Man's Best Friend

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

Goofy brings home MAN'S BEST FRIEND and his life is completely changed by the mangy mutt.

While the animation is unremarkable, the film remains humorous and will ring true for any viewer whose life has ever been dominated by a dog.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Man's Best Friend is a nice, fun Disney short but somewhat unexceptional too. The story is predictable, and the middle part of the short lets things down with Goofy being dragged by the larger Bowser being repetitive and tired and Goofy being forced to repay his neighbours is the only one gag in this section really that works. The pacing also could have been crisper and a little more wild. The first section sets things up well and is very amusing if standard humour with Goofy literally taking on the dog role, while the final third comes off best, Bowser being a guard dog was interesting to watch. The animation is bright and colourful with some lovely drawing and detail, and the music synchronises with great character with the gags. The humour is amusing if not hilarious in the outer two thirds if losing its way in the middle. Goofy is likable and funny enough, and the dog is sweet and quite smart.

To conclude, nice short but doesn't quite have the wow factor. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is probably the dumbest dog I have ever soon, at least on TV. Poor Goofy couldn't handle his mischievous new so-called Man's Best Friend, and ended up being mistaken for a burglar when he returns home while the dog slept through the attempted robbery of a real burglar.

It's another narrated cartoon again - not funny, no laughs and no redeeming qualities. Only Goofy is slightly worth seeing in this one.

Grade D---