Short Subject: How to Be a Waiter (1999)

And like with ‘How to play Football’  I have to ask why is it called that?

This short has nothing to do with learning to be a waiter it’s all about Goofy quitting his job as a waiter to become a movie star, and then ironically playing a waiter as his award winning role.  Everything in the short is about learning to be a movie star she why isn’t it called how to be a movie star?

Okay enough about how stupid I think the title is let’s get to the good stuff in the short.  First off I love the homage to ‘Steamboat Willie’ in the silent movie section.  Of course ‘Steamboat Willie’ is ground breaking for not being a silent film, but whatever I like this part anyway I’ll let it go.  The part with Goofy imitating famous actors in the actor’s voice section is good, and his attempts to kiss Clarabelle are classic Goofy antics.  The transitions with the director’s marker between each film genre is a nice touch too.

Really the only major problem here is the animation.  This is the era when Disney shorts were made for TV and for whatever reason it was decided that it was okay for these shorts to look…cheap.  I mean when comparing it to the classic shorts it is really obvious who got a budget and who didn’t.  The undetailed backgrounds, the lack of shading, fewer in-betweens so the animation isn’t as fluid it’s all here.  Even the title card is boring, because essentially there isn’t one.  It’s just the title of the short and the character’s head scaling in and out.  Sure the old shorts had that character head card, but again it had shading and the title card was specific to each short.

So while some of the scenarios are funny, the narrator is still good, and the shout outs to things like ‘Steamboat Willie’ are fun, and I’d even be willing to ignore the stupid title choice, the sub-par animation makes it really hard to enjoy this short as much as I want to.