled Coach of the Atoms, and Tim Conway and Tom Bosley as Crankcase and Spinner, two con men hired to prevent the Atoms from winning the Super Bowl. They had great chemistry-almost and Abbott and Costello relationship. Disney really doesn't make these films anymore and it is too bad.