Tomorrow We Diet!

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

The difficulties with weight gain and dieting are humorously depicted.

Millions of viewers will sympathize with the Goof as he attempts to remove several pounds of avoirdupois and refrain from eating the goodies in the refrigerator. Clever usage is made of eight actual pages - not animated - from a Betty Crocker-like cookbook from the era.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & 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 comic 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 childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Goofy has developed horrible eating habits and now must pay the piper. First, he needs to be convinced that he has a problem. There are six or seven things that befall him that show this is the case. He has an alter ego, a former self, who comes in and rants against him, belittles him, and tries to get him to change his habits. While this is a bit cruel at times, it is also pretty visually funny.

After finding Cold War (1951-also reviewed) to be very funny,I got set to see Goofy go on a diet.

View on the film:

Whilst the hand-drawn animation remains gloriously lively, director Jack Kinney makes here a huge departure from the style of past Goofy shorts,with hilarious match-cuts and screen-wipes piling on the pressure to Goofy,and live-action insets of food magazines laying out the tempting sight.

Getting Goofy on the treadmill, returning writers Milt Schaffer & Dick Kinney make Goofy's attempts to lose weight a funny uphill battle,as a reflection in the mirror mocks his declaration of a diet tomorrow.

Disney have some classic shorts under their belt, and some feature Goofy, to date still one of their funniest and most likable characters. Goofy still is his appealing everyman and loveably clumsy self, and does it so naturally, though while this is a fun scenario and done remarkably well it isn't the best one to show Goofy at his very best(where he is clumsy and lovable for it, or making situations harder than they actually are that isn't obvious to him but is to the audience). Tomorrow We Diet! is still a hoot though, the gags are clever and genuinely funny and we are also taught things in a way that's fun and not in a way that we are talked down to. Especially seeing as weight and dieting are sensitive issues and are still relevant today. The animation is colourful and vibrantly shaded, with a lot of attention to detail and beautiful drawing too. The visuals of the food and the contents of the cook book are done in such a way that they are too good to eat or give you the urge to do so. The music sounds great with catchy themes and jaunty orchestration, it has bags of energy and does well with enhancing the action. All in all, colourful and entertaining, not Goofy at his very best but relevant and difficult to resist. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Goofy seems to have a lot of these stories where the plot in his cartoons are experimental. In this case, Goofy, identified as a character named George Geef, goes through overweight challenges, as highlighted in a somewhat hilarious way in this cartoon (which would not be very PC nowadays).

This cartoon is more like a mini-documentary than an animated story. Not much laughs in this one and Goofy does not speak in his iconic voice. It's not an awful cartoon, just a little mediocre.

Grade C+