Goofy’s Glider, an animated short directed by Jack Kinney, is known to be the prototype of the ‘How to’ series, in which Mickey’s former sidekick would embark on a solo career teaching the (wrong) way to practice various sports. The short was released on November 2nd, 1940 and its genesis is usually linked to the departure of Pinto Colvig (Goofy’s voice), and his replacement by a narrator (John McLeish) who would serve as a straight counterpart to the character. However, the film is notable for something else: hidden among its hijinks, it exposed a little drama unfolding inside the studio.
IMDB kindly provides a list of animators: Art Babbitt, George De Beeson, Frank Onaitis, Wolfgang Reitherman, and a young Gene Hazelton as inbetween artist.
An early outline shows that the original conception differed from the finished short (including a vulture that finally flew out of the picture). An inspirational sketch by Stephen Bosustow already possesses that penchant for straight lines that would later delight the UPA.
I have not found animation drafts, but we can easily focus on the names of Babbitt and Reitherman, Goofy’s main artists in those days: the difference between their respective works is evident and exceeds what was usually allowed in a Disney cartoon.
The gentle creature animated by Reitherman in the first sequences has all the grace and boneless innocence of the best Disney cartoons. “Plasticity” is the word for it, a quest fully supported by Kinney, who was, on the other hand, becoming less receptive to the laborious analytical work of who had hitherto been regarded as the character’s lead animator, Art Babbitt.
In fact, it was that same Babbitt thoroughness, so useful in animating Snow White’s Evil Queen, that was beginning to seem – for good reason – increasingly out of place elsewhere.
According to animator Tom Sito, this approach was natural to Babbitt (his celebrated “Analysis of the Goof” from 1934 delved even into the psychology of the character): “He studied the acting theories of internalization of Stanislavski and Boleslavsky, as any actor of his time would.” Stanislavski’s name is particularly interesting here, given that his “method”, revisited by Lee and Anne Strasberg, was influential for a whole generation of (human) actors. And, indeed, The Method jumps out at the 3.00 minute mark of “Goofy’s Glider” as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake, as the phrase goes: Babbitt’s Goofy possesses an almost human-like anatomy with great muscular development -noticeable in his shoulders- and five fingers on each hand. The naturalistic animation has turned the old loveable Goof into a human actor with a cartoon mask. His motivations are now “interior” and probably stem from a miserable childhood. It’s the Actors Studio Goofy, coming to warn us about the danger of the technical development of feature films: there is no turning back.
That’s why this five fingered monster carries real weights and responds to the laws of Newtonian physics with an obsequiousness that his previous incarnation would have scorned. When Marlon, I mean Goofy, enters the plane laboriously it’s difficult for the audience to repress the desire to see him crash. By minute 4.00, faced with a partial victory -the plane has crashed already but the goof is still flying in the air on his own-, “It” screams gleefully (not “Stella”) before parachuting out of nowhere and into nothingness, a small accomplishment that sums up his new look. An additional macabre detail hits the 4.39′ mark, when Goofy, counting on his fingers before opening his parachute, discovers that he now possesses a finger too much: “one, two, three, four… augh… five”.
The Method’s Goof did not go unnoticed. In his next short, Baggage Buster, heavily animated by Babbitt, the naturalistic approach was taken to its ultimate consequences, provoking criticism from Walt Disney himself (“Babbitt is capable of good results if you work very closely with him and not let him have his way too much,” Disney wrote. “He’s a very stubborn punk, but we’ve got to get him out of the groove he’s in.” Quoted by Michael Barrier, “The Animated Man,” p. 181).
Goofy’s association with Stanislavski was brief and ended when Jack Kinney relaunched his career, with Babbitt no longer in sight. And yet, it would bring not a few problems in the following years.
Jokes aside (Babbitt and Reitherman need no further praise), this bizarre incident serves to show eloquently the dangers inherent in the over-analysis and multiple technical developments brought about by feature films within Disney Studios. The naturalistic animation needed for the features was hard to combine with the bare cartoon necessities.
A very interesting side note can be drawn from the involvement of another of the animators credited on the short: George De Beeson (1897-1965). Defined as a “renaissance man,” it seems that De Beeson’s interests – in charge of both effects and character animation at Disney – were manifold, including a role in the history of aviation pioneers (De Beeson went on to patent an early prototype of an “automatic airplane control” in 1929). It is not unlikely that the plot of Goofy’s Glider was inspired by his own personal experience.
Lucas Nine is an Argentine artist: illustrator, graphic novel author, animator and director of animated films. His work has been awarded several times and published, exhibited and screened in Argentina, Brasil, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands and Japan. Check out his animation and artwork online: 
It’s ironic that Reitherman, with his Chouinard training, would animate Goofy in a more cartoony style, while Babbitt, who cut his teeth under Paul Terry in the rubber-hose era, would take a more naturalistic approach. One would think it would be the other way around.
While they may be the norm in Japanese anime, five-fingered hands in Western animation tend to look freakishly overlarge. This can be an asset, for example in the Fleischer Popeye cartoons, where the five fingers lend extra heft to Popeye’s and Bluto’s fists, and also make gangly Olive appear all the more ungainly. Likewise in DIC’s Sabrina cartoons, the characters’ outsized five-fingered hands help convey a sense of adolescent awkwardness. But in general. ironically, anatomically accurate extremities seem less natural.
Goofy’s plucking of the catapult rope to test its tuning has a basis in historical fact. Vitruvius, who wrote the earliest extant textbooks on engineering, tells us that Roman catapult engineers of the first century used to do that very thing (though they struck the rope with a metal bar rather than plucking it) to gauge the distance a projectile would travel. Thus Roman catapult engineers were required to have musical training, as well as perfect pitch. If any of the animators who worked on “Goofy’s Glider” was familiar with Vitruvius, George De Beeson, given his engineering background, would be the most likely candidate.
Thanks for the interesting animator breakdown, Lucas!
And nice analysis, Paul. I consider Reitherman’s Goofy surfing sequence in “Hawaiian Holiday” to be one of the standouts of classic Disney animation- same goes for his Clock Cleaners stuff.
I always thought that “Goofy..Spy” gag was odd.
As much as I love the Kinney shorts, the Babbitt Goofy was the best.