Lambert the Sheepish Lion

This generous collection includes 46 of the 48 shorts that starred Goofy between 1939 and 1961 (but none of the great Mickey-Donald-Goofy films from the mid-'30s). The "How to Ride a Horse" sequence in The Reluctant Dragon (1941) set the pattern for many of these cartoons. An elegant narrator (artist John Ployardt) explains a sport that Goofy attempts to demonstrate. The character that animator Art Babbitt described in a 1935 lecture (quoted in the DVD bonus material) as an easygoing dimbulb gave way to an enthusiastic but spectacularly maladroit figure. One of the funniest entries in the series, "Hockey Homicide," contains several studio in-jokes: dueling stars Icebox Bertino and Fearless Ferguson, and referee Clean-Game Kinney are named for artists Al Bertino, Norm Ferguson, and director Jack Kinney.

Chip and Dale come across Donald's house trailer. They amuse themselves by jumping on his car horn, which wakes up Donald, who chases them off. Donald heads for the swimming hole, but Chip and Dale mess with the diving board and send him crashing into his trailer. Next, they bomb Donald with pine-cones through the hole in his roof. Donald goes after them, but ends up wrecking his car.

For some reason, Donald adopts a baby. It turns out not to be a duck, but a kangaroo. Donald takes little Joey home and tries to make him take a bath, with the help of the friendly lady of the adoption bureau on the telephone telling him what to do. After the bath, Donald's baby is scared by the rug made of a bear.

Donald's nephews come to lunch filthy from playing outside. Donald sends them to wash up; when he finds they've done a half-hearted job, he sends them to bed without supper. They scheme to get food; Donald catches them, but falls off a cliff while chasing them. He's OK, but temporarily out cold. The boys build a fake corpse and dress Donald up as an angel, and he buys it for a while.

Donald's doing a little tree surgery when he spots Chip 'n' Dale gathering nuts. He saws off the branch outside their hole and paints it with tar, which Dale gets stuck in. Then Donald has a little fun with the long-handled pruning shears.

Donald is inspired by the spirit of his forefathers to take up a gun and go hunting for his food.

Donald receives a mail order hypnosis kit complete with hypnotic goggles and decides to test it on Pluto. Using the goggles, he convinces Pluto he is a mouse, a turtle, and a chicken. Each "transformation" Pluto undergoes Donald finds extremely funny so he keeps at it until he notices chicken Pluto getting into a fight with a rooster. Donald helps Pluto win the fight by making him think he's a lion but, unfortunately, the goggles break and Donald is chased about by Pluto until he regains his senses after a fall.