The Art of Goofy

Over at his wondrous Disney history blog, Jeff Pepper recently posted an excellent report on the great Goofy cartoon The Art of Skiing (1942) and Walt Disney’s connection with the Sugar Bowl ski resort. In the Winter 2006 issue of Sketches, the Official Magazine of the Walt Disney Collectors Society, we ran an article by Stephen Matzke covering some of the same snow-covered ground. The springboard (or ski jump) for the article was the cool (as in wintry-cold) sculpture of Goofy as he appeared in The Art of Skiing (before he bashed into a tree). Since the first day of spring is a week away there’s plenty of time to enjoy that dippy downhill racer slipping on the slopes. For more information on the Walt Disney Collectors Society, slide on over here. (Incidentally, The Art of Skiing was not the first of Goofy’s “How-To” shorts. How To Ride a Horse was the first produced, though it was not released as a short but as part of the 1941 feature, The Reluctant Dragon. Goofy’s Glider, in which Goofy demonstrated how not to fly a glider, was produced next and was released in 1940, making it the first “How-To” seen by audiences.)