The Big Wash

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

Dolores the elephant tries every means possible to get away from THE BIG WASH which circus handler Goofy has promised her.

This enjoyable little film was the second of three in which the hefty Dolores appeared for Disney. Although eager to please, the pulchritudinous pachyderm would have only a very short movie career.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

The plot here is pretty simple. Goofy is apparently in charge of an elephant at a circus. He needs to feed her, groom her, and give her a bath. What transpires is a series of hilarious event that take place as our simplistic hero tries to do the job. The elephant is having none of it, so through mere size she is able to assault Goofy time after time. As is usually the case there is one pratfall after another.

The Big Wash has to be one of my favourite Goofy cartoons along with Motor Mania, How to Dance and Goofy Gymnastics. Everything I love about Disney is here. Visually it is one of the very best-looking Disney cartoons, with vibrant, colourful backgrounds and a very well drawn Goofy. As is typical with the Disney cartoons, the music is so dynamic and energetic, adding so much to what's going on on screen. The gags are wonderful, beautifully-spaced out and very funny( all revolving around Goofy and Delores using cunning to get what they want), the best ones being when Delores dresses as a clown and the one with the water inflation. I have a friend whose interest in animation started with this cartoon and that particular gag. Goofy is lovable and perhaps a little stupid in that he doesn't see through Delores' disguise, but we love him for it. Delores the elephant makes her second of three appearances, the others being Tiger Trouble and Working for Peanuts, is funny and very cute and works wonderfully with Goofy. All in all, a wonderful Goofy/Delores cartoon. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This is a hilarious Goofy cartoon where the works as a caretaker at a circus. He tries his darnest best to give Dolores the elephant a bath, as she avoids him at all cost, resulting in hilarious slapstick comedy and classic, bumbling Goofy moments. This cartoon will certainly serve up some good laughs, and the animation was colorful! Also enjoyed the little tune Goofy sings.

Grade A-

They don't make cartoons like this anymore.

As a future cartoon designer growing up, I had always found the original Goofy cartoons to be a mixed bag, and that was because the studio "experimented" with him so much that it drove me crazy. They'd give him human-shaped feet (my biggest complaint, it looks like an eyesore and I found it much too visually distracting), yank off his ears, move his trademark teeth together as beaver-style teeth and at one point even changed his personality and stole his loveable voice away from him! This is especially noticeable during the '50s when the character that resulted, in my opinion, simply wasn't the same character I loved who appeared in his early screen appearances.

But THE BIG WASH is the one that I refer to as The Perfect Goofy Cartoon.

By this point, Disney had their animation craft down to a science with a pleasing "gloss" look that they had perfected around the time of THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD and would later grace all their feature length films from DUMBO on until the advent of the Xerox camera (who gave them their later "sketchy" look). That highly professional level of quality graces this one, too.

Goofy looks absolutely perfect in this one with gorgeous draftsmanship and expression, and the cartoon seems to express everything I love about Disney cartoons in particular: both cute and funny, light, enjoyable and even has a wildly catchy song that I wish they'd re-released on CD sometime. Also, Goofy's voice--if it's possible--has never sounded cuter or more expressive than here (I *LOVE* how he sounds here when being tickled by that trunk! Just listen to that giggle). This is one of those Goofy cartoons that give you an excellent idea of his overall personality as opposed to just a couple of its facets, something I love and have seen in a single cartoon only a few times otherwise.

After all these years, I am still as an adult absolutely in love with this short and rushed out to get "The Complete Goofy" on DVD the moment I heard it contained THE BIG WASH. And the moment I got it, I went slightly berzerk that evening playing this clip again and again since I knew I didn't have to worry about the DVD burning out.

It goes without saying that I can go crazy on just one cartoon, but hey, I'm a professional cartoonist for pete's sake. ;) But even if you aren't, how could you possibly resist this one's charm? It's one of the cartoons that helped majorly in putting Goofy on the map of history and into the hearts of millions.