Drawn to the Game: Classic Disney Short Subjects that Celebrate Football

By Michael Lyons

Whether you’re a fan of the game, the half time show or the commercials, there’s no denying that Super Bowl Sunday is, well, Super.

There are plenty of ways to prep for the big game: some may toss a football around the backyard, while others might consume enough Buffalo Wings to fill the city of Buffalo.

A less strenuous and low calorie way to get ready for the Super Bowl is to watch football themed movies.  And, a most unexpected genre features some fun football centered entertainment.

Several classic short subjects from the Walt Disney Studio featuring some of their most iconic characters take to the grid iron and all of them make for winning Super Bowl Sunday viewing.

“Touchdown Mickey” (1932)

In glorious black and white, Mickey Mouse, oh so young with his vintage look and button eyes, must lead his football team  (Mickey’s Manglers) and square off against the rough and tumble Alley Cats.

Made only four years after the introduction of Mickey Mouse, this short features animation that can best be described as quaint and comfortable.

Sight gags are predictable and repetitious (a player rolls down the field, flattening other players like pancakes), but there is such earnest innocence to “Touchdown Mickey,” especially when realizing how far animation has come since this short was originally made.

Minnie and Pluto are also featured, as is an early version of Goofy, as the game’s announcer, in this entertaining trip back to the early days of the Mouse that Walt built!

“How to Play Football” (1944)

Of all of the “Goofy How To” short subjects during this time period, this is one of the best, filled with not only great animation, but also a great, satiric look at the game.

In it, “Anthropology A&M” goes head-to-head with “Taxidermy Tech,” and all of the players seem to look exactly like Goofy, as everyone from the spoiled star player to the rabid coach find themselves lampooned.

Helmed by veteran Disney shorts director Jack Kinney, “How to Play Football” is a seven minute blur of creatively paced cartoon violence that craftily comments on the real life violence of the game itself, while somehow never letting you forget you’re watching a Disney cartoon.

“Football Now and Then” (1953)

Also directed by Kinney, this is a seldom seen entry in the Disney cartoon shorts canon.  In it, a grandfather and his grandson watch a football game between players from “yesteryear” (called “Bygone U.”) and today (“Present State”).

Like “How to Play Football,” this short also serves as a satirical commentary on the game, this time during the age of television, as the camera literally swoops in for the huddle and a strange commercial for dishwashers continually interrupts the game.

The short also comments on how the game has changed through the years and without Mickey, Goofy, or any of the standard Disney players in it, “Football Now and Then” is that rare, stand alone Disney short and one with a very off-kilter perspective.

So, as the Super Bowl drifts into it’s seventh hour on Sunday, consider any of these shorts to break up the night and bring a little, well, character to the game.

Sources:

IMDb

Wikipedia

In the beginning: Looking Back at Some Famous Sitcom’s First Episodes

By Michael Lyons

January, the first month of the year; the start of something new.  It’s the perfect time of for a fresh start.

As we work through our resolutions, which sadly may already be broken, it’s good to remember that everyone has to start somewhere and that we all have our own “ square one.”

What a perfect time of year to look back on where some of our most famous TV sitcoms started and reflect back on the very first episodes of these, now legendary, television shows.

“TV or Not TV,” The Honeymooners, aired October 1, 1955

Starting life as a skit on “The Jackie Gleason Show,” “The Honeymooners” became its own show with this episode, in which Brooklyn pals Ralph (Jackie Gleason) and Ed (Art Carney), decide to “share” a television.  They split the cost and keep the TV in Ralph’s apartment, which of course leads to arguments over who will watch what and when and where.

The standards of this epitome from the Golden Age of TV are set in motion in this very first episode, most notably Ralph’s explosions at Ed, which are particularly hysterical here, as Ed attempts to watch the popular kids show, “Captain Video.”

It’s also ironic and so fitting that the first episode of “The Honeymooners” (one of TV’s most popular shows of all time) centered around and commented on what was then becoming our obsession with television.

“The Sick Boy and the Sitter,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” aired October 3, 1961

In this very first episode, comedy writer Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke, of course) is invited to a party at the home of Alan Brady (the show’s fictional famous comedian whose show Rob writes for).  Rob desperately wants to go, but struggles through a clash in his conscience when his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) worries that their son may be coming down with something and doesn’t want to leave him with a babysitter.

Much of what “The Dick Van Dyke Show” would become famous for is strongly in place here, particularly the quick, comic writing and timing (the latter exhibited by supporting players Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie)

What’s interesting is an oh so subtle change, Mary Tyler Moore’s now famous Laura Petrie is referred to as “Laurie” in this debut episode.

“Meet the Bunkers,” “All in the Family,” aired January 12, 1971

The very first episode of a landmark series that was so very revolutionary at its time and started a shift in the TV landscape.

In the premiere show, an anniversary party for Archie and Edith Bunker (Carol O’ Connor and Jean Stapleton) turns incendiary when Archie, the ultra conservative clashes with his liberal son-in-law Mike, a/k/a “Meathead,” (Rob Reiner).

No sitcom before or since has tackled the clash of political and cultural beliefs in such a thoughtful, and still funny, way.  Not only was “All in the Family” a watershed show for its time, it’s still oh so relevant today.

“Give Me a Ring Sometime,” “Cheers,” aired September 30, 1982

We first met the denizens of the bar, “where everybody knows your name” in this debut episode, where Diane (Shelly Long) is jilted by her fiancé and left at the bar, heartbroken.

While there, she meets Sam (Ted Danson), the reformed alcoholic, ex-Red Sox pitcher and the residents and employees of the Boston bar that will feel like home to her and countless, devoted Thursday night viewers for another eleven years.

With “Cheers” becoming a “comfort food” like show that feels so familiar, seeing the first episode is like watching old home movies.

All of these premiere episodes are so much like January itself, an impressive debut with the hope of so much more to come.

Sources:

IMDb

Wikipedia