Attention fragile

Tasked with ensuring that the magician's trunk makes the 5.15 train, station master "Goofy" sets off to load it onto his cart. He barely gets it ten yards before dropping it and releasing an whole load of the magician's tricks. Just how many rabbits are actually in the hat - and how is he ever going to coax them back in? Well that particular problem just spawns plenty more as the next few minutes uses an amiably scored animation to illustrate a variety of magical tricks. A raging bull, a boxing kangaroo and maybe even some clues to offer us a potential solution to some of their secrets. "Goofy" is a good foil for this kind of daft storytelling and I found this quite good fun for five minutes, or so. Will the trunk ever make the train, though...?

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

The unexpected contents of a magician's trunk cause complications for train station baggage handler Goofy.

BAGGAGE BUSTER is an amusing little film, with the magical trunk, top hat & cape disgorging a veritable Noah's Ark of creatures to bewilder the hapless Goof. The Bull is oddly reminiscent of Ferdinand, star of Disney's 1938 Oscar winning cartoon.

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 was supposed to deliver a magician's suitcase onto an incoming train at the station, but accidentally drops it and out comes multiple animals from rabbits to bulls and from kangaroos to elephants - all that were supposed be part of the magician's bag of tricks.

Goofy has a fine time dealing with the animals in trying to get them back into the suitcase, resulting in some funny slapstick moments. I also enjoyed the part where a tree quickly grows out of the suitcase and bumps into Goofy.

The cartoon started off slow, with Goofy just chasing the rabbits around. But, when the other animals take the scene, the short got a little more exciting.

Grade B-

Goofy has always been one of my favourite cartoon characters, being very funny and endearing. Baggage Buster is a very good and enjoyable cartoon. However I didn't care much for the scenes where Goofy is trying to get the animals inside the trunk, they got tiring eventually and actually slowed the short down. However, there are many other gags that do compensate, such as a bull popping up out of a handkerchief, a kangaroo appearing and starts punching Goofy, and a menagerie showing up out of nowhere, disappearing back into the trunk then it reappears and are very very funny. The end scene also raises a laugh. Apart from the scenes with trying to get the animals in the trunk, Baggage Buster is quickly paced, and benefits further from having beautiful animation and energetic music. The story may remind one of Donald's Ostrich, except Baggage Buster is much more entertaining as a whole. The trunk is prominently used and is used very, very well. Goofy is on top form, while he works better when we find something obvious but he doesn't he but the fact that he is easily distracted here, rather than getting easily frustrated like Donald, in his actions ensures that his characteristic clumsiness still convinces. All in all, very good but not my idea of an outstanding short. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is a pretty good Goofy film from the early days--just after Goofy got his own series of cartoons. In this installment, you see a five-fingered version (a rarity) of Goofy working as a baggage handler for the railroad. There is a magician's trunk that needs to be loaded on the next train but this is easier said than done, as things from inside the trunk keep popping out and make the job practically impossible. At first, it's the expected magician's top hat and rabbits but later the menagerie gets pretty weird and definitely taxes Goofy's talents to the max.

The cartoon is the same beautiful quality you'd expect from this era and the whole thing is quite fun. While not among the best Goofy films, this is solid fun from start to finish.