Did you know that they’re still making My colleagues knew. But I was still surprised and delighted to stumble upon the newest one, a little cartoon titled “Gone to Pieces,” and discover that it was absolutely fantastic.
And by absolutely fantastic, I mean: incredibly disturbing. The premise of the short is simple: Goofy puts on some roller skates, and then he absolutely, 100 per cent dies.
Like, his body falls completely to pieces, which raises all sorts of mechanical and existential questions about these characters. What is Goofy even made of? Is he a replicant?
Perhaps one of those disparate parts contains his soul – I’m going with his floppy hat. And why, across all the Disney universe, does he keep dying?
The rest of the episode, of course, is spent with Mickey and Donald trying to put their best friend back together in increasingly grotesque and silly ways. It’s a bloodless Frankenstein, with Mickey Mouse himself as the hapless doctor, restoring that which should never be restored.
Mickey Mouse has cursed at the name of God, but he will never die.
Also, there’s a really fantastic delayed punchline at the end. This is quality stuff. What a terrifying world these characters live in. May they never find a way into ours, amen.