User reviews

Cute, Goofy Disney Family Mickey Cutest, It should be called "How Not to Swim"... I liked the reminder, although it's almost impossible to remember when I'm panicking in the water "remember a scientific fact: the human body it's lighter than water, so it's impossible to sink "...

Disney's How to... shorts with Goofy always promise much, succeeding brilliantly in making the audience laugh but also done in a way that we learn from what we have seen and been told. How to Swim is not an exception. Maybe it is somewhat routine in its demonstrative-documentarian format, but that I think applies to all the How to... shorts, and they are still hugely entertaining regardless. The idea still works wonder and dealt with very imaginatively here and in every How to...short I've seen. How to Swim is not one of my absolute favourites of the series, but it is still really imaginative and kept me entertained throughout. The animation quality is still colourful and fluid, and the music is characterful and beautifully orchestrated. The narration is sharp and thoughtful, and John McLeish voices with great clarity and authority, merging seamlessly with Goofy's on-screen antics. The gags are clever and imaginative and also range from very funny to hilarious. Goofy's cluelessness at the cars piling up behind him as he glides across the streets and that he's underwater are classic and very like the sort of things Goofy would do. Goofy's attempts to fit himself in the tiny locker and the visuals of when he gets cramps are also hilarious. Goofy is great fun, he always excels when he's an appealing yet clumsy everyman and it's that persona that we see to endearing and fun effect. Overall, lots of fun from start to finish, if you love Goofy I see no reason to why you wouldn't love How to Swim. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney GOOFY Cartoon.

The Goof demonstrates HOW TO SWIM - and also how to sink and nearly drown.

Here is another Sports Goofy film, enjoyable but routine. Diving & surf bathing are also briefly touched upon, with our hero equally inept at both. Some good safety tips are presented along the way. John McLeish narrates in his best documentarian manner.

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.