Joe McGee is an old ace pilot and flight instructor who appears in the episode "The Old Man and the Sea Duck".
History[]
During a situation in which Baloo is flying alone in the Sea Duck, McGee helps Baloo to land at his airfield, Joe's Flying School because Baloo cannot remember how to fly due to amnesia he had suffered from a blow to the head during a previous flight. Baloo discovers that McGee is an old ace pilot from the Legion of Valor, and sees several photos of him in his youth, including one where he is with an unnamed woman and another where he is seen with several other pilots. McGee informs Baloo that the valley in which his airfield is situated can only be left by flying through a dangerous tunnel.
McGee then helps Baloo regain his memories of flying by teaching him how to fly again and about the true meaning of flying (that is, having fun and feeling free). When Baloo regains his memories, McGee suggests that he fly home alone but Baloo is too scared to fly solo due to a phobia of flying alone that he has developed since his two recent flight emergencies in the Sea Duck. When Baloo fakes that he is sick in order to avoid flying, McGee pretends to fall off a ladder and break his leg. Fearing that his friend is hurt, Baloo does what McGee asks him to and flies to the nearest town to get Doctor Cooper, but when he returns he finds that McGee is gone and the airfield and flight school look abandoned.
The doctor explains that McGee walked with a cane because he broke his leg while rescuing the crew of a burning airplane (the injury forced him to permanently quit flying), and afterwards he built the flight school. According to the doctor, people say that Magee "trained the best" and "was the best". The doctor then tells Baloo that Magee died twenty years earlier. After hearing this, Baloo realizes that he was helped by McGee's spirit, whom he refers to as a "guardian angel".
Appearance[]
He wears a blue scarf, dark-blue pants, a brown-jacket, pilot goggles and hat and light-brown gloves.
Trivia[]
- Joe's name is an homage to the 1943 film A Guy Named Joe; the plot of "The Old Man and the Sea Duck" closely resembles the plot of A Guy Named Joe and its 1989 remake Always, about the spirit of a recently-deceased pilot who teaches a younger, still-alive pilot how to fly. Interestingly, there is no character named Joe in the original film, despite its title.
- Likewise, Joe's injury appears to be a tribute to Always; the "ghost" character of A Guy Named Joe, played by Spencer Tracy, is a combat aviator during World War II, while the character of Always, played by Richard Dreyfuss, is an aerial firefighter.
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