The Art of Skiing (1941) User Reviews

Interesting story...

[Mightyzebra · 8/10 · 3 December 2007]

... Until today I had never completely watched this short. For most of my childhood I have enjoyed half of this quite a lot on a different video. It skipped the beginning bit. When I discovered the beginning bit on Youtube I was really surprised that I had missed some.

ANYWAY, this is a very entertaining and amusing short. It has little plot (which may bother some people), instead it has a narrator instructing Goofy how to ski. Despite providing pretty clear instructions, Goofy fails rather miserably. The results of this exceedingly unintelligent dog will provide laughs for a good many people - especially if you like Goofy already. This is also a very good short to watch this coming Christmas, so if you can find it on Youtube as well, you are bound to have a good time with this one!

Enjoy "The Art Of Skiing"! :-)

Not the best, but still enjoyable!

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 25 June 2009]

This doesn't belong to my favourite Goofy cartoons. What is good about it though is that it is very amusing. Sure, the animation is a little dated, and some of the narration got a little distracting, but seeing Goofy struggling on skis was very, very funny, especially when he rides down the side of the mountain, and disappears down a hole, and you hear that trademark whine he makes. The narrator assures Goofy it is all very simple, but Goofy fails miserably. It's part of an ongoing joke, that Goofy is pretty useless at anything simple. I liked the music and I liked the ending. Overall, very good, not Goofy's best, but entertaining for fans. 8/10 Bethany Cox.

Goofy Skiing

[boblipton · 8/10 · 5 September 2019]

With the loss of Pinto Colvig for voice work, the sound track of this Goofy cartoon from Disney is carried by the narrator telling us the details of the sport, punctuated, of course, by the slapstick antics of Our Hero. There is also yodeling, sound effects and the accordion-laden score.

It's very rough, bone-breaking slapstick, of a variety that was almost never practiced in America in slapstick's heyday.... although some of the Laurel & Hardy shorts would come close. European slapstick, on the other hand, was much rougher, particularly the Italian shorts before the First World War. The essential humor is, of course, that while it all looks very dangerous, it's done in such an offhand fashion, and nothing serious ever happens.

Goofing around in the white

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 27 December 2017]

"The Art of Skiing" is an American 8-minute cartoon from 1941, the days of WWII, so this one is already over 75 years old. Wow! The name of director Jack Kinney gives away to fans of old animation already that here we got another Disney cartoon and this must be one of the earliest Goofy cartoons, at least starring him in a how-to work if you wanna call it like that. Despite the age, it is in color and that certainly elevates the material. I personally would say that it is none of my favorite Goofy cartoons, but as I really like them, I still enjoyed the watch, just not as much as some of the others (tennis, dancing e.g.) This may also have to do with personal bias because skiing was never interesting to me to either watch or do it myself. So if you have an interest bigger than mine in this sport (which really shouldn't be difficult), then you will maybe really love this one. I myself am probably as gifted as Goofy, a dog but humanized as always, when it comes to skiing. But certainly not as funny. Yes the video site was really entertaining here. The audio wasn't too shabby either, but maybe a bit too many comments as it feels like the narrator is constantly talking. Anyway, looking at how long it takes Goofy to not even get out of the house into the snow, but even get out of bed (and with him ending up there eventually again), it says it all that this is not the sport for Goofy unlike some of the others where he gets gradually better throughout the film. But seeing him fail, does not mean this was a failure by any means because his weakest moments are probably our funniest here. Nice frame too with the eventual return to bed. I give it a thumbs-up as I was well-entertained. See it.

Hitting The Slopes With The Goof

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 19 April 2003]

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

The viewer is instructed in THE ART OF SKIING on snow - with the Goof giving the perfect examples of what not to do.

This humorous little film was one of several made by Disney between 1940 & 1956 in which Goofy receives instruction in some task or pastime - with inevitably chaotic results. If one ventures beyond the chuckles there is plenty of pertinent information to be gleaned concerning ski clothing & equipment; we even get the terms schuss & slalom explained to us. John McLeish provides the narration in his best documentarian manner.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & 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 comic 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 childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

Far from a slippery slope.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 14 August 2013]

After being caught by surprise by Disney's wonderful Fantasy Goofy short film Baggage Buster,I decided to take a look at Goofy's first ever (official) "Art of" title.

The plot:

With having put his skiing boots on the previous night,Goofy jumps out of the bed and heads to the mountains for a long day of skiing.Originally expecting to have an action packed day of skiing round the slopes,Goofy quickly finds out that skiing is harder than he had originally expected.

View on the film:

Whilst the animation is sadly much less detailed than Goofy's previous titles,director Jack Kinney gives the movie a delightful slap-stick feel,by having Goofy crash and bump into everything from the mountains themselves,to even the bed in his own cabin lodge.

Written as a way to cover for voice actor George Johnson working away on live action TV/films,the screenplay by Leo Thiele and Ralph Wright shows little sign of being a scrambled up effort,with Thiele and Wright instead giving narrator John McLeish a thick slice of irony,which helps to make Goofy's "lost" voice,something that can be cheerfully overlooked from the mountain side.

The Art of Skiing is one hilarious Goofy cartoon short

[tavm · 10/10 · 7 January 2009]

Just watched this very funny Disney Goofy cartoon short on YouTube. In this one-as the narrator instructs on the fine art of dressing and then going skiing (which he insists is pronounced SHEE-ING)-the Goof does the opposite in every hilarious way one could think of and more. Director Jack Kinney and his animators milk every bit of humor and slapstick comedy out of this premise and provide a new bit for the humanized dog-his yodel. That yodel was not thought of by the character's original voice-Pinto Colvig who was at Fleischer in Miami at the time-but by his temporary replacement, George Johnson (other yodels were recorded by Hannes Schrolle). That particular bit proved so popular that it became a recurring thing in subsequent Goofy cartoons. So on that note, I highly recommend The Art of Skiiing.

Goof Around

[southdavid · 7/10 · 23 June 2022]

Another short on Disney Plus is this 1941 classic, part of a series of "how to" spoofs that the corporation has made starring the ... dog, is goofy a dog? Let's not question the Goofy/Pluto mechanics of the Disney universe right now.

Narrated by John McLeish, the short sees Goofy (Danny Webb) go on a skiing vacation to the Sugar Bowl ski resort in Northern California. There he clumsily dresses himself, clumsily goes skiing and clumsily runs a ski jump.

I don't want to go to overboard in my review of this one, it is a short after all and just 8 minutes long but it's a classic one and, apparently the debut of Goofy's now iconic holler. It's a lot of fun too and both me, and my son, chuckled along with the cartoon.

Love it

[steve-667-10190 · 9/10 · 13 December 2020]

The yodel and Goofy's shriek as he careens out of control is worth watching this all on its own. I can't help myself. I lose it every time. If this wasn't Colvin, it sure sounded like him.

Great stuff.

Based on performances and results . . .

[pixrox1 · 8/10 · 27 February 2022]

. . . this film seems to have been the official training guide for the 2022 American Alpine Skiing Team during this year's Winter Olympics. The gal who garnered 99% of the attention on U. S. television seems to have patterned her efforts particularly upon the hapless goof pictured here. Like her, Goofy is depicted doing the slalom to illustrate THE ART OF SKIING. Also like her, the two-toothed clown cannot make it past the 14th gate. This animated short suggests how the chair lift can be redesigned to give malingering miscreants sullying our Stars & Stripes a proper comeuppance.

Not that funny

[rbverhoef · 5/10 · 1 May 2004]

'The Art of Skiing' is another example of Goofy's instructing videos and it does not belong to one of my favorites. Although it is not boring to watch you will not really laugh out loud. The cartoon starts in the morning with Goofy in bed, we see how Goofy put on his clothes and from there we see the kind of skiing Goofy. Of course the voice over says one thing and Goofy shows something completely different.

The problem is, I think, that every single gag is very predictable. You can even guess the kind of animation that will come next and that is not something I really want to see with a cartoon. But still, like I said it was not boring so my time wasn't wasted.