Film / Gooby

Because everybody needs a friend.

"Every studio needs a failure. And that failure is Gooby."

— Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden and Kurtis Conner

Gooby is a live-action film released on April 17, 2009 directed by Wilson Coneybeare.

Willy is a kid who is neglected by his business parents, and fears a fictional species called Hoonies. Luckily, he finds comfort in his home, a place where he is safe from the Hoonies... until he has to move.

After moving, Willy is no longer safe from the Hoonies, and they start to invade his surrounding area, leaving him paranoid and scared of his new house, and school isn't much better with a mean bully and a weird teacher that's desperate for fame. Willy can't find comfort anywhere. Until he encounters a familiar friend. Gooby! His old teddy bear from long ago has somehow come to life, and is as tall as the average adult, but that doesn't mean he's any less charming.. well, actually, it does. Gooby proves to be a bit of a problem, as he's not trying to be secretive and is going out in public uninvited. He still proves to be just the comfort he used to be at times, but Willy must deal with his shenanigans. As Willy and Gooby live together, they get themselves into adventures and hijinks, and precious memories.

Gooby did not do well with critics or in the box office, as it was a massive flop, and the film itself is said to be suitable only for kids and is Accidental Nightmare Fuel.

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Gooby provides the following examples of:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Gooby dons a red scarf.
• Award-Bait Song: "All The Love In The World", sung by Anne Morrone and musical duo RyanDan (aka former b4-4 members Ryan & Dan Kowarsky).
• Beary Funny: Gooby is portrayed as a goofy, clumsy yet well-meaning bear buddy that seems to get himself into trouble a lot.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Gooby is an innocent bear and potential friend, but if you mess with Willy too much, he'll put on a monstrous Nightmare Face to scare you half to death.
• Bindle Stick: After (temporarily) ending his friendship with Willy, Gooby runs away from his home and carries a bindle stick with him.

• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Willy and Gooby have a falling out after Gooby goes to his dad's job, and eventually Gooby runs away. Willy, as mad as he was, becomes depressed due to him not being around.
• Childhood Home Rediscovery: While Gooby and Willy are walking around in a forest, they stumble upon a run-down building that turns out to be Willy's dad's childhood home. Becomes a bonding experience between Willy and his dad when Willy falls through the floor.
• Construction Zone Calamity: After hearing Willy got hit in the head with a soccer ball at school (or at least he thought it meant that), Gooby panics and hops in Willy's dad's car, unbeknownst he’s actually headed for a construction zone. He mistakenly steps on a concrete slab that is about to be lifted in the air, and the next thing we know Gooby's dangling over a 50-story building by a small hook. We even get to see shots of Gooby holding on for his life with nothing but the sky in frame.

  Gooby: Trust me, you don’t want to be hanging over a 50-story building.

  • Gooby mentions that he had to jump off the concrete slab and landed in cement. Miraculously, he only gets a cut on his arm.
• Department of Redundancy Department: When Willy tries getting Gooby to stay in the basement, Gooby lists three reasons why he's not staying in there.

  Gooby: One, it's dark. Two, there's no light. Three, it's dark.

• Dramatic Wind: When the Hoonies first start trying to attack Willy, there's a scene where they open his bedroom window and disappear, while the wind is going strong.
• Eating Pet Food: During the store scene, Gooby starts eating random chips in the store rapidly and accidentally eats cat food. Justified, as the cat food was in what looked like a chips bag, next to the chips.
• Emerging from the Shadows: How Gooby introduces himself to Willy’s dad.
• Failed a Spot Check: When Willy's dad is driving to the construction zone, he somehow doesn't notice a large, humanoid bear in the trunk.
  • When Gooby finally gets to the construction zone, none of the workers notice him walking around until he's high-up in the air.
• Floorboard Failure: Played for Drama. While Willy and Gooby are exploring the now-abandoned childhood home of Willy’s dad, the dilapidated floorboards give way, leaving Willy hanging from a steel bar. It turns out, this was a plan by Gooby to bring him and his dad together.
• Food Slap: During Gooby and Willy’s bonding moment, Gooby throws a hot-dog at Willy, then the container the hot-dog was in.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Willy can't bring Gooby in public due to him being a big talking bear, but on Halloween he basically blends right in, making it the only time he can go out in public.
• Gray Rain of Depression: When Willy has to pack his belongings and move to the new house, there's a thunderstorm going on.
• Grocery Store Episode: One part of the film takes place in a grocery store, where Willy and Gooby run away from the store employees after Gooby eats food without paying.
• Imaginary Enemy: The main antagonist at the beginning of the movie are the Hoonies, a fictional alien monster that only Willy (and Gooby) can see. Of course, the most real they get is through drawings Willy makes of them.
• Informed Species: Gooby is said to be a monster, but he clearly looks like a teddy bear.
• Jump Scare: A defanged variant. After the nanny calls pest control, Willy quickly rushes to the attic to get Gooby out of the house. At first he doesn't appear.. But then he lowers from the ceiling with no warning and calls his name, startling Willy.
• Kids Hate Vegetables: Inverted. While Willy doesn't show any clear reaction to broccoli, Gooby is clearly disgusted by it.
• Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Inverted again. Gooby pretends to be Willy's dad so they and Willy's new friends can watch an r-rated movie. While the kids seem to be enjoying it, Gooby is actively trying to stop himself from covering his eyes, and eventually dunks behind a seat.
• Living Toy: Gooby is. It's implied that he was sentient even before he became a real bear, since he knew about Willy drawing Hoonies.
• Movie-Theater Episode: One part of the film takes place at the movie theater, where Willy finally makes new friends.
• Moving Angst: Willy is upset about having to move, since he's afraid the Hoonies will come and attack him since his old house was his safe spot, and the fact that he spent the beginning of the movie describing places around town and why he likes them doesn't help him.
• Mr. Exposition: The kid that sits next to Willy outside during his first lunch there just provides basic information about various kids in the school.
• New Friend Envy: A contributing factor to Willy and Gooby's friendship failure is that Willy has started to spend too much time with his new friends.
• Nightmare Face: During the theater scene, while Big Bruce is bullying Willy, Gooby gives him his karma by making a face that's very different from his usual face, with sharper teeth and uncanny face movements. The face is so scary that it makes Bruce pee.
• Parental Neglect: Willy's parents are too caught up in business to pay attention to Willy. However, after Willy nearly falls due to a Floorboard Failure in an abandoned house, he and his parents start spending more time together.
  • Neglectful parents are actually what Gooby helps with, as he's passed down from one neglected kid to another to fix their relationships.
• Passing Notes in Class: Willy ends up doing this with two other kids at one point, albeit he didn't want to. The note had Mr. Nerdlinger's head on Fleshington Fish's body.
• Playing Sick: At one point, Gooby starts making a lot of noise and Willy's parents get suspicious, so Willy plays sick by choking and feeling unwell afterwards. Unknowingly helped by Gooby, who ate two boxes of cookies and led the parents into thinking he got sick from eating them.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Happens between Willy and Gooby.

Willy: Gooby, you're supposed to wait until I come out to the backyard!
Gooby: Well you don't come back to the backyard anymore! Always playing soccer and hanging out with your new friends.
Willy: That's not true.
Gooby: Don't worry about Gooby! Just leave him in the shed day and night, with his moldy old comics and his ratty old sleeping bag!
Willy: You're a liar.
Gooby: And we don't even draw Hoonies anymore!
Willy: Hoonies?! There's no such thing as Hoonies! They're for little kids!
Gooby: Well if there's no such thing as Hoonies, then maybe I should go!
Willy: Well then maybe you should! Especially if all you're gonna do is cause trouble.
Gooby: Yeah? Then maybe I will!

• Potty Failure: At one point, Gooby catches Big Bruce about to beat up Willy and makes a Nightmare Face to scare him off. It’s so scary he pees in his costume.

  Gooby: Willy! The hot dog peed! (laughs alongside Willy)

• Rage Breaking Point: Gooby goes to Willy's school due to running out of marshmallow cookies and inadvertetly causes him to get after-school detention for 2 weeks. Willy is absolutely furious, and explains to Gooby how much he screwed him over.
• Reactive Continuous Scream: When Willy sees Gooby for the first time, he screams due to thinking it was a monster. This causes Gooby to scream, and then they keep screaming until Willy realizes just who he's seeing.
• The Resenter: Mr. Nerdlinger made three books and not even a single person in his class knows them, so he’s quite jealous of Lewis Carroll, enough to make an entire hate speech about him and treat his writing as an Informed Ability.

  Mr. Nerdlinger: It seems absurd that we have to teach young people about… Lewis Carroll, as if he’s such a great writer. Oh sure, his book is one book, became so, so, famous. Alice in Wonderland, I’ve written three books! And on my own illustrations, Lewis Carroll didn’t do his own illustrations, the man couldn’t draw a stick! - Beat - Just absurd.

• Soundtrack Dissonance: Romance music is playing while Gooby and Willy are running away from store employees trying not to get in trouble.
• Toilet Humour:
  • During their bonding moment, Gooby and Willy burp at each-other. Gooby accidentally farts and fans the smell towards Willy.
  • When Gooby scares Big Bruce for bullying Willy, Bruce pees in his costume.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Gooby loves his cookies, and hot-dogs too.
• Wacky Sound Effect: During the supermarket scene, while Mr. Nerdlinger is trying to get a picture of Gooby, he accidentally slips on a pile of spilt apples. The fall to the ground makes the sound of bowling pins being knocked over.
• Would Hurt a Child: When things mysteriously start disappearing around the house (Gooby was stealing them), Ms. Williams threatens to beat Willy as if he was stealing them.

  Ms. Williams: We can have it out right now, boy, if that's what you want!

• Writing Lines: Discussed. When Willy gets back from detention, he tells Gooby he had to write "There's no such as fuzzy orange monsters" 60 times.