'Gus' is that 70's Disney film where a struggling NFL team hires a Yugoslavian mule to kick field goals. It's one of those 'the rules never say a player has to be human' stories, a progenerater to the later (and worse) 'Air Bud' franchise. 'Gus' is perhaps better then it should be, which is not to say good, maybe a little better then fair. It benefits from a large game cast including Disney regulars like Don Knotts, Tim Conway, and Dick Van Patten. Ed Asner plays the predictably crusty but lovable team owner of the fictional California Atoms, which per a line of dialogue is based in Thousand Oaks. Interestingly save the team the Atoms play in the Super Bowl (I guess s that's technically a spoiler) all the teams they play are real NFL.
Gary Grimes and the fetching Louise Williams have a chaste romance. Tom Bosley is here too, as is Bob Crane in a small part (in my review of 'Super Dad' I was mistaken in stating that was the only Disney film Carne did), as well as a few real life NFL players. Silly but pleasant, the mule in the grocery story sequence near the end is very stretched out, doesn't make a ton of sense in the context of the film but otherwise this movie would have been oddly lacking in splatstick. **
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