Although the Mighty Ducks animated series, that debuted on this day in 1996, was far from realistic, Disney’s original 1992 live-action feature film The Mighty Ducks was so realistic and scored so big with audiences, it spawned a real hockey team. When it was first announced that Disney would form a real National Hockey League Mighty Ducks team, then Disney Chairman Michael Eisner said, “We made a movie called The Mighty Ducks. It did $50 million box office. That was our market research.” The original film starred Emilio Estevez, who brings a clumsy team of Pee Wee hockey players to victory, and two years later D2: The Mighty Ducks skated into theaters. In 1996, not only did a third sequel arrive, but the animated version of Mighty Ducks premiered on ABC, telling tales of duck-shaped extra-dimensional aliens from the planet Puckworld.
