He is normally characterized as hopelessly clumsy and dim-witted, yet this interpretation is not always definitive; occasionally, Goofy is shown as intuitive and clever, albeit in his own unique, eccentric way.

According to Colvig, one day in 1931, he was having a conversation with Walt Disney and director Wilfred Jackson, and began to reminisce about “…a grinny, half-baked village nitwit back in my hometown whose mannerisms I had copied and used for one of my former stage characters, The Oregon Appleknocker.”[13] Colvig later identified this “village nitwit” as a local flagman that worked at Jacksonville, Oregon's main railroad crossing, who he described as a “...slow-minded guy who is the happiest fellow in the world.

Each small town has one, and he always seems to hang around the depot... As a youngster I used to watch every train come in, and I knew all the details and peculiarities of that flagman's life.

The next day, Colvig went in front of a microphone and camera and started acting out the loose ungainly mannerisms of his Oregon Appleknocker persona, while animator Tom Palmer sketched out a character based on his performance.

This early version of Goofy was named Dippy Dawg by Disney artist Frank Webb[citation needed] and was depicted as an old man with a white beard, a puffy tail, and no trousers, shorts, or undergarments.

By his seventh appearance, in Orphan's Benefit (released on August 11, 1934), he gained the new name "Goofy", but was still considered a minor character.

Inspired by popular comedy trio acts of the era – such as The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers – Walt Disney and his storymen decided to team Mickey, Goofy and the newly popular character of Donald Duck together in a cartoon entitled Mickey's Service Station: directed by Ben Sharpsteen and eventually released on March 16, 1935.

[16] In mid-1934, Walt held a story meeting for Mickey's Service Station where he and Sharpsteen began assigning animators to specific sequences.

[17] "I had to fight for that..." Babbitt rememebred years later: "... in it [Mickey's Service Station] there's a small sequence of Goofy on this cylinder block of a car.

Some of what Babbitt wrote included: In my opinion the Goof, hitherto, has been a weak cartoon character because both his physical and mental make-up were indefinite and intangible.

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...

[19] Mickey's Service Station also set the template for a series of films where Mickey, Donald and Goofy attempted to perform a certain task, with each character being separated early on, and attempting to solve a problem in their own way and with their distinct style of comedy, before reuniting at the end – often resulting failure rather than success.

Here he developed a technique he called "breaking the joints" – where Goofy's arms, legs, feet and other appendages would bend the wrong way for a few frames before popping back into the correct position.

[23] Clock Cleaners and Lonesome Ghosts (released on both October 15 and December 24, 1937 respectively), are considered the highlights of this series, with the former being voted Number 27 in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons.

The reason for this was simple: between the easily frustrated Donald and Pluto and the always-living-in-a-world-of-his-own Goofy, Mickey—who became progressively gentler and more laid-back—seemed to act as the straight man of the trio.

[25] Kinney's Goofy cartoons would feature zany, fast-paced action and gags similar to those being made at Warner Bros and MGM, and possibly influenced by Tex Avery.

[25] How to Ride a Horse, a segment in the 1941 film The Reluctant Dragon, would establish the tone and style of future shorts like The Art of Skiing (1941), How to Fish (1942), How to Swim (1942) and How to Play Golf (1944).

Goofy starred in a new theatrical cartoon short called How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, that premiered at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

The short received a positive review from animation historian Jerry Beck[28] and then had a wide release on December 21, 2007, in front of National Treasure: Book of Secrets and has aired on several occasions on the Disney Channel.

[30] Guest starring in the episode, "Quack Pack", Goofy appears as the Duck family's wacky neighbor after Donald accidentally wished them into a '90s sitcom.

Perhaps because of poor sales, Goofy Adventures was the first of the company's titles to be canceled by the Disney Comics Implosion, ending at its 17th issue.

It was passed on to Western Publishing scripter Del Connell who refined it, including the eventual device of peanuts providing superpowers.

[37][38] A second version appeared as an actual superhero in the four-page story "All's Well That Ends Awful" in Donald Duck No.

1 (Oct. 1965), written by Bob Ogle and drawn by Murry, in which the origin of his powers are special peanuts Goofy finds in his backyard.

[45] Gold Key Comics subsequently published the comic-book series Walt Disney Super Goof for 74 issues through 1984.

[citation needed] Gemstone reprinted a Disney Studio Program story written by Evanier and drawn by Jack Bradbury as a backup in its 2006 release Return of the Blotman.

Pinto Colvig voiced Goofy for most of his classic appearances from 1932 (Mickey's Revue) to 1938 (The Whalers) when he had a fallout with Disney and left the company to work on other projects.

[3] Bob Jackman took Colvig's place when he left the Disney Studios for unknown reasons and voiced Goofy in 1951 for a brief time.

Walker Edmiston voiced Goofy in the Disneyland record album An Adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol, Performed by The Walt Disney Players in 1974.

[58] Farmer closely imitated Colvig for projects like The Prince and the Pauper but began putting his own spin on the character in 1992's Goof Troop.