Die Kunst des Skilaufens

... Until today I had never completely watched this short. For most of my childhood I have enjoyed half of this quite a lot on a different video. It skipped the beginning bit. When I discovered the beginning bit on Youtube I was really surprised that I had missed some.

ANYWAY, this is a very entertaining and amusing short. It has little plot (which may bother some people), instead it has a narrator instructing Goofy how to ski. Despite providing pretty clear instructions, Goofy fails rather miserably. The results of this exceedingly unintelligent dog will provide laughs for a good many people - especially if you like Goofy already. This is also a very good short to watch this coming Christmas, so if you can find it on Youtube as well, you are bound to have a good time with this one!

Enjoy "The Art Of Skiing"! :-)

With the loss of Pinto Colvig for voice work, the sound track of this Goofy cartoon from Disney is carried by the narrator telling us the details of the sport, punctuated, of course, by the slapstick antics of Our Hero. There is also yodeling, sound effects and the accordion-laden score.

It's very rough, bone-breaking slapstick, of a variety that was almost never practiced in America in slapstick's heyday.... although some of the Laurel & Hardy shorts would come close. European slapstick, on the other hand, was much rougher, particularly the Italian shorts before the First World War. The essential humor is, of course, that while it all looks very dangerous, it's done in such an offhand fashion, and nothing serious ever happens.

Just watched this very funny Disney Goofy cartoon short on YouTube. In this one-as the narrator instructs on the fine art of dressing and then going skiing (which he insists is pronounced SHEE-ING)-the Goof does the opposite in every hilarious way one could think of and more. Director Jack Kinney and his animators milk every bit of humor and slapstick comedy out of this premise and provide a new bit for the humanized dog-his yodel. That yodel was not thought of by the character's original voice-Pinto Colvig who was at Fleischer in Miami at the time-but by his temporary replacement, George Johnson (other yodels were recorded by Hannes Schrolle). That particular bit proved so popular that it became a recurring thing in subsequent Goofy cartoons. So on that note, I highly recommend The Art of Skiiing.

'The Art of Skiing' is another example of Goofy's instructing videos and it does not belong to one of my favorites. Although it is not boring to watch you will not really laugh out loud. The cartoon starts in the morning with Goofy in bed, we see how Goofy put on his clothes and from there we see the kind of skiing Goofy. Of course the voice over says one thing and Goofy shows something completely different.

The problem is, I think, that every single gag is very predictable. You can even guess the kind of animation that will come next and that is not something I really want to see with a cartoon. But still, like I said it was not boring so my time wasn't wasted.

Another short on Disney Plus is this 1941 classic, part of a series of "how to" spoofs that the corporation has made starring the ... dog, is goofy a dog? Let's not question the Goofy/Pluto mechanics of the Disney universe right now.

Narrated by John McLeish, the short sees Goofy (Danny Webb) go on a skiing vacation to the Sugar Bowl ski resort in Northern California. There he clumsily dresses himself, clumsily goes skiing and clumsily runs a ski jump.

I don't want to go to overboard in my review of this one, it is a short after all and just 8 minutes long but it's a classic one and, apparently the debut of Goofy's now iconic holler. It's a lot of fun too and both me, and my son, chuckled along with the cartoon.