Kenan Thompson Reveals Why He Didn’t Appear in ‘The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers’ (Exclusive)

Kenan Thompson is known for his work on Saturday Night Live and has appeared in several TV shows and movies over the years. But his very first movie is D2: The Mighty Ducks where he played Russ Tyler, a street hockey player Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) recruits for his USA Hockey team. The Mighty Ducks franchise has made a return with the Disney+ series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers and Thompson was one of the few cast alums who didn’t appear in the first season. PopCulture.com recently caught up with Thompson who explained why he wasn’t in the series that stars Estevez. 

“I was supposed to try to get one in that first season, but scheduling didn’t work out,” Thompson told PopCulture. “But yeah, I mean, it’s great to see Emilio back on TV. I mean, I’m happy for my buddy, Steve Brill, who started this whole process with the Mighty Ducks, and I think that movie has raised several generations of current hockey players so it’s a really cool thing to be a part of, and yeah, hopefully I can get my cameo thing going schedule-wise for this next one coming up or the next one coming up. I hope it stays on for a long time.”

The first season of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers premiered in March with episodes airing each week until May. In the sixth episode cast members from The Mighty Ducks movies appeared, including Matt Doherty, Elden Henson, Garette Henson, Vincent A. LaRusso, Marguerite Moreau and Justin Wong. Thompson and Joshua Jackson, who appeared in all three films, were the two most notable cast members not seen in the episode. 

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers was renewed for a second season in August. As Thompson mentioned, he would love to appear in the series, but it could be challenging due to his work on SNL and his sitcom Kenan. Along with that, Thompson continues to do good work in the podcast world. “My podcast game is getting strong,” Thompson said. “We have a company going and me and my partner have been podcasting. We just recorded our 79th episode this morning, actually. So that’s exciting, and the further we go down the road of putting up other people’s podcasts and stuff like that as a company, it will just get that much more exciting. So that’s all good stuff.”