Teaming of Mickey and Goofy

[Frank Bubacz]

Hi,

Floyd Gottfredson is famed for adapting Mickey and his friends to the comic 
strip medium, enriching their personalities, effectively combining comedy 
with adventure, introducing essential characters like Chief O'Hara, The Blot 
and Eega Beeva, being highly influential in general, etc., 
but.......................... has he (and I certainly don't want to forget 
his writers) ever been given credit for teaming Mickey with Goofy??

Since I first read, or better: watched the pictures of the first comics I 
owned as a kid, there always had been the team of Mickey and Goofy. They 
seemed to be as inseparable as, say, Donald and his nephews. Or Laurel and 
Hardy for that matter. It seemed it had always been that way. I only 
discovered very recently that the twosome NEVER had been a duo in the 
classic Disney shorts of the 30s, 40s and 50s. Here it was always either the 
whole gang, the trio of Mickey, Donald and Goofy, or maybe a cameo, but no 
hint whatsoever of a proper duo. Call me slow, but I really was surprised 
when I finally noticed. :-)

So the teaming was a development of the comics. As there was hardly any 
other artist dealing with the mouse universe up until 1939, when Manuel 
Gonzales took over the MM Sunday page, I attribute the creation of the duo 
to Gottfredson and his authors. Sadly, apart from the odd story here and 
there, I am not familiar with Gottfredson's work. INDUCKS helped me to find 
out which of his stories included Goofy, but it couldn't tell me where he 
accompanies Mickey throughout a whole adventure or where he only has a 
smaller guest appearance. So I have a few questions for our experts.

When do you reckon did the duo of Mickey and Goofy start "officially"? When 
did it become the rule, rather than the exception? Did the teaming happen 
accidentally, i.e. Gottfredson wasn't allowed to use Donald anymore (as in 
Editor-In-Grief and others), because DD got his own strip? When did the 
detective element come in? Can we attribute it to Gottfredson or was it 
other artists/writers (Murry? Guido Martina?) who made it popular?

Too many questions really (or maybe too stupid questions) to even expect one 
reply, I guess... You have to forgive me, but I am just rediscovering MM 
after a long period in which I really only cared for Barks, as far as Disney 
comics are concerned.

Nice to be back,
Frank




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