"Ghoul Friend" is one of the season 1 shorts of the new Mickey Mouse (2013) series created by Paul Rudish for the Disney Channel and Disney.com. It premiered in the US as the tenth short on October 4, 2013, during the Disney Channel's "Monstober" event and was put on Disney.com the following day. It was on the Australian Disney site over a month early.
After Mickey's car breaks down in a cemetery with no tools to repair it, Mickey is chased by a familiar-looking zombie. Can Mickey escape his pursuer and the cemetery?
Tropes:
- Body Horror: Zombie Goofy.
- Creepy Cemetery: This short mostly takes place in one.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Zombie Goofy sure is scary, but he's as helpful and good a friend as he was in life.
- Foreshadowing: Zombie Goofy tips his hat to Mickey when they first meet, hinting at his Dark Is Not Evil nature.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Our first look at Zombie Goofy.
- Misleading Package Size: Mickey pulls out a huge toolbox, inside of which is only a teeny, tiny wrench.
- Mood Whiplash: The setting darkens when Mickey's car breaks down. Before that and at the end, it was sunny and pleasant.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Zombie Goofy stands in one place until Mickey hides in a tree trunk, in which he's inexplicably there when Mickey checks. He also does it at the end of the short, being inside Mickey's car, which surprises Mickey, but since Zombie Goofy helped fix his car, he doesn't mind him hitching a ride.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Zombie Goofy doesn't want to hurt Mickey, he wants to help repair his car. Also despite his decaying flesh, he behaves more like your typical skeletons, in particular reassembling himself after he's broken into pieces.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: A squirrel does this when it sees Zombie Goofy. It runs away as you'd expect until it returns to pick up the nut and repeat its scream before leaving.
- Stock Scream: The Goofy Holler is heard when Zombie Goofy falls from the cliff. A variation combined with a neigh is heard when his head and feet are riding his body in crab position.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Initially averted. While Mickey runs screaming, Zombie Goofy just stands where he is for several cut scenes. The only motion is the flies buzzing around his rotting corpse.
- You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses: Mickey tells "You wouldn't hit a mouse with glasses!" to the zombie while making it look like he's wearing glasses. This is the only line of the short, in fact.
