How to Hook Up Your Home Theater

Now we come to the 2007 Goofy short, “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater.” Gillianren started their review by saying, “When I went looking for a still from this, it of course hit the snag that any search for the cartoon does—getting caught up in all the actual images of actual home theater set-up. One image, which came from a how-to video for a Sony TV and so forth, looked not unlike the still I’ve chosen for my article image. Much of the cartoon is of course comedic exaggeration, but I had to connect my cable to my TV the other day, despite the fact that I thought I’d already done so, and yeah, there’s a lot of connectors on the back of my set—and this set is considerably newer than the cartoon and assumes that most of your important connections will be via HDMI cable, so you won’t even need that many plugs.”

By the way his house looks; Goofy hasn’t updated his TV since the last “How To” short, 1961’s “Aquamania.” Gillianren said, “In order to watch the Big Game—even Disney isn’t going to tangle with the NFL’s lawyers, I guess—he goes to a Giant Warehouse Store (where, hmm, the employees are wearing blue and yellow and where could that be?) and buys, well, everything.” Including equipment that quickly became outdated by 2007, and a VCR, which had been that way for at least five years at the point of this release. Then, with the help of the narrator, Corey Burton, he prepares everything the way Goofy does.

Gillianren admitted, “Honestly, this isn’t my favourite of the “How To” shorts, which are my favourite Goofy shorts and probably my favourite Disney shorts full stop. For one thing, it’s missing the cheerful pomposity—I love the scene in “How to Ride a Horse” wherein both Goofy and the horse are so bored by the narration that they practically fall asleep.” This narrator sounds like he doesn’t know a whole lot about what he’s doing than Goofy does, and even if the right words of the narration makes it evident that he doesn’t, his tone should make it sound like he does.

Gillianren said, “The problem, I suppose, is that this is a subject where we feel as though most people don’t know much.” This isn’t golf or baseball, where so many people play that for fun. This isn’t even flying a plane, where we know people who are licensed can do it. This is something that looks like a new skill even to experts. Gillianren said, “But I mean, while I don’t know the actual details of how to objectively tell if one TV is better than another, the short doesn’t even make hay on that.” There’s one too big to fit into Goofy’s house, and that’s it. The narrator says to be practical, but there isn’t even a right word about what a practical TV purchase would be.

Gillianren said, ‘I suppose the difference here is that, in 2007, setting up electronics like this was something you just started having to do every few years, whether you liked it or not, and every other “how to” cartoon was about a hobby of some sort. It’s a different style. It’s still cute; don’t get me wrong. It’s also true that there’s a lot of comedy in the concept. It’s just that this isn’t all it could be, and that’s the sort of thing that always makes me a little sad.”

Gillianren ended his review by asking, “Help me replace my TV that makes a weird crackling noise every morning a minute or so after I turn it on.”

As a compilation of previous Goofy shorts that I have never seen, I would say this one is a good one with a lot of laughs. I would recommend this to all Disney fans, specifically Goofy fans, since they will get a good laugh watching this short.

Stay tuned tomorrow on the next short that I will look at in “Disney Month 2020.”