Fulton, Averman, Adam, Connie, Guy and Kenny Wu reunite with Gordon Bombay in Friday's episode.
Quack, quack, quack: The OG Mighty Ducks are back!
On Friday's episode of Disney+'s The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, members of the original Ducks squad reunite for the first time in years and only ET has the exclusive sneak peek at the heartwarming, wholesome moment when their former coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) comes face to face with his old team.
Original Mighty Ducks stars Elden Henson (aka Fulton), Matt Doherty (aka Averman), Vinny La Russo (aka Adam Banks), Marguerite Moreau (aka Connie), Garette Henson (aka Guy) and Justin Wong (aka Kenny Wu) are all grown up in the sweet clip, which features Gordon happily celebrating their reunion.
"Does anyone know where I can find District 5?" Gordon asks when he spots the crew. Before you know it, many hugs are exchanged and the group toasts to coming back together, before they end on their signature rallying cry.
How do the OG Ducks come into the picture? An unexpected encounter between Gordon and Fulton kickstarts everything as they reflect on their past mishaps as part of their Ducks history. A special gala honoring the Ducks teams of the past and present draws members of the squad back into town, but they're quickly disheartened when they learn just how much has changed with the Ducks team.
"The Mighty Ducks reunion was something we have been planning for a long time. From the minute we knew we were going to do 10 episodes, it was a question of figuring out how many of the old Ducks we could get back into the flock," executive producer Steven Brill tells ET. "I think had COVID not hit, we would've had different ways to have more Mighty Ducks characters coming in and out of the show throughout the 10 episodes we shot. With the restrictions of COVID, we were constrained to using a certain amount of Ducks in the course of one episode, which actually took a month to shoot."
"We did it in Vancouver, and the actors were able to make it up there, then they had to quarantine for two weeks, spend another week learning to skate. Then they were able to act for the final week, so it was very pressurized, but a lot of fun," he reveals.
Brill said it was particularly gratifying having the OG Ducks crew together one more time on set with Estevez.
"Having the actors come back for the episode, 'Spirit of the Ducks,' was a mind-blowing, emotional and incredible experience for me and for Emilio. We had kept in touch over the past 25 years, but we hadn't seen each other in upwards of five years and the idea that we would be able to recreate our characters and meet on the ice-skating rink and skate together and play together was amazing. It was just like old times," Brill recalls. "All the actors fell right back into their characters; it was so much fun and so sweet to see Emilio back with these kids who are now solidly in their 40s with kids of their own, whereas before, Emilio and I were the old guys on the set, and we were just 30 back then!"
A key cast member missing from the reunion is Joshua Jackson, who played Charlie in the Mighty Ducks movies. Brill danced around the question about the potential for a Jackson cameo on the Disney+ series back in February.
"We've talked to Josh over the years in developing this and he's part of the family and part of the group. Him and everyone else, when and where they show is an open and exciting question," Brill said at the time. "We're definitely reinventing from square one the storyline and creating a new mythology, but we're not ignoring the past or the people in the past so we've always been trying -- through the whole series -- to bring people literally, emotionally and suggestively back into the story."
New episodes of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers drop Fridays on Disney+. For more, watch below.
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