How to Play Baseball

The first half of this is explaining, through some somewhat-amusing examples, the basics of baseball: hitting, pitching, the different kinds of pitches, etc.

The really funny part begins when they show the bottom of the ninth inning of the last game in the World Series. It's The Gray Sox versus the Blue Sox. One team is leading 3-0 and their pitcher is throwing a no-hitter. What happens after that is hilarious as the losing team creeps back into the game with a climactic finish. The scenario is completely exaggerated for a humorous effect and it works. I found myself laughing out loud at a few of the scenes.

This short starts off slowly and gets better and better as it goes on.

How to Play Baseball gets off to a slightly slow start. The narrative explanation was very interesting, especially for someone like me who has never played baseball in her life, but it wasn't as funny or as crisply paced as the rest of the cartoon. When it does get going, complete with a suitably ferentic pace, it is non-stop hilarity with the ending and the scene where the player gets hit on the head and walks around in a daze standing out. The sound effects also add much, especially the screeching tyres and wobbling guitar chord. The animation is clean, smooth and very colourful, and the whole different personalities with Goofy as various characters, as with How to Play Football, is a masterstroke.

Overall, a great cartoon and one of the finer How to Goofy cartoons. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Jack Kinney was something of a miracle-worker for Disney, tirelessly concocting short after short involving the iconic Disney characters of Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Goofy into cute, elaborate little short films that work as cute instructional videos, zippy entertainment, or often, a combination of the two. Kinney's How to Play Baseball is one of the several shorts he created that involved the Goofy character partaking in some kind of sport, whether it be golf, football, swimming, or even self-defense. The short focuses on Goofy's involvement in trying to succeed at the nation's pastime baseball and features a rousing game between the Blue Sox and the Gray Sox. During the game, the film shows numerous elements of the game that result in a surprisingly nailbiting short film. The one thing Kinney consistently does well is animate and conduct the action scenes, which are flawlessly animated for their time and completely unpredictable in their zaniness. Not to mention with a leading character like Goofy, hilarity is almost imminent.

Directed by: Jack Kinney.

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

The Goof demonstrates HOW TO PLAY BASEBALL in the worse possible way.

In this "How To" entry, the National Pastime is subjected to much good natured ribbing. The jokes and animation are both fine, though unremarkable. John McLeish narrates in his best documentary style.

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, Bambi, Peter Pan and Mr. Toad. 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.

I've seen this so many times, but have never commented on it. There is something about it that is quite charming. I like that all the players and the umpire are variations on Goofy. They do a nice job of showing how the game is played and then go to the seventh game of the World Series to demonstrate. Of course, everything is exaggerated and typical goofiness, but it works pretty well here. If you watch, you'll find my utter amusement in the title of this review.