“Hockey Homicide”

Here come Bertino and Ferguson out of the penalty box . . . and there go Bertino and Ferguson back into the penalty box.

Really, the choice of this short for today is amusing, because it’s warmer here in Western Washington than it’s been in weeks, though I am still under two blankets and a cat as I write, and I moved here for the weather. But it is definitely winter, unless you don’t consider it to start until the solstice. Almost all the trees are bare, a water bottle left outside our house last night is broken this morning because it froze, and every morning it’s a struggle to see if my seven-year-old remembered to bring a coat home from school the night before. So the fact that the collection of Disney cartoons that I watch on YouTube randomly gave me this one this afternoon is still mostly appropriate.

Two Goofys settle into the stands to watch a game of hockey, where it turns out that all the players have changed but it’s okay because so have the teams. We are then introduced to the referee, “Clean-Game” Kinney (Goofy), who cannot skate. Even before the opening whistle blows, team captains Ice Box Bertino (Goofy) and Fearless Ferguson (Goofy) are fighting and are promptly sent into the penalty box; they never emerge for more than about five seconds without being sent back in. Eventually, the players (all Goofy) hit the ref so hard that they get his entire stash of pucks, and anarchy breaks out.

Oh, I know that these shorts are another one of those “this exists because of a labor dispute” situations. Because that’s why Pinto Colvig left the studio, and these shorts exist because Pinto Colvig had left the studio and no one else could voice him right. I still love them. All of the sounds produced by the assorted Goofys are archival audio, and the main new sound is narration by Doodles Weaver. There isn’t even music for the most part, though one of the players is named after Carl Stalling—who had left the studio fifteen years earlier. It’s a surprisingly spare cartoon from an audio perspective.

Mostly the gags are “look, hockey players fight.” Which is, let’s be clear, pretty much the plot of most hockey-themed stuff, leaving aside the Mighty Ducks franchise. (Even there, there’s an argument in a few places.) A few of the gags are really quality, though, like the sign declaring that the arena is sixty degrees cooler inside than the already wintry weather we see outside. I don’t know if the scorecard gag is a good one, because I don’t follow hockey. It’s okay, I guess, but maybe I’d be howling if I were an actual hockey fan.

It’s not the funniest cartoon. It’s not even the funniest Disney cartoon, but it’s fun, and it’s not a bad way to spend a few minutes. And that repeated phrase will live in my head forever; I will doubtless be in the nursing home muttering about the penalty box when I see other people bickering. It’s amazing how some of the things you see as a child linger. Oh, we’ve all known for ages that the reason for the column is that a surprising amount of Disney content is cataloged in my head and always will be. But there’s a reason I didn’t seriously consider buying myself that Disney trivia game I saw in a store yesterday.