Hockey Homicide

Hockey Homicide is probably one of the best Goofy cartoons ever made, as wild and rollicking as any at Warner Bros. or MGM. It is one of my most favorite Goofy shorts. Directed by Jack Kinney, it was released on September 21, 1945, just after the end of World War II. The sports commentary comes as fast and hard – and as contradictory – as the action onscreen, courtesy of funnyman Doodles Weaver (uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver, by the way), and satirical to boot.

 

The teams, all comprised of Goofy, consist of the Loose Leafs going up against the Ant Eaters, and the team players, as in any Disney sports short, are all named after the various Disney staff members of the period. The stars of the respective teams are named Icebox Bertino, after animator/storyman Al Bertino, and Fearless Ferguson, after famed animator Norm Ferguson. The referee is named Clean Game Kinney, referring to Jack Kinney himself. In fact, in his own autobiography, "Walt Disney and Assorted Other Characters", Kinney devotes one entire chapter to sports at the Disney studio as a way of blowing off steam and get away from the doubtlessly-mind-numbing work of bringing these brilliant cartoons to the screen. Kinney apparently got involved as much as any of them, and in the book, he is referred to at least once as "Clean Game" Kinney. I can only assume that he was in charge of keeping things orderly when they do go out and play.

A running gag in Hockey Homicide is the unbridled animosity between the star players of the two teams, Bertino and Ferguson, who spend much of their time just beating up each other with their hockey sticks and strangling each other. Kinney blows his whistle and sends them both into the penalty box. Once the time is up and they are released, they get right back at it with each other – and are promptly sent back in! As sportscaster Weaver says, "Here come Bertino and Ferguson out of the penalty box... and there go Bertino and Ferguson back into the penalty box."

But then, the action and commentary both intensify big time as a whole bunch of hockey pucks pile up on the rink and cause mass confusion between players and spectators alike. Things become even more crazy and violent than they have already as the spectators especially all get down into the rink and engage in a gigantic brawl. The mass confusion is not helped in the least as the narration gets confused over what game is being played as he mentions almost every kind of sports game there is, what TVTropes.org calls "Gretzky having the ball". Reinforcing this are rapid-fire images from other Goofy sport cartoons of the past, and even a split-second appearance by Monstro the whale from Pinocchio! Meanwhile, the players have managed to get out of the way of the brawl and watch from the spectator seats as the sportscaster says, all out of breath, "And that's why ice hockey is called a spectator sport.”

Now, I have some observations I’d like to make about this, my most favorite Goofy cartoon. Mind you, these are just my opinions. One thing is that the recurring fight between Bertino and Ferguson. I’m not sure if there has been some kind of actual animosity between the two of them that triggered the running gag. It might have been more of a friendly rivalry, all in fun. Such was commonplace at the Disney Studio.

Another thing is the climatic brawl at short’s end. As stated earlier, things get so ferocious that clips from past cartoons pop up, including a rapid-fire appearance by Monstro the whale from Pinocchio. It was shortly after the release of Hockey Homicide that Pinocchio had its first re-release on October 17.

I always thought that there was a correlation between the two, that Hockey Homicide had a bit of subliminal advertising in there, while also adding to the chaos. Someone has also claimed, fairly, that it was little more than a means of a humorous and absurd way of adding to the drama, which also seems fair. These people seemed to think that any similarity between this cartoon and the re-release of Pinocchio was mainly coincidental, and it probably is. But I still think that there is something more to the story, that the similarities, coincidental or not, are not too far off.