Observations on Goofy in the new Mickey Mouse show

I'm very sorry for neglecting this blog for so long, but I've just been so busy. Anyway, I thought I'd like to talk about something about the new "Mickey Mouse" short show they're showing on the Disney Channel lately: namely, Goofy. On the show, he looks something like this, a rather unkempt version of his early Dippy Dawg self (the original is first, the new version seen in the new show is second):

I'm sure you'll agree that those two designs are not at all dissimilar.

Anyway, I also thought I would mention that just as, through this new show, they are trying to recapture some of Mickey's old pluck believed to have been abandoned long ago, so, too, is Goofy given a lot of different roles, some of them opposite Mickey, which is akin to his given the treatment of being given whatever role he is needed for, similar to how he was treated in his George Geef persona in the 1950s, which in turn would turn Goofy's reputation as bumbling but lovable on its ear. As a result, such roles display him as not nearly as nice to Mickey as you would have been lead to believe. In some cases, in fact, he is a real jerk.

Take, for example, one of the first cartoons in the series, No Service. Here, Mickey and Donald Duck go to a diner, owned by Goofy, for some chow, but like many establishments, this one follows a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy. And when Goofy notices that Mickey isn't wearing a shirt and Donald isn't wearing shoes, he chastises them for not following that policy and unceremoniously throws them out. Now, I would expect this kind of behavior from Peg-Leg Pete, not from Goofy! Goofy has not acted like this big a jerk since he took on a split personality after getting behind the wheel in his cartoon Motor Mania! Ironically, in spite of his insistence of running a classy establishment, he swats a bug with a spatula and then uses that same spatula to flip burgers, and he also picks his belly button while on the job.

In other cartoons later on, Goofy would revert back to the bumbling but lovable friend of Mickey he is purported to be, but No Service was a real out-of-character moment for him. There have also been a few other cartoons where his attitude and friendship with Mickey were, to be perfectly kind, questionable.

In Ghoul Friend, for example, Mickey's car breaks down in the middle of some spooky woods. And would you not know, those woods are haunted! And who is haunting these woods? None other than the titular ghoul, a zombie version of Goofy himself! Mickey runs for his life and Goofy chases him everywhere. But when it seems as though Goofy is going to kill the mouse by clocking him with one of his removable arm bones, it turns out that he removed his arm bone to help him fix his car! The end of the bone is used as a crude wrench. So while Goofy is not so bad after all, it again seems to be the George Geef treatment of being given whatever role Goofy is offered.

In Tapped Out, in response to Pulchritudinous (AKA Peg-Leg) Pete's handily crushing a smaller, weaker opponent, Mickey makes the mistake of making like Bugs Bunny and heckling him, calling him a bully and that he could beat him if given the chance. When Pete calls out for another challenger to take him on, Goofy again questions his friendship with Mickey by placing him right in the ring in front of Pete. And when Mickey (with help from Donald and Goofy) somehow manages to defeat Pete at the end, Goofy again has Mickey wrestling once again!

One more example: in Third Wheel, Mickey and Minnie go out on a romantic dinner date, just the two of them, but Goofy keeps interrupting, not realizing when he is not wanted. Goofy keeps eating large quantities of the food in the restaurant with no table manners at all. Furthermore, at one point, even though Goofy chides Mickey for shouting at him in the fancy restaurant, he then puts his feet inside a champagne bucket full of ice. On top of that, every word of Mickey's Goofy always takes literally. When, at the end, Mickey insists that he and Minnie just want to be left alone, the ever-eating Goofy finally does give them time alone - after he eats the two mice! Somehow Goofy's stomach is big enough for a table with a candlelight on it, as well as for the mice.

Yes, Goofy in the new Mickey Mouse show is often cast in roles that are are more questionable of Mickey's relationship to him than you would have heretofore been led to believe. Of course, these observations are all just one blogger's opinion, and it's not like Goofy has never attained that role before, if his everyman shorts of the 1950s and '60s (like Motor Mania and the two educational cartoons on driving on the freeway) are any indication.