The Big Wash
The Big Wash
NR | 06 February 1948 (USA)
The Big Wash Trailers

Goofy tries his hand at a big job in the circus: feeding and washing the elephant.

Reviews
Horst in Translation ([email protected])

"The Big Wash" is a Disney cartoon from 1948, so this one has its 70th anniversary next year. The names Geronimo, Berg and Banta are definitely enough to know that this is another quality watch from the Golden Age of Animation. It runs for 7 minutes as they usually do and show us Goofy in charge of a circus elephant, who unluckily (for Goofy) wants the peanuts, but has no interest in taking a bath. I would say from the comedic and fun perspective this could have been a bit better with the jokes and punchline, but it's not bad by any means either. The clean animation, the charm and of course Pinto Colvig's (as always) excellent voice acting make this one worth seeing. It's not my favorite Goofy cartoon, but it is a pretty solid watch as a whole. I give it a thumbs-up.

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morrison-dylan-fan

Before watching the final Lemon Popsicle movie, (ask your parents,kids!) I felt like having a short change of film scenery. With only one film left for viewing on the first disc of the Complete Goofy set,I decided that it was the perfect time to wash up.The plot:Working as a circus handler,Goofy is given the task of giving elephant Dolores her daily wash. Getting all his soap suds ready,Goofy soon discovers that Dolores is a tusk challenge.View on the film:Bringing Dolores in for the first of three Disney appearances,director Clyde Geronimi makes Goofy's new co-star a delightful match. Backed by a vibrant score from Oliver Wallace, Geronimi gives Goofy and Dolores a crisp design which helps to make the hilarious up in the air gags fly. Keeping the title limited to just Goofy and Dolores,the screenplay by Bill Berg & Milt Banta match Geronimi's visual comedy with a delicate building of friendship between Dolores and a new goofy friend.

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TheLittleSongbird

The Big Wash has to be one of my favourite Goofy cartoons along with Motor Mania, How to Dance and Goofy Gymnastics. Everything I love about Disney is here. Visually it is one of the very best-looking Disney cartoons, with vibrant, colourful backgrounds and a very well drawn Goofy. As is typical with the Disney cartoons, the music is so dynamic and energetic, adding so much to what's going on on screen. The gags are wonderful, beautifully-spaced out and very funny( all revolving around Goofy and Delores using cunning to get what they want), the best ones being when Delores dresses as a clown and the one with the water inflation. I have a friend whose interest in animation started with this cartoon and that particular gag. Goofy is lovable and perhaps a little stupid in that he doesn't see through Delores' disguise, but we love him for it. Delores the elephant makes her second of three appearances, the others being Tiger Trouble and Working for Peanuts, is funny and very cute and works wonderfully with Goofy. All in all, a wonderful Goofy/Delores cartoon. 10/10 Bethany Cox

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San Franciscan

They don't make cartoons like this anymore.As a future cartoon designer growing up, I had always found the original Goofy cartoons to be a mixed bag, and that was because the studio "experimented" with him so much that it drove me crazy. They'd give him human-shaped feet (my biggest complaint, it looks like an eyesore and I found it much too visually distracting), yank off his ears, move his trademark teeth together as beaver-style teeth and at one point even changed his personality and stole his loveable voice away from him! This is especially noticeable during the '50s when the character that resulted, in my opinion, simply wasn't the same character I loved who appeared in his early screen appearances.But THE BIG WASH is the one that I refer to as The Perfect Goofy Cartoon.By this point, Disney had their animation craft down to a science with a pleasing "gloss" look that they had perfected around the time of THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD and would later grace all their feature length films from DUMBO on until the advent of the Xerox camera (who gave them their later "sketchy" look). That highly professional level of quality graces this one, too.Goofy looks absolutely perfect in this one with gorgeous draftsmanship and expression, and the cartoon seems to express everything I love about Disney cartoons in particular: both cute and funny, light, enjoyable and even has a wildly catchy song that I wish they'd re-released on CD sometime. Also, Goofy's voice--if it's possible--has never sounded cuter or more expressive than here (I *LOVE* how he sounds here when being tickled by that trunk! Just listen to that giggle). This is one of those Goofy cartoons that give you an excellent idea of his overall personality as opposed to just a couple of its facets, something I love and have seen in a single cartoon only a few times otherwise.After all these years, I am still as an adult absolutely in love with this short and rushed out to get "The Complete Goofy" on DVD the moment I heard it contained THE BIG WASH. And the moment I got it, I went slightly berzerk that evening playing this clip again and again since I knew I didn't have to worry about the DVD burning out.It goes without saying that I can go crazy on just one cartoon, but hey, I'm a professional cartoonist for pete's sake. ;) But even if you aren't, how could you possibly resist this one's charm? It's one of the cartoons that helped majorly in putting Goofy on the map of history and into the hearts of millions.

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