Principal Mazur is supporting character in Disneytoon Studios' 1995 animated film A Goofy Movie.
Personality
Principal Mazur is, as far as the students are concerned, a giant stick in the mud, a total egghead, and a true epitome of "uncool". His mind and perception of reality are all completely confined to school and only school. He favors exclusively academics, discipline, and work, and he even believes that summer holidays should be spent entirely on more studying.
Everything others consider "fun", he considers trouble at best, and criminal at worst. He is horrendously detached from popular culture of modern society that he simply can't tell the difference between a pop singer/musician and a gang member of a criminalistic group. This flawed perception of the real world motivated his antagonistic role in adding false danger and unneeded urgency to Max's recent stunt, setting in motion the conflict between the boy and his father.
Taking Mazur’s mentality into account, it’s likely he was born into a generation where academic values and respect for authority were considered to be all the range and anything beyond that is controversial.
Role in the film
As his name suggests, Mazur serves as the principal of Max's school, Spoonerville High. He makes his first appearance during the song sequence, After Today. Max bumps into him on accident, and Mazur threatens him with suspension. In this appearance, it is shown that he wears a toupée.
Later, during the school assembly, the student body president, Stacey, is given a speech to the students and they were shown to be excited, but they grow silent as Mazur comes on stage to give his speech. He begins giving a speech on ways to spend summer vacation, most of which include school work. The boring speech causes most of the school to fall asleep. As he is speaking, a trapdoor, opened by Bobby, causes Mazur to disappear. While he is gone, Max, along with Bobby and P.J., puts on a concert while dressed as the rock star Powerline. However, Mazur returns and reveals Max's identity to the school.
The three boys are sent to Mazur's office. P.J. meets with him first, and though the punishment is not stated, P.J.'s expression implies that it is bad, though he was more concerned about what his dad would do to him when he found out about it. Mazur then calls in Bobby, who brought in his TV and was quite calm. Meanwhile, Roxanne stops to talk with Max, and Max successfully asks her out on a date. Her acceptance excites Max so much, that he starts dancing with Principal Mazur's secretary. At that moment, Mazur comes out of his office and assuming the worst, orders his secretary to contact Goofy. Mazur then has a conversation with Goofy, claiming that Max needs to be controlled or he would end up in the electric chair. The principal over-exaggerates the matter more to sound far worse than it really was, such as implying that Max was a gang member that sent the entire school to a riotous frenzy, but Goofy is naively convinced. This incited Goofy to take Max on a road trip so that they can bond. After this, Mazur is never seen again for the rest of the film. He was later mentioned by Goofy to Max after they fall into the river.
Trivia
- He was named after Jymn Magon's real-life high school principal.
- If anyone looks to the left in his office, there is a display case that is shown to be decorated with a wide variety of wooden paddles used for punishment. This could imply that he is a believer in corporal punishment within schools or even that he's used them himself on misbehaving students in the past.
- Early storyboard art of the film by Andy Gaskill revealed that he was originally conceived as a human before settling on his final design as an anthropomorphic dog-like character as seen in the final film.
- When Mazur claims that Max would end up in the electric chair if Goofy doesn't control him, the irises in his eyes changes color to red.
- His voice actor, Wallace Shawn, would later voice Rex from the Toy Story franchise, Gilbert Huph from The Incredibles, and another school principal named Principal Fetchit from Chicken Little.
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