How To Swim

Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: October 23, 1942
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

With ‘How To Swim’ director Jack Kinney really hit his stride. The film perfectly blends educational information with total nonsense.

The result is one of the best of Goofy’s ‘how to’ shorts, ‘How to swim’ starts off hilariously, when Goofy practices various strokes on a piano stool, unknowingly crossing the street while doing so. Other gags involve Goofy trying to change in a remarkably small beach locker and his attempts to bath in the surf.

The best part, however, is the diving sequence. Here, a great story device is introduced: the chart-like figure, borrowed from the educational shorts Disney made for the war effort at that time. The diving sequence also features the use of the ‘slow motion camera’, which was introduced in the ‘How to ride a horse’ sequence within ‘The reluctant Dragon‘ (1941). The combination of the slow motion camera’s ridiculously elaborate animation and the perfection of the chart figure is deadly funny.

It’s characteristic for the high quality standards at the Disney Studio that even regular gag cartoons contain beautiful and convincing effect animation, like the tidal waves in ‘How to Swim’.

Watch ‘How To Swim’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Goofy cartoon No. 8
To the previous Goofy cartoon: The Olympic Champ
To the next Goofy cartoon: How to Fish