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Thursday, June 23, 2016

Short Subject: Father’s Day Off (1953)



Goofy shows he can’t handle fatherhood or housework alone.



All right Goofy junior is now school aged, although he doesn’t go to school because it’s Saturday, and Goofy has to care for him and the house while his mother goes out for some unspecified reason.  When I was younger I enjoyed the bad driving jokes, because I thought they were specific to the character of Goofy’s wife.  However, now that I’m older and know that the bad driving is supposed to be a crack at all women that charm has seriously worn off.  Oh, well at least I can enjoy the adultery running gag since I’m old enough to get that too.  

I like the overall pace of this short as the mishaps start small like spilled milk that Goofy lets the cat clean up and slowly escalate until the house is filled with smoke, firemen, and police.  I love Goofy getting distracted by the melodramatic radio show, and the slapstick of him getting the washing all over the yard.  It’s totally cliché in that Goofy is the buffoon father who can’t do anything right, but as I said the pacing works and I love seeing things like the car, the radio, and the washing machine, because it’s not the 50’s anymore and all that stuff has changed over the decades.  It’s neat to see how everyday things used to look, at least in animated form.

So I like this short.  Sure the plot has been done to death and the women driving jokes totally date it and leave a sour taste, but the pacing is good, a lot of the other gags are funny, and I just love the look of 50’s Disney suburbia.      

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