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

Mule

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...

 ("Gus") and his trainer "Andy" (Gary Grimes

Gary Grimes

Gary Grimes is a former American actor.-Biography:Gary Grimes' first major role was in the 1971 motion picture Summer of '42, playing a teenager who has an affair with a beautiful older woman, played by Jennifer O'Neill...

).

The film opens with a soccer game, and the Petrovic family watching their son Stepjan win the soccer game. Their other son Andy Petrovic works on his farm in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, 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 a long distance. 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

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and Gus' kicking of the football gets them to agree to let them join the team.

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

Don Knotts

Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...

 and Tim Conway

Tim Conway

Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway is an American comedian and actor, primarily known for his roles in sitcoms, films and television. Conway is best known for his role as the inept second-in-command officer, Ensign Charles Parker, to Lt...

 do not share any scenes.

Johnny Unitas

Johnny Unitas

John Constantine Unitas , known as Johnny Unitas or "Johnny U", and nicknamed "The Golden Arm", was a professional American football player in the 1950s through the 1970s, spending the majority of his career with the Baltimore Colts. He was a record-setting quarterback, and the National Football...

 appears as a commentator with Bob Crane

Bob Crane

Robert Edward "Bob" Crane was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E...

 supplying the play-by-play during the football broadcasts. Dick Enberg

Dick Enberg

Richard Alan "Dick" Enberg is an American sportscaster. He currently provides play-by-play for telecasts of San Diego Padres baseball on 4SD, following a long career calling various sports for such networks as NBC, CBS, and ESPN...

 did the play-by-play for the local games.

The name "Hank Cooper" was later used in the Disney film The Love Bug

The Love Bug (1997 film)

The Love Bug is made-for-television film starring Bruce Campbell and a sequel to the original The Love Bug film. The sequel included a Dean Jones cameo, tying it to the previous films...

as the name of the mechanic who meets Herbie (played by Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell

Bruce Lorne Campbell is an American film and television actor. As a cult movie actor, Campbell starred as Ashley J. "Ash" Williams in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series of films and he has starred in many low-budget cult films such as Crimewave, Maniac Cop, Bubba Ho-tep, Escape From L.A. and Sundown:...

). Don Knotts

Don Knotts

Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...

 co-starred with Dean Jones

Dean Jones (actor)

Dean Carroll Jones is an American actor. Jones is best known for his light-hearted leading roles in several Walt Disney movies between 1965 and 1977, most notably The Love Bug.-Early years:...

 in the film Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo is a 1977 film, the third of a series of films by Walt Disney Productions starring Herbie – the white Volkswagen racing Beetle with a mind of its own.-Plot:...

.

Gus would be the last feature film in the short career of then 20-year old Grimes.