“Tennis Racquet”

This movie comes across differently when you’ve seen the Bisexual Tennis Movie. Which is, you know, true of most tennis things, but it’s weird how the two Goofy tennis players even feel a bit like the men in the Bisexual Tennis Movie. Fortunately, it remains a Goofy cartoon, by which I mean “short,” so there’s not that much time to build up images in your head that trust me you do not want there. But that doesn’t mean that a Goofy Zendaya isn’t something I feel the need to inflict on all of you as well.

A Goofy sets up an announcer’s booth; it turns out the flower show next door is much more popular. The small crowd is packed in very close to one another in the stadium that is considerably larger than it needs to be. (They could even move down and be closer to the court, if they wanted.) Two players whack a ball back and forth for seven minutes full of sight gags. Because, you know, it’s a cartoon where Goofy is playing tennis against himself.

The best part, however, is the Goofy groundskeeper. He is almost completely oblivious of the action and keeps working throughout the match. We initially see him cutting down waist-high grass with an honest-to-Gods scythe, and things continue from there unto the planting of an actual tree. Where did he get it? Why did he get it? Doesn’t matter. Delightfully, there’s even a moment where the players helpfully lift the net to let him pass underneath while not even pausing their game.

As we’ve repeatedly established, I love Goofy sports cartoons even more than I love sports—a low bar indeed. This isn’t the best of them, but it’s got some fun moments, at least. It’s dated, of course; the scene where one of the players takes his racquet—a spelling we must use, given the cartoon title—out of its wrappings wasn’t even what that looked like when I was a child [mumble mumble] years ago. And a tennis crowd has a lot more women in it now, though I suspect that was true even then and it looked the way it did because, you know, Goofy.

I could’ve written this without rewatching the cartoon. I’m glad I didn’t, and not just because of the opportunity to drop Bisexual Tennis Movie references at all of you. But also, you know, it’s fun. Mostly just a collection of sight gags strung together on a theoretically connected theme, but they’re at least good sight gags. And whoever came up with the groundskeeper was inspired. Sure, I prefer Warners cartoons for the most part. But some of the Disney ones remained gems.