“Goofy Gymnastics”

My therapist generally asks me what I’ve got planned, and I generally tell her what I’m writing about. This week, she looked at me blankly, and rather than describe anything, I said, “You’ve seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, right?” When she said she had, I asked if she remembered the short they watch when they’re in the movie theatre in that movie, the one Roger was rhapsodizing about the artistry of. She agreed, because these days, you’re more likely to have seen the short that way than any other. Even though it’s technically an anachronism, because Roger Rabbit is set in ‘47.

Goofy is feeling thin and weak, so he decides to build his muscles. This being a little before Soloflex, he sends away for a set of athletic equipment, ranging from barbells to a complete trapeze. All of which follows with predictable results. Goofy swings and crashes and generally goes through things that no human could survive. He’s definitely not getting the security deposit back on his apartment.

While watching this, I’ve actually just given my son a lecture on all the ways Goofy uses his weights wrong. Which of course he does because he’s Goofy. But Zane is twelve, and while I don’t think he’s going to get into gym culture as he ages, Goofy’s still the ultimate in How Not To Do That. Obviously my human son will not be crashing through brick walls any time soon, not least because there aren’t any of those in our house. But real human teenagers can and do injure themselves using barbells unaccompanied.

There is, though, a simple joy in watching Goofy attempt to do things. I’d much rather do that than watch Donald abuse his nephews or a farm animal or a freaking bee, you know? Yes, okay, Goofy is physically suffering in a way that I can’t watch in a live-action movie—movies like Mousetrap leave me cold because last I checked Nathan Lane was an actual human. Leaving aside that Goofy is a dog—I couldn’t watch this happen to a live-action dog, either—it’s all paint on celluloid.

Honestly, a lot of Goofy’s best shorts are anachronistic to 1947, but I also agree that Goofy would be an aspirational figure to Roger Rabbit. It is, obviously, the gift of the animators, not the actual character himself, so we should take a minute to express respect to director Jack Kinney and writer Dick Kinney—yes, they were brothers—and animators Ed Aardal, Dan MacManus, John Sibley, and the great Wolfgang Reitherman. These Goofy shorts are great, and they require good work of a lot of people even below that list.