Recap / Film Reroll The Mighty Ducks

The Mighty Ducks quack on! Except that’s not their team name in this version! They’re not the ducks!! What will they be called instead?!? What will it be?!?!?

Episode 118-122 of Film Reroll. Based on the 1992 sports film. Featuring The District Five Irregulars.

After being arrested for drunk driving, Gordon Bombay is sentenced to coach a youth hockey team as part of his community service. He soon realizes that turning a group of rowdy children into sports champions is far from an easy feat, especially not when they don’t exactly have much respect for him or each other.

Notable for being the first sports movie to be done on the podcast, and as such required the creation of a system so that the games played in the campaign don't go move-for-move.

Starring Jon Miller as Gordon Bombay, Andy Hoover as Connie Moreau and Tommy and Tammy Duncan, Kara Strait as Casey and Charlie Conway, Paulo Quiros as Jesse Hall and Terry Hall, Lisa Kopitsky as Peter Mark and Greg Goldberg, Carolyn Faye Kramer as Dave Karp, Courtney Alana Ward as Guy Germaine and Fulton Reed, Mason Conrad (First Appearance) as Lester Averman, and Joz Vammer as the Dungeon Master.

Followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

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Tropes:

• Absurd Phobia: After Peter decides to put a leather jacket on Charlie's snowdad, Charlie attacks him due to the fear it will get on a motorcycle and leave him.
• Abusive Parents: It’s established that Charlie’s father used to be an abusive alcoholic, which is why his mother “left” him.
  • Black Widow: Part 4 then implies that said father was actually murdered by Charlie's mother, who then hid the body.
• Accidental Aesop: invoked Charlie causing the fight in Part 3 has the negative side-effect of causing the rest of the Irregulars to, as Lisa describes in regards to Peter, "[learn] the wrong lesson from this game", and decide to start openly sabotaging the opponent teams.
• Accidental Misnaming: During the intro of Part 5, Lisa accidentally calls Courtney ”Carolyn”. She just rolls with it by joke-introducing herself as such.
• The Ace: Greg Goldberg is quickly established as one of the best players in the team, getting him a promotion from his goalie position.
• Adults Dressed as Children: Jesse suggests getting some of Coach Bombay’s old hockey teammates to disguise themselves as children and join the team. Perhaps understandably the plan is not actually carried out.
• Amoral Attorney: The judge in Gordon’s trial is said to have made some dirty dealings in the past, and ensured that Bombay was declared guilty partially as an act of revenge.
• Artifact Title: Discussed. As mentioned in the episode description for the second part (see above) the team never actually call themselves “The Mighty Ducks”, instead choosing “The District Five Irregulars.” The idea of changing the campaign name to match is brought up, but Paulo points out that he always tends to keep the original titles to avoid confusion.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: After Carolyn asks why the others are trying to extort Gordon for money, Courtney plainly states that "[they] deserve it".
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Reeve shows up just in time to save Greg and Dave from a pair of bullies from the Opposing Sports Team (whom they just happened to run into while playing laser tag at the mall.) They are so thankful that they give him a spot on the team without even clarifying if he knows how to play hockey.
  • Later, Hans arrives in his pick-up truck at just the right moment to pick Charlie up before the police arrest him.
• Blatant Lies: Guy tells some high school football players that he’s been watching their progress since they were on the peevee team. They don’t exactly buy it, given that he’s the right age to be on such a team himself (which he happens to be.)
• Briar Patching: After Jesse tries having Terry be goalie, Gordon (fully aware that Terry's too young to be goalie) instead makes Jesse be goalie due to trying to throw his younger brother under the bus. Jesse then claims this was his plan all along.
• Bring It: It doesn't take much for Lisa decide to have Peter brawl Charlie after Charlie decides to tackle him over the leather jacket incident.
  Lisa: I'm gonna put my leather jacket on the dad sculpture.
  Kara: NO, HE'S GONNA GET ON A MOTORCYCLE AND LEAVE ME! I- who- Lisa, who are you playing?!
  Lisa: I'm playing Peter. I'm very small-
  Kara: I tackle Peter.
  Lisa: Oh... Bring it on.
• But Now I Must Go: Charlie to his mother, declaring that the two of them now have to part ways and run from the law on their own. She’s surprisingly on board with this.
• Call-Back:
  • After Kara (as Charlie) tries to rally the group together after scoring a practice goal, she mentions that she was able to do so despite playing "the most underpowered character [she's] ever played"... prompting Jon to ask Joz if this means a child is less competent than a little monkey. (Kara clarifies that yes, that’s the case.)
  • Although the connection isn't acknowledged, Jon once again is told he's "the worst [X]" due to not knowing what he's doing.
• Character Exaggeration: It doesn't take long for the other rerollers to start playing up Gordon's alcoholism.
• Chekhov's Skill: Subverted. Carolyn Faye Kramer spends a long time figuring out how she could use her character’s fishing skills in a fight, before electing to just punch her opponent.
• Cliffhanger: The campaign ends with most of the team on the run from the law, with some of them planning to hide out in the Woods at a campsite, and another group hitching a ride on a train to Canada.
• Closest Thing We Got: After realizing that the team is low on players, the kids decide to scour other ventures, with figure skaters, roller skaters, football players and even lazer tag players serving as potential recruits.
• Comically Small Bribe: When Gordon shows up to coach the kids, the others discuss potentially demanding that he pay them $5 per game.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: invoked When Andy is mentioning the characters he's playing, he mentions how Connie Moreau eventually becomes the state senator of Minnesota by D3: The Mighty Ducks... whereupon Kara (having looked it up herself) informs him that he meant The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. Andy's excuse is that he got the info from the Disney wiki, and it didn't specify things.
• Crazy Enough to Work: As Peter and Charlie brawl, Guy suggests to Connie that they break it up by making out. Connie agrees without much hesitation, and it does manage to make Charlie stop. Peter doesn't, though.
• Crusty Caretaker: Downplayed with Nick Fish the janitor, who is just kind of depressed about his divorce and annoyed by Terry’s pestering questions.
• Cutting the Knot: Attempted: The second Jon realizes they're starting with Gordon driving drunk, he tries in vain to get out of getting arrested.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Jesse and Peter hatch a plan to incapacitate their opponents by putting laxatives in their Gatorade, which they manage to get most of the team in on in the process.
• Didn't Think This Through: At one point during practice, Lester decides to put his fist in his mouth. This winds up not only derailing practice as he needs help getting it out^note with the methods proposed including having Guy yank on his arm, making Lester salivate by making him think of food, and covering his mouth in peanut butter, but it also winds up derailing the episode.
  Paulo: What movie are we doing again, I forgot...
• The Dividual:
  • The five cheerleaders. They all turn out to be named Lynda, just to drive the point home. They do get some Divergent Character Evolution later, however.
  • Tammy and Tommy start becoming this when Kara gets to play them, not helped by them sharing a character sheet.^note It also unintentionally implies that they’re both female, a detail Kara appreciates.
• The Drag-Along: Tammy’s younger brother Tommy, who is signed up to the team along with his sister simply because she promised her mother to look after him.
• Dramatic Irony: Because Jon kept trying to make the campaign a legal drama due to his attempts at having Bombay get out of his community service, a Crit Success in Law in Part 4 practically gift wraps a sure fire opportunity for him in the form of ratting out the Irregulars' plan to poison the Cardinals.
• Entertainingly Wrong: As he’s getting his information from the cops swarming his house, Charlie starts to think that maybe his teammates have tried causing far more damage than they actually have.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: Gordon Bombay already knows — and hates — the district attorney assigned to his case, which doesn’t exactly help his chances of getting a not guilty verdict.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Zig-Zagged to the ninth circle of Hell and back when Lester and Charlie try to impress skating master Donnie Magnussen. They — well, mostly Lester — have more success impressing the local cheerleaders, and get Donnie to try out hockey largely by telling him that said cheerleaders will show up to the training as well.
• Flat Character: Paulo Quiros considers Jesse Hall to be this, and vows to play him as such.
• Foreshadowing:
  • As the rest of the team plans to slip the Cardinals laxatives, Kara calls to attention the fact that Jon was looking depressed as this was happening, and points out that this plan has become the closest they have come to, as Jon tried at the start, to cheat their way out of playing the movie... as this plan is going to land the Irregulars in juvie. Carolyn and Lisa then point out this would result in a "tense, legal drama"...
    Jon: Point of order, Joz? I have a question about my community service requirements?
  • During the wrap up for Part 3, Jon gets offended that Kara put him on the list of people she's upset with due to the Irregular's poisoning plan^note namely, everyone that isn't herself, pointing out that he hadn't done anything in the episode.
• Frame-Up:
  • Bombay decides to call the cops to inform them about the team’s plan to spike the Gatorade, but deliberately over plays the severity of how they intend to do so. The police take this to mean that the kids are making dangerous biological weapons, and send SWAT teams after them.
  • Bombay then decides to plant rat poison in Charlie's house, trying to implicate the biggest opponent of the poisoning plot into it, but he winds up backing out after Charlie’s mom comes on too strong towards him.
  • After being arrested, Lester suggests blaming the whole thing on the Russians.
• God Guise: After being excluded from the pill heist scene at Aunt Melinda’s house, Kara Strait decides to play a voice in Lester’s head telling him to do stuff while claiming to be God.
• Great Escape: The eight hockey players who get captured by the cops ironically enough manage to escape by using their team spirit to form a literal wall and kick the door open.
• Green-Eyed Monster: After seeing Jesse flirting with Connie, Guy decides to "headbutt him in the nose", causing the third brawl of the first episode of the campaign.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Variation: Jon admits to having actually played hockey for ten years as a kid, only to not remember anything about the sport. Alleviated when he acquired a teaching manual for Part 3.
• Hidden Depths: Turns out Nick Fish has a second job where he makes jewelry.
• Human Snowball: Charlie and Peter form one while brawling in the snow.
• Hypocritical Humor: After Jon calls out Joz for assuming Gordon literally went after the cops "guns a-blazing", he brings up the "disarming the Secret Service agent" incident... prompting Kara to bluntly shut that down, pointing out Gordon calling the cops on the Irregulars blows that out of the water.
• I Choose to Stay: Connie is the the only player to accept their arrest and let justice run its course.
• Innocently Insensitive: Kara Strait points out that the kids — and likely also the writers — fell victim to this trope. The insult "cake eater" is simply used to mean an Upper-Class Twit in the film, but it can and has also been used as a homophobic slur in Real Life.
• Insane Troll Logic: Due to being outraged that they're rerolling Gordon's arrest, Jon demands that he be allowed to roll so that he isn't driving drunk. And when Kara admits she thought he was going to demand rerolling the flashback^note where Gordon failed a penalty shot when he was 10, Jon briefly tries to also argue for that.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even though Jon succeeds a fasttalk roll to try and talk his way out of a speeding ticket, the cop who pulled him over finds out he has several moving violations, and also notices the alcohol on his breath, meaning Jon's attempts to circumvent the plot of the film die at his feet (at that moment)...
• I Thought It Meant:
  • "When they said 'Don't do drugs,' Little Joz thought that meant, like, 'Don't take Tylenol'."
  • After Mason notes he has Fast Talk, he jokes that it means he talks so fast, he can't be understood.
  • Connor Moreau takes Guy’s Your Mom dig seriously and comes to believe that he actually is sleeping with the coach’s mother.
  • After being told that the Hawks are real killers on the rink, Lisa rolls to see if Peter starts thinking that they’re actual murderers.
  • When Lester accidentally causes a bunch of things to fall out of Aunt Melinda's medicine cabinet while trying to grab her "relaxatives", Jesse brushes off the noise as the result of Lester having an "episode". When Aunt Melinda asks if this means he's having a seizure, Jesse awkwardly denies that Lester is seizing anything from the bathroom.
• Kick the Dog: After Charlie inadvertently makes Coach Bombay aware of the Irregulars' plan of poisoning the Cardinals, and after Jon gets a Crit Success on his Law roll, Bombay decides to squeal to the Cardinals' coach.
• Kid A Nova: Lester manages to charm five girl skaters at the roller rink. The fake vampire teeth he puts on for the occasion actually end up helping, as the girls find the resulting lisp cute.
• Lame Pun Reaction: While Peter and Charlie are still fighting, Lester (while still trying to get the snowman to stop the fight) comments that it should be more around for Charlie, and not be so "cold" around him. Charlie proceeds to tackle him in response, but Lester thinks he's hugging him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In-directly: When Jon bitches one last time that he's being Railroaded despite making numerous successful rolls to avoid the plot, Lisa cracks that Jon is parroting the thoughts of his players during the Aliens campaign.
• Literal-Minded: One of the Lyndas starts eating snow from the ground, knowing that it’s been used as slang for “cocaine.”
• Loophole Abuse:
  • When the kids attempt to unionize, Jon wonders if he can get out of coaching them if they all quit.
  • Subverted when the team tries to exploit the "fact" that there’s no rule saying that you can’t have two goalies on the ice. There quite blatantly is!
  • In a more dramatic sense, upon learning of the Irregulars' plan to poison the Cardinals, Coach Bombay concludes that if the team gets arrested for this, he's off the hook for his community service.
  • Discussed: When Gordon shows up to Charlie's house, Courtney, who is playing Charlie's mom for this scene, asks if she should open the door.
    Andy: It's your house, you don't have to.
• Love Triangle: Guy is blatantly smitten with Connie, calling her his girlfriend and kissing her. Meanwhile, Connie is also being flirted with by Jesse, with the excuse that Guy is supposedly dating Gordon’s mom.
• Meaningful Name: The Rerollers note that Gordon Bombay’s name is that of two different types of gin, and wonder whether this was intentional.
• Missed The Train: Out of the ”Canada group”, Guy is the only one who doesn’t manage to jump aboard the speeding train.
• Mistaken Identity: Jesse really comes to believe that Hans is Santa Claus. Charlie is quite doubtful, but gets second thoughts after seeing just how charitable and kind the man is. Becomes a Brick Joke later when Charlie calls Hans and desperately asks for him to pick him up with his sleigh or a reindeer. Hans’s pick-up truck ends up being sufficient.
• Nay-Theist: Downplayed with Charlie, who doesn't dislike God, but acknowledges that they're not close or seem to pay much attention to one another.
• Never My Fault: Gordon's plan in Part 5 is to bail the kids out of jail, shocked that they were arrested so aggressively... even though he made the call in the previous part.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Charlie starting a fight on the ice ends up calling off the game against the Jets, which leads to his mother chewing him out over it. His teammates however treat this like a potential road to victory.
• Noodle Incident: In The Stinger of the final part, Kara claims that she had a dream where Jafar was explicitly shown to have a bigger dick than Aladdin (which is not relevant to whether or not he is a sub.) General Zod was also there, but Kara doesn’t have enough time to elaborate.
• Not What It Looks Like: When Gordon shows up for practice the first time, the kids are convinced (due to him having way too nice of a car and clothes for their part of the town) he's either an undercover cop or a drug dealer.
• Off the Rails: It takes about three episodes for the majority of the players to abandon the idea of actually playing hockey, and instead pivot towards outright poisoning the other team. Part 4 only makes things worse when Jon decides to also abandon said idea, in lieu of trying to end Gordon's community service early by narcing to the cops.
• One Last Job: Referenced when Hans convinces Gordon to keep coaching his team for at least this one tournament.
• The Other Darrin: invoked
  • Andy Hoover was unavailable^note due to being on the Moon, according to Kara for the first half of Part 3, so his characters were temporarily handed over to Mason Conrad and Kara Strait.
  • For Part 4, Andy returns the favor by taking over the role of Danny from the absent Carolyn.
  • Kara winds up taking over Lester in Part 5 due to Mason being unavailable.
• Out of Focus: Due to the hockey game in Part 3 getting called off early on due to a brawl, Coach Bombay winds up being rendered useless for the rest of the episode. Jon winds up lampshading this when he decides to look up the history of Gatorade towards the end.
• Parental Substitute: Charlie is in desperate search of one, at various points considering Coach Bombay, store owner Hans Günther, and a snowman as potential candidates. By the end of the campaign, Hans seems to be on his way to becoming a father figure for him.
• Parent with New Paramour: Charlie's mother immediately starts flirting with Coach Bombay when he arrives at her house.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Right at the start, none the less: Charlie and Peter wind up getting into a brawl after Peter gives his snowman a jacket. Lester attempts to break up the fight by asking the snowman.
• Pokémon Speak: Terry seems unable to say anything besides “Hi, I’m Terry.”
• Politically Incorrect Villain: A guy from the Opposing Sports Team immediately insults Connie, telling her that “Girls don’t play hockey!”
• Rage Breaking Point / Sanity Slippage:
  • Towards the end of Part 3. After the rest of the team considers letting Charlie poison himself, Kara gets — by her own estimate — the angriest she’s gotten on the show since Home Alone. That she didn’t sleep at all the previous night probably doesn’t help.
  • This would then be topped in Part 4, when Jon decides to throw the entire team under the bus in order to cut his community service short. It only gets worse when Bombay attempts to plant rat poison at Charlie’s house, as she claims she had gotten so enraged, she couldn’t see colors.
• A Rare Sentence:
  • "Stop appealing to Snow Father!"
  • "Either the coach or God need to wrangle this thing!"
  • "I think Mighty Ducks is sort-of like a big metaphor for The Gulf War."
• The Real Remington Steele: As the fake vampire teeth give Lester a lisp which make it impossible for him to pronounce his own name, he claims to be Charlie... within earshot of the real Charlie. Needless to say, the truth comes out fairly quickly.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Charlie thoroughly calls out the rest of the team after learning that they're planning to poison their opponents.
  • Gordon gives one to the police departement after their rough handling of the child suspects. Given that it involves him wanting said cops executed, the Rerollers point out that this probably just ended up extending his community service.
• Rooting for the Empire: invoked Downplayed: While Kara is pissed about it, the rest of the players encourage Jon’s decision to fuck over the team, if only to see what happens.
• Run for the Border: Some of the remaining team members who have yet to be arrested hatch a plan to board a train and flee to Canada.
• Running Gag:
  • Charlie really wants Gordon to be his new dad.
  • Paulo repeatedly failing his rolls for the Halls.
    Paulo: Both of my characters fail, like they have failed everything.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Shortform: After Jon points out that Kara indirectly said Charlie is less competent than Abu, the others in the video call point out that she proceeded to get up from her desk and fall onto a nearby couch.
    Lisa: (breathless) She left! She's on the couch!
    Paulo: We lost Kara.
  • While Gordon was planning on framing Charlie by planting rat poison at his house before the game, he winds up abandoning it altogether when Charlie's mom comes on way too strong when he stops over to visit Charlie.
  • In-Universe, Tara and Tommy ditch the rest of the team and just run home after escaping from the police van.
• Shout-Out: After Charlie makes a dad out of snow, he argues that with how much he's improving, the next one will come to life.
• Side Bet: The only contribution Jesse has in regards to the two fights Charlie gets into during practice is taking bets on who wins.
• Skyward Scream: Charlie's "JESSE!" is described as such, complete with fancy camera moves.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: While doing her God Guise schtick, Kara threatened Lester with a plague of locusts^note due to the fact that he misheard her saying "blade" as "plague", so she pivoted, causing Carolyn to conclude that this means Lester was Jewish (due to the threat having ties to Passover), something that mildly confuses Kara. As such, when Kara starts it up again a short while later, when Lester refers to her as "Jewish God", she just rolls with it.
  Kara: (spookily) Once you are no longer useful, you are nothing to them...
  Lester: Jewish God?
  Kara: ... Sure. I could- whatever works for you, Lester.
• Take That!: While Gordon tries to argue his way out of his speeding ticket at the courthouse, Jon casually drops an "ACAB" during his defense. The other rerollers demand he keep it in.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The kids have a rather hard time getting along, and constantly squabble with both each other and their coach.
• Toilet Humor: The “poop eggs”, one of which Greg tries to use as a projectile weapon. As a Call-Back, Kara points out that Carolyn seems to gain a perchant for such jokes when Joz is the DM, and when she’s joined by Carolyn at the gaming table.
• Unfortunate Names: In-Universe. The Rerollers show Tammy and Timmy some sympathy after declaring their last name to be “Tingles.”
• Wham Episode: Part 4: Lester (overcome with guilt) tells Charlie the plan to poison the Cardinals, which causes Charlie to go off on the team for trying to cheat... which has the side effect of having Bombay learn of the plan, causing him to rat the team out in order to get out of community service. As a result, by the end of the episode, roughly half of the team is arrested, while the other is on the run.
• Wham Line:
  • In Part 4, after Charlie outs the Irregular's plan of poisoning the Cardinals at the next game, and after Jon gets confirmation from Joz that Coach Bombay heard this plan, he decides to roll Law... but proceeds to ask something that drastically shifts the course of the campaign:
    Jon: If the team gets disqualified, d-do-does my community service still count?
    • And sure enough, he does roll Law... and it's a Crit Success.
      Joz: If your team goes to jail, you are done with your responsibility. You fulfilled it.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: In-Universe, Mason proposes that the film is an metaphor for The Gulf War, which Kara calls him out on.
• Who Names Their Kid ”Coach”: Peter questions this, believing Bombay’s first name to really be ”Coach”.
• With Friends Like These...: It was already bad enough for Kara that the rest of the Irregulars were planning on poisoning the other team and not informing Charlie, but when they decide that the risk of Charlie also getting poisoned in the process isn't a concern to them, she practically almost has a stroke.
• Worth It:
  • Kara winds up forgetting what instigated Charlie and Peter's fight in Part 1, prompting Lisa to remind her that it was because of Peter putting a leather jacket on a snowman. Kara then immediately agrees with Charlie's actions.
  • Jon is completely satisfied with the consequences of having Gordon throw the team under the bus, as it presents the opportunity of turning the campaign^note or rather, the sequel campaign, as this one ends with most of the team on the run into a legal drama.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When it seems like Lester failed to acquire the pills from Aunt Melinda's bathroom^note in reality, Mason's failed roll means Lester winds up accidentally causing a bunch of shit to fall out of the medicine cabinet upon opening it, Jon starts flipping out over how they went through the entire recording session just for the plan to fail, and that he could've just gone and gotten coffee.
• Your Mom: When Gordon asks Guy what's his position on the team, Guy responds that he "does" Gordon's mom. The insult completely flies over Gordon's head, as his mom is in an old age home, and he makes Guy assistant coach.