No Smoking

In late 1951, Disney produced a Goofy cartoon that is probably virtually unknown today. And for good reason; it involves a topic that Disney had recently renounced: namely, smoking. Called No Smoking, the cartoon first delves into a brief history on smoking, from Columbus' discovery of the new world to the present day, using all Goofy lookalikes, of course.

Then the short moves on to Goofy, as suburban everyman George Geef, as he does nothing without a cigarette in his mouth, from sleeping to work. Eventually, it begins to takes its toll, as he falls victim to some of the adverse effects of smoking, such as irritated eyes, sore throat, hacking, coughing and a shortness of breath.

So Goofy decides to quit smoking. However, it soon becomes clear that this is easier said than done, especially since everyone around him still smokes. Soon, he so loses it that he leaves work early to go around town just to find another source of tobacco to smoke. At one point, he tries to go to a tobacco store, only to find it closed for lunch. At another point, he tries to go into a smoking room, only to be kicked out because it's for women only. At one other point, he takes what looks like a cigar from another man, but when he bites down on it, it's actually a now-leaky fountain pen. Near the end, he looks up a skyscraper and sees a janitor on the roof drop a cigarette. Goofy eagerly tries to get it, but by the time it gets down to him, it's spent; all there is a bunch of ashes.

In sheer desperation, Goofy pleads with an elderly gentleman from a bank to give him something to smoke. The man gives him a cigar, but it turns out to be the kind of cigar that explodes -- not that Goofy cares. As the narrator says in closing, "Give the smoker enough rope and he'll hang onto his habit."

Now, there are some things I would like to discuss about this. First, for obvious reasons, Disney no longer shows this cartoon. They have stated an anti-smoking policy since at least 2007. Any movies released on DVD and shown with smoking like Pinocchio are preceded by an anti-smoking PSA. On the Walt Disney Treasures line of DVDs, one cartoon seen on The Chronological Donald, Vol. 3, which shows Donald Duck cartoons released between 1947 and 1950, is entitled Donald's Happy Birthday, in which Huey, Dewey and Louie decide to buy their uncle Donald a box of cigars for his birthday, but when he sees them with the cigars, he makes them smoke the whole boxful. Thus, the cartoon is relegated to "From the Vault" status and is preceded by an intro by Leonard Maltin warning about the content of the cartoons.

As for No Smoking, however, they simply don't show it anymore. However, this wasn't always the case. When the cartoon was first shown on TV, as part of a longer tribute to Goofy, the cartoon was shown. However, when the cigar that Goofy finally got exploded, he gets upset and throws the exploded cigar on the ground, declaring that he has again quit.

There are other references to smoking and tobacco brands as well. One of the most obvious is where one Goofy lookalike, blindfolded like he's going to be executed, has a cigarette in his mouth. But instead of being shot, the gun is instead fired at his cigarette, after which Goofy remarks that the cigarette is a "Phyllis Morrison". This is a spoof on Philip Morris (the sponsor of I Love Lucy, which first aired shortly before this cartoon debuted). A subsequent Goofy is skywriting from an airplane (using his own cigarette smoke to form the letters, no less). The message is an ad to "Smoke Lookys", which parodies the message, "Smoke Luckys", as in Lucky Strike. This particular brand of cigarette was purportedly the kind of cigarette that Walt Disney smoked. (Walt Disney always smoked, which led him to having lung cancer, which ultimately did him in.) Earlier, as Goofy-as-Columbus returns to the old world from the new, bringing with him tobacco from the Native Americans seen there, the narrator says, "Columbus not only proved the world was round, but also firm and fully packed." This is parodying the phrase "So round, so firm, so fully packed", which was actually the name of a song from 1947. It was also the slogan for a time for Lucky Strike, as seen in this video here.

Finally, there's something else about the Goofy cartoon worth mentioning: when Goofy pleads with the gentleman for something to smoke, he uses all manner of slang terms for various tobacco products, in the following order: "cig", "fag", "pipe", "nail", "weed", "rope", "chaw", "cigar", and "snuff". What is interesting here is that an English-but-non-American slang word for "cigarette", "fag", is used in a 1950s American film. The other meaning for "fag" evidently didn't exist yet. Also, along the same lines, it's interesting to find "weed" being used to mean tobacco, instead of the term's current meaning.

Anyway, that's an awful lot of information on one of Disney's least talked-about cartoons. I hope you enjoyed it.