Goofy’s back in all-new, hand-drawn animated shorts from Walt Disney Animation Studios, offering funny relatable insights on How to Stay at Home with topics such as mastering the skills of “How to Wear a Mask,” “Learning to Cook,” and “Binge Watching.”
Eric Goldberg (the Genie in Aladdin, co-director Pocahontas) was inspired by the current real-life situation when he came up with the idea of creating these three new shorts. Like most people, Goofy spent the last year and a half staying at home, so it seemed only fitting that Goofy could provide some good-natured lessons in How to Stay at Home and show how to make the best of a challenging situation. Goldberg pitched these to chief creative officer Jennifer Lee at the height of the stay-at-home orders last year, feeling that “Goofy gives us an opportunity to have a little fun with it”.
Lee and president Clark Spencer also recognized that Goofy was the perfect “everyman” to relive some of the common experiences we’ve had during these unprecedented and unusual times. Goldberg directed all three of the films in the series and is the supervising animator on “How to Wear a Mask,” while fellow Disney Animation veterans Mark Henn and Randy Haycock are the supervising animators of “Binge Watching” and “Learning to Cook,” respectively.
“There are so many stories of people saying they baked bread for the first time or they were learning to cook. And I know personally, I did indulge in binge watching! It affected all of us, but we’ve exaggerated certain things in these shorts; I don’t have as much trouble putting on a mask as Goofy does,” said Goldberg.
The animated shorts are produced by Emmy Award winner Dorothy McKim (Prep & Landing, Meet the Robinsons). Disney legend Bill Farmer, the voice of Goofy since 1987, provides the charismatic and clumsy character’s familiar vocals, while actor Corey Burton is the narrator of each short.
“We’re taking our cues from those great ’40s cartoons, the ‘How To’ cartoons that Jack Kinney directed, which were always so funny and so well done. By the same token, I think we went for a slightly more modern-looking style. We didn’t want it to feel like it came directly from 1942,” Goldberg told D23 in an interview.
The Walt Disney Animation Studios is all set to present Goofy in How to Stay at Home series, streaming exclusively on Disney+ beginning 11 August.