Gooby, the titular teddy bear come to life, reminded me of the bear that briefly appears in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Shining.” For those that haven’t seen “The Shining” (and shame on you), there’s a sequence in which various ghosts are seen throughout the Overlook Hotel, one of which involves a businessman being fellated by a man in a bear costume. It’s one of the more memorable scenes in the film, despite only lasting for a few seconds (no pun intended), due to how random and startling it is. While I definitely think of the bear sequence when discussing “The Shining,” I never thought it’d come to mind during a children’s film. Yet, during the duration of “Gooby,” I couldn’t get the scene out of my head.
As the not-at-all loveable and completely obnoxious Gooby runs amok throughout the one-hundred minute runtime of his film, my mind kept flashing back to the aforementioned scene in “The Shining” (most likely because I’d rather think about a better film then focus on this lousy one). I began to wonder if the mysterious fellatio bear from “The Shining” was actually Gooby. While Gooby may be an innocent character in the confines of this film, his mischievous nature could extend to the more adult themes of “The Shining.” After all, Gooby’s presence here is to help out those in need, so maybe he was helping out someone else in another fashion. This paragraph is about me pondering if a teddy bear that magically came to life gave a blowjob to a man in a Stanley Kubrick film. Look what the atrocity that is “Gooby” has reduced me to!
Gooby (voiced by Robbie Coltrane) is brought to life accidentally by Willy Dandridge (Matthew Knight), a lonely eleven year old boy who’s having trouble coping with a new move. His parents (David James Elliott & Ingrid Kavelaars) are workaholics that stick him with a nanny (Mary Haney), who mysteriously disappears halfway through the film, which causes his anxiety to go haywire. He starts believing that two-headed alien creatures that he concocted are haunting him, which prompts him to wish upon a medallion to protect him. Back at his old home, his childhood teddy bear comes to life and is transported via a black hole to Willy’s new home to protect him.
One would assume that Willy, the young boy afraid of imaginary creatures that he himself drew, would be petrified of a giant teddy bear come to life. Instead, Willy is relatively calm regarding Gooby’s presence. Willy is rather accepting of the fact that his wish brought his teddy bear to life; what he’s not accepting of is Gooby getting him in trouble. Seeing as this is a children’s film about a teddy bear come to life, the film is filled with innocuous moments such as Gooby stealing cookies from the kitchen, Gooby playing charades outside of Willy’s classroom window, and Gooby blowing a man at the Overlook Hotel; fine, that last one didn’t occur in this film, but I’m next to positive it happened in the same universe! Anyway, Gooby gets involved in various hijinks that are supposed to induce laughter, but instead cause groans. Everything in this film feels too familiar to the point that I think that even its target demographic is going to grow tired of it all quickly.
Wilson Coneybeare (which has to be either a pseudonym or the world’s worst destiny) did have the opportunity to infuse his script with something unique by making the character of Gooby completely imaginary, which is where I thought he was going due to the heavy emphasis on Willy’s active imagination. Instead, Gooby is a physical manifestation visible to all eyes, which means we’re treated to numerous sequences of Willy trying to hide the big bear. This wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t get scenes where Gooby builds a car in the backyard in plain view of the neighbors or when he starts shoplifting in plain sight at a grocery store. Yet, in all of these instances where Gooby is paraded around in public, nobody notices him. The only time he gets noticed is at the movie theater, but that’s on Halloween, so everybody thinks he’s Willy’s dad in a costume. Well, he also gets noticed at the Overlook Hotel while giving a blowjob…damn it, that scene is back in my head again! Look what your film has done to me, Coneybeare!
Nothing about “Gooby” is surprising or inspired. Everything is borrowed from other films, such as Gooby needing to be hidden from the public like E.T. They even rip off the famous bicycle stunt from “E.T.” with Gooby & Willy flying through the air, this time on a self-made car, for everyone to see. The only person that decides to follow up on a flying bear and a young boy is Mr. Nerdlinger (Eugene Levy), Willy’s weird teacher with a last name that even R.L. Stine would laugh at. Levy is wasted in this role, as all he gets to do is occasionally appear to stalk Gooby and Willy, as well as go on a rant about how Lewis Carrol being a hack writer. Take that, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!”
If the character of Gooby wasn’t in this film, and this was simply a drama about a frightened young boy coping with a new move and his parents’ neglect of him, then this film may have worked. Granted, it still would’ve been uninspired and clichéd, but at least it would’ve tugged at the heartstrings better. Thanks to the character of Gooby, the drama is undercooked, as it takes a backseat to random gags such as Gooby throwing hot dogs at Willy (I’ll refrain from making another reference to “The Shining”). When the film reaches its conclusion, the emotion isn’t there when Willy’s father realizes his neglect of his son is hurting him, nor is there any shock value when it’s revealed that Gooby was also the childhood friend of Willy’s father, as that was telegraphed so blatantly earlier in the film that Ray Charles could see it coming. It’s a shame, as Knight, Elliott, and Kavelaars do an admirable job of conveying drama throughout the film, to the point that I really wanted to root for them all to patch things up. Instead, I had to fight the urge to not burn an innocent teddy bear as Gooby paraded around a construction site like a buffoon. That and I had to fight the urge to not think about the bear blowjob scene from “The Shining,” which I just failed at once again. Damn you, Gooby!
P.S. I will give one big compliment to “Gooby” and that’s to the costuming department. While the costume design of Gooby himself is rather creepy (again, “The Shining”), I did like the touch of him still having his tag on him. It’s a small detail, but I was mildly amused to see the tag on the back of Gooby’s leg throughout the film. Had the film been filled with small little touches such as that, it may have fared better.
Final Rating: D