The long-running debate of ‘Is Goofy a dog or a cow?’ is trending on social media as Disney fans took to Twitter to share their opinions.
The Disney cartoon star was first introduced in 1932 under the name ‘Dippy Dawg’ alongside the likes of Mickey Mouse and Clarabelle Cow.
Goofy has been a fan-favourite for nearly 90 years now but one question seems to resurface on the internet every time.
Is Goofy a dog or a cow? What kind of animal is the beloved character?
Is Goofy a dog or a cow?
Many generations of children and adults have believed that Goofy is a dog until speculations surfaced online that the character might be a cow.
Disney.go.com has compared Goofy to Pluto but explained that Goofy has “more of a human character”. The site says: “Goofy was created as a human character, as opposed to Pluto, who was a pet, so he walked upright and had a speaking voice.”
Fact-checking website Snopes.com has claimed that Goofy is not a cow and hasn’t been inspired from a breed of Scottish cow.
The publication debunked an article by another site which claimed that Goofy is a cow since the character’s love interest in the Mickey Mouse clubhouse is Clarabelle the Cow.
“While it’s true that Goofy and Clarabelle Cow were once an item, this is not proof that they were the same species of animal,” Snopes.com wrote. “Clarabelle was the sometimes girlfriend of Horace Horsecollar, who was a horse and not a cow, and the Disney universe includes multiple examples of inter-species couples: Ben Ali Gator, for instance, woos Hyacinth Hippo in Fantasia; Jessica Rabbit (a cartoon human) has a rabbit husband in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog have an ongoing (if one-sided) relationship in the Muppet canon.”
“Think of the Goof as a composite of an everlasting optimist, a gullible Good Samaritan, a half-wit, a shiftless, good-natured colored boy, and a hick. His brain is rather vapoury.
“He laughs at his own jokes, because he can’t understand any others. He is very courteous and apologetic and his faux pas embarrasses him, but he tries to laugh off his errors. He talks to himself because it is easier for him to know what he is thinking if he hears it first.”
What did Bill Farmer say about Goofy?
Disney’s Bill Farmer, who has voiced Goofy, Pluto and Horace Horsecollar, offered his thoughts about the character in a recent interview.
Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment in 2020, the voice actor firmly said that the character is not a dog, and explained:
“He is not a dog. Pluto is a dog, but Goofy seems to be in the canine family in the same way that a wolf is not a dog, but they also are in the canine family. I think Canis Goofus is the technical Latin term for what Goofy is. He’s just Goofy.”
Farmer added: “He was my favourite Disney character. I grew up doing voices, and I loved cartoons. I always practiced the voices and became a stand-up comic impressionist for about five years before moving to L.A.”
What do people on Twitter say about Goofy?
It’s safe to say that many people have fallen into heated discussions about the inspiration behind Goofy.
This isn’t the first time that the debate about Goofy’s origins has appeared and it’s very likely that it will resurface at some point in the future again.
Check out a selection of fan reactions down below.