How to Haunt a House

    A Goofy Cartoon

    Release Date : October 30, 1999

    Synopsis

    In order to demonstrate how to haunt a house, the narrator arranges for Goofy to temporarily be "not living" and selects Donald Duck to be the one whom Goofy's ghost will haunt.

    Characters

    Mickey Mouse
    Clarabelle Cow
    Goofy
    Donald Duck

    Credits

    DVD

    United States
    Mickey's House of Villians
    Germany
    Verschworung der Superschurken Verschworung der Superschurken
    Italy
    Topolino E I Cattivi Disney

    Television

    Mickey Mouse Works: Season 2 - Episode 6
    House of Mouse: Season 3 - Episode 23

    Technical Specification

    Comments

    From J. D. Weil : Goofy is transformed into ghost (for the duration, since he ain't dead yet) as part of the instructional routine of trying to haunt a house. In this example Donald's house is chosen, and Goofy goes through whole bit with opening and closing doors, which Donald surprisingly accepts as an automatic door, and trying different ways of turning out he lights, to which finds ways of turning them back on, In fact, for some strange reason, Donald never blows his cool in in this cartoon (maybe because it's Goofy who's the star of this short) until goofy completely frustrated at he end and abandons his haunting routine and it's at this point that Donald realizes that Goofy's a ghost, runs out of the house, into his car and takes off, crashing the car and then coming back into the house as a ghost at which point he and Goofy walk off together, ending the cartoon. This is one of the better shorts in the series, and I would rate it an 8.
    From Juan F. Lara : I wouldn't expect to see a pantheon character get killed off. The Narrator arranged for just that to happen to Goofy, done in the narrator's usual straightforward manner. That early plot point led to a funny exchange between Goofy and the Narrator, with Goofy at first casual about his death before it actually sunk in and the Narrator assuring him that it was all routine. The rest of the setup had this contrast between Goofy's morbid situation and the mundane way Goofy goes about demonstrating lessons. Like to find a haunted house he just had to look in the classified. Also, the house had a "Nightmare Before Christmas" style design very different from the looks of the Disney characters. By playing the routine off of Goofy's death the creators made the "how to" routine more interesting to watch than in any of the show's other "how to" shorts.

    The short had a rare cultural reference in using the Dating Game to pick a hauntee. I laughed at that scene and I thought it fit into the short's theme of being upbeat and morbid at the same time, but I'd discourage the creators from doing cultural references more than occasionally. After that scene the short dragged. Goofy went through more lists of stuff to do (here stuff to do to Donald), and Donald didn't show any personality during these scenes. But the fright Donald felt in the last scene was in character for him, and the short's ending paralleled. the attention grabbing opening.

    Cartoons about ghosts always have a problem with what materials a ghost can pass through. In this short the rules about that were arbitrary. Goofy could pass through walls but could stand on floors and hold the newspaper in his hands. One gag sequence had him trip over stuff that he could pass through in other scenes. These inconsistencies didn't bother me enough to hurt the short, but they got more noticeable the more times I saw the short.

    From C. T. : I LOVE this one! The animation is gorgeous too even though I felt so sorry for Goofy having to be temporarily dead. Poor thing.

    Did anyone else notice? When Goofy is trying to make scary noises to spook Donald in bed, he actually does a quick cameo reprise of his Jacob Marley role from Mickey Christmas Carol!

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