Cool Runnings (Exclusive Series) (Disney Plus)

Initial release date: October 1, 1993

Studio: Walt Disney Pictures

Tagline: Inspired by the true story of the first Jamaican Olympic bobsled team.

One dream. Four Jamaicans. Twenty below zero.

Plot: Four Jamaican bobsledders dream of competing in the Winter Olympics, despite never having seen snow. With the help of a disgraced former champion desperate to redeem himself, the Jamaicans set out to become worthy of Olympic selection, and go all out for glory.

Cast

Leon (The Glorias) - Derice Bannock

Doug E. Doug - Sanka Coffie

Rawle D. Lewis - Junior Bevil

Maik Yoba - Yul Brenner

John Candy (Canadian Bacon; Wagons East; Rookie of the Year) - Irv

Raymond J. Barry (Purge: Election Year) - Kurt Hemphill

Peter Outerbridge - Josef Grool

Paul Coeur - Roger

Bertina Macauley - Joy Bannock

‘Cool Runnings’ is definitely a modern Disney classic that a lot of people have seen and enjoyed over the years.

The 1993 Disney release has a bit of everything: emotion, enduring characters and a great amount of laughs. ‘Cool Runnings’ is also very inspirational and one of the best under-dog movies out there!!

And even though the movie isn’t entirely factual, it has a lot of feel-good moments and is sadly one of the late actor John Candy’s final big screen appearances.

So, if you and/or the family are in the mood for an inspirational, great feel-good film, then go onto Disney Plus and check out this incredible feature.

FYI -- ‘Cool Runnings’ is 28 years old!! Just two years shy of THREE decades… doesn’t seem like it!!

Here are some interesting tidbits about Disney’s ‘Cool Runnings’:

• At the time, it was the highest grossing live action film under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.

• Contrary to the story in the movie, the Jamaican team was met with open arms by the international bobsledding teams. One of the other teams even went so far as to lend the Jamaican team a back-up sled so they could qualify.

• In the sport of bobsledding, adding weight to the sled is perfectly legal. In fact, sometimes, it’s a safety measure. Both two and four men sleds have minimum and maximum weights. The weight of the sled is circulated as the total weight of the sled and its crew. If the fully loaded sled weighs less than the minimum, it’s perfectly legal to add weight to make up the difference.

• This was the final John Candy movie to be released before he died of a heart attack.

• Actual TV sports footage from ABC network covering the 1988 Winter Olympics was utilized for the film and edited into the movie.

• Sanka Coffie is a pushcart driver. In real life, the local pushcart derby inspired George Fitch and William Maloney, American businessmen living in Jamaica, to develop the bobsled team.

• The Jamaican bobsledder characters in the movie were all fictional characterizations and weren’t based on their real-life counterparts. John Candy’s Irv Blitzer coach character is also fictional.

• The character name of Yul Brenner was a parody of the name of the legendary movie star Yul Brynner.

• The crash scene at the end of the movie, except for the close up shots, was the real footage of the actual Jamaican bobsled team crash taken from the 1988 Winter Olympic Games.

• ‘Cool Runnings’ debuted at No. 3. The film had total domestic earnings of $68.9 million in the US and Canada, and $86 million internationally, for a total of $154 million worldwide.