Lester's Possum Park

Lester's Possum Park is an opossum-themed roadside attraction featured in A Goofy Movie, as the first obstacle of the Goofs' road trip.
==Description==
Lester's Possum Park is located on the side of a road in a swampy part of a woodland area, accessed via a wooden bridge that crosses a river separating the park from the highway. Parking is free, according to a lyric in the park's theme song.
The theme park is old and rundown, having seemingly been in operation for years (based on Goofy's claims of having visited the park in his youth) with little to no update to its degree of maintenance and upkeep. It does not seem to be a very popular place, as a little girl of toddler age with missing teeth was initially afraid to enter the park, but it nevertheless has carried on over the years, attracting a specific crowd of country-folk that find the park's certain kind of charm to their liking.
The park's entryway, resembling the gaping maw of a giant opossum, leads to the main area where can be found such attractions as the Possum Posse Jamboree, the Possum Souvenirs stand (where guests can purchase caps that resemble road-killed opossums), a photo booth (where guests can have their picture taken with two real opossums), and a two-man band consisting of a fiddle player and a washboard player. The park's mascot is Lester the Possum, whose catchphrase is: "Who's your favorite possum?!" and can be found in the main area as a costumed character for meet-and-greets with the park's guests.
An animatronic version of Lester is also the leader of the Possum Posse Jamboree, a musical show hosted by the Possum Park Emcee, with songs performed by the titular Possum Posse: Lester on the banjo, Beuford on the string bass, Beulah on the fiddle, and Mordachai on the jug. Together, they are an animatronic band made out of wooden planks, nails, metal cans, springs, and other objects. The jamboree itself appears to be a very old attraction that, based on the Emcee's demeanor, has been run for many years and is frequently prone to breaking down mid-performance.
There are also other attractions which are not explored in the movie. One such attraction is mentioned in the park's theme song as Beulah's Farm of Fiddles. In a Danish storybook adaptation of A Goofy Movie, another unseen attraction is mentioned by Goofy as The Talking Rutabega.Disney's Fedtmule og Søn, Page 53Original text: "Gosh!" sagde Fedtmule. "Jamen... vi har jo ikke engang set Den talende Kålroe!"English translation: "Gosh!" said Goofy. "But... we haven't even seen The Talking Rutabaga!"
==Appearances==
===A Goofy Movie===
While driving along the road in the late afternoon of the first day of their road trip, Goofy and his son Max found themselves approaching the roadside path that leads to the parking lot for Lester's Possum Park. As they pulled in, Goofy exclaimed "Gawrsh! It's even better than I remembered," implying that he had been there once before during his childhood. Meanwhile, Max showed no interest in visiting after seeing a toddler girl being forced by her mother to enter the park, opting to wait in the car while his father ventured out. To his chagrin, his father dragged him along into the park.
Once inside, Goofy brought Max to see the Possum Posse Jamboree, sitting themselves down in the front row, to Max's utter shame. After the show, while Goofy went to buy souvenir opossum caps, Max was visited by Lester the Possum himself, who tried to cheer up the mopey teenager with a great big hug before being slapped across the face by an irate Max. Lester then waddled off to be carried away by several hyperactive children.
When Goofy returned to his son, he plopped an opossum hat on Max's head against the boy's wishes, and offered to have their picture taken at the photo booth. When Max declined, Goofy had his picture taken by himself (even hanging upside-down from the booth's fake tree just like the opossums, much to Max's embarrassment and everyone else's amusement with a pre-teen boy calling Goofy a dork), but accidentally knocked one of the booth's live opossums into the air when the booth's fake tree branch broke off, right after the picture was taken. Landing on Max, the opossum crawled inside his clothes and caused Max to jump around in a panic. Goofy and everyone else mistook this for a dance and started laughing and playing music, which prompted Goofy to grab his son after he took the opossum out from his pants and bring him into a jig that made the father and son into the laughing stock of the park, to the amusement of the other guests. 
After Goofy finished the dance, the pre-teen boy humorously calls Goofy a dork again, including calling Max "Dork, Junior" as well which made the latter even more embarrassed. Max was outraged, threw his hat on the ground in disgust, and stormed out of the park in a huff. Goofy followed after him and found him across the bridge out by the road trying to hitchhike, just as an evening rainstorm began. After some harsh words, Max convinced his father to let them leave the park. Goofy tried to give Max back the opossum hat he threw away claiming he dropped it, but that only made Max even more furious, with him expressing his utter distaste for both the park and their vacation as he threw the hat out of the car window out of frustration. Max angrily tells to call him when the trip's over, making Goofy a little upset while pulling out of the park. 
The following night, when Max and Goofy found themselves having to sleep in their car because of a predicament involving the legendary Bigfoot, Max found a postcard for Lester's Possum Park inside his father's bag, which read "Come See... Lester's Possum Park & Emporium" on its artwork image featuring the animatronic Lester.
===Darkwing Duck: The Definitively Dangerous Edition===
In Part 2 of "F.O.W.L. Disposition", Gosalyn Mallard and Honker Muddlefoot (in their superhero guises of the Quiverwing Quack and the Arrow Kid, respectively) headed to the mountain headquarters of F.O.W.L. (the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny) to search for Gosalyn's father, Darkwing Duck. When Honker asked how Gosalyn knew that F.O.W.L.'s secret base is inside a nearby cave, she answered, "Dad accidentally drove us here one time on the way to Lester's Possum Park!"
Gosalyn further mentioned that, during that same accidental visit, their friend and companion Launchpad McQuack had mistaken F.O.W.L.'s guard station for a snack bar, noting that said station "did have pretty good nachos..." This would suggest that the real Lester's Possum Park may also serve nachos at its own snack bar.
===DuckTales (2017)===
Lester's Possum Park was glimpsed in "Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake!" in a smartphone picture of Mark Beaks and B.O.Y.D. seemingly visiting the park. However, this picture turned out to be a part of a con in which Beaks tried to pass off the android B.O.Y.D. as his son. Thus, it is not certain if he and B.O.Y.D. actually did visit the park for real or if the contents of the picture were just as fake as Beaks' parentage of B.O.Y.D.
==Trivia==
*The names of Beuford, Beulah, and Mordachai are spelled as such in subtitles for the film's 2000 DVD and 2019 Blu-ray, as well as the Closed Captions for all digital releases of the movie (Amazon Video, Disney+, etc.). However, in the film's screenplay, the names of Beuford and Mordachai are instead spelled as "Beauford" and "Mordicai".A Goofy Movie screenplay presented by Scriptdude
*The park's theme song also refers to yet another of the park's characters, although one who is not a member of the Possum Posse. Said character's name is Lulu, whose "lizard gizzard pie" is stated in the song (by Lester) to be "a work of art".
*In the original version of "F.O.W.L. Disposition" published by Boom! Studios, it was not Lester's Possum Park but instead a water park named Splashtown USA that Gosalyn says her dad was driving her to when they accidentally stumbled onto F.O.W.L.'s secret base. When the scene was rewritten for Darkwing Duck: The Definitively Dangerous Edition, Splashtown USA was changed to Lester's Possum Park as a way of tying A Goofy Movie (and by extension, Goof Troop) together with Darkwing Duck. The incident with Launchpad, the guard station, and the nachos was also added into the new version, having not been in the original.
*The possum-shaped structure that serves as the entrance to the park may be inspired by the Blue Whale of Catoosa. It is a waterfront structure, just east of the American town of Catoosa, Oklahoma, and it has become one of the most recognizable roadside attractions on old Route 66. Like the possum-shaped structure in the film, tourists can enter the Blue Whale of Catoosa through its mouth.
==References==
Category:A Goofy Movie locations
Category:Mickey Mouse universe locations
Category:Locations
Category:Theme Parks
Category:DuckTales locations
Category:Darkwing Duck locations