Friday, May 31, 2013

Hockey Homicide



There have been quite a few great Disney animators who brought the character of Goofy to life.
Art Babbitt developed him during the mid 1930ies as a type who thought long and hard about something, and then did it wrong (Art's own words).
Other animators followed, John Sibley did outstanding work on shorts like Olympic Champ, and Woolie Reitherman's performances in Saludos Amigos are incredible.
In 1945 Milt Kahl worked on a couple of Goofy shorts, the hilarious Tiger Trouble and the wacky Hockey Homicide. The latter one presented a world in which hockey players as well as audiences were drawn as Goofy type designs. Milt had particularly fun animating the referee, who occasionally lost his balance on the ice. Those scenes are as fluid and elegant in their own way as ballet dancing.
Here are a few of Milt's rough drawings of that character. Beautiful expressive hands, and extreme (but appealing) squash and stretch.







You can watch the short here: