No Smoking (1951 film)

No Smoking
Goofy series
Directed by	Jack Kinney
Produced by	Walt Disney
Voices by	Pinto Colvig
Studio	Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s)	November 23, 1951 (USA)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	6 min (one reel)
Language	English

No Smoking is a cartoon made by Walt Disney Productions in 1951, featuring Goofy. This cartoon is another episode of the "Goofy the Everyman" series of the 1950s. This cartoon begins by tracing the brief history of smoking, including how Christopher Columbus brought tobacco to Europe from the Native Americans, and then moves on to Goofy, as "George Geef" in this cartoon, trying unsuccessfully to drop the smoking habit.

This cartoon, because of its content, was kept off from TV broadcasts. It was eventually included as one of the cartoons featured in A Salute to Father (later renamed Goofy's Salute to Father), a 1961 episode of the Walt Disney anthology series, but the ending was changed. After being subjected to the exploding cigar gag (see below), the revised ending had Goofy announcing that he quits smoking for good.

Finally, the short was included on DVD with the original ending, as part of the Walt Disney Treasures line.

Plot

In this cartoon, we start with flashbacks featuring a "Goofy"-like version of Christopher Columbus, who is given a cigar by a Native American. His three ships bring it back to their country, with smoke floating from them. A man in Europe rolls a cigar with a leaf and a midget lights it with a small torch, and we see the impact of the popularity of smoking today.

Then we fade to Goofy, in the role of George Geef, who is an extreme nicotine addict, smoking various cigarettes, cigars and pipes, as we watch him smoke during the evening and as he goes to bed (as a huge cloud of smoke covers his head), when he wakes up in the morning, as he shaves, as he drinks coffee and at work. But soon his throat tickles and his eyes get irritated and he cannot blow out his matches. So he throws away all of his smoking products and decides to quit. It works fine at first, and feels he can do it.

But then the boss congratulates "George" for being able to quit smoking, and as he lights up a cigarette, he says "It ain't easy. If it was, I'd quit!" Another employee, who is now a father, nearly offers Goofy a cigar in honor of the occasion, but then remembers that he quit smoking. Almost everyone at the office still smokes, and Goofy admits that he loves smoking, and he babbles like crazy and runs out of the office like a madman, leading into the following montage...

Goofy's search for a smoke

Throughout the rest of the cartoon, Goofy (or "George") is searching for a smoke, while he keeps crying, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!" Here's where he finds them, only to have them removed in some way or another.

• He tries to go into a tobacco store, but it's now closed. He then swipes a cigar from the wooden Indian statue near the door. He is about to light it, but a voice calls out "Ugh!" and a well-thrown tomahawk splits the cigar in half.
• He finds some tobacco from a man filling his pipe and a small piece of paper. He then tries to roll his own cigarette the old-fashioned way, but he gets it everywhere.
• He tries to pick up a discarded cigar, but a foot steps on it, flattening it and gets his hand in the process, leaving an imprint on his hand that reads, "Pussyfoot".
• He picks up another cigar near an elevator doorway, but the door closes on the cigar and as the elevator rises, so does the cigar.
• He goes into a smoking room, but is kicked out because it's for women only.
• He struggles with a hobo to get a cigarette, but the hobo wins and says "You lose!".
• He tries to grab a cigar rolling down the street, but it falls into a drainage grate.
• He grabs what looks like a cigar from a man with a bunch of them, but it's actually a now-leaky fountain pen.
• He picks up a white pipe, but it gets blasted to bits as a target in an amusement park shooting gallery. A man then says, "And the little man wins a big cigar!"
• He looks up to see a janitor on a skyscraper drop a cigarette. He eagerly holds out his hand to get it, and even tries to use a ladder to get it, but when he does, it's spent completely; nothing but ashes are left of the cigarette.
• Finally, an elderly gentleman gives him a cigar, but it's an exploding cigar, which Goofy still smokes, while the narrator says, "Give a smoker enough rope, and he'll hang on to his habit."

Historical and cultural references

• One of the Goofies in this short is smoking a cigarette that's from "Phyllis Morrison", which is a parody of Phillip Morris. A subsequent Goofy skywrites an ad telling to "Smoke LOOKYs", which parodies the advertising message, "Smoke LUCKYs" (Lucky Strike brand).
• When Goofy pleads to the elderly stranger for something to smoke, he quotes various slang terms for various tobacco products, in the following order: cig, fag, pipe, nail, weed, rope, chaw, cigar, and snuff. (It is interesting for some modern audiences to find the British/Irish/Australian slang word for cigarette, "fag", used in this 1950's American cartoon instead of its current meaning, and also to find "weed" being used to mean tobacco, instead of the term's current meaning.)

External links

• No Smoking (1951 film) at the Internet Movie Database