Goofy is a dog who wears clothes, drives a car, and talks. Pluto is a dog that basically acts like a dog. Why the difference?
asked May 27, 2012 at 22:36
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4this question would be a great one for Movies and Television SE. Unless anthropomorphic animals alone are enough to make this Sci-Fi/Fantasy, but I don't see any SFF content in this question as is.– Mark BeadlesMay 28, 2012 at 1:01
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1It's a matter of taste, really -- Anthropomorphic animals can be assumed to only exist in fantasy or scifi (via uplift or some such) since they aren't found in the real world, but Disney didn't really explain it either way, so it could be argued they are merely human substitutes. The line between fantasy and cartoon gets a little blurry. YMMV.– K-H-WMay 28, 2012 at 1:16
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Voted to close as off-topic. Also asked a related question on meta.– Kyle JonesMay 28, 2012 at 2:48
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1@MarkBeadles Anthropomorphic animals aside, it seems to me the Mouse and the Duck are on topic because the stories often cross over into clear sci-fi/fantasy territory: Donald invents Duckmite and flies to the moon; Donald and the square eggs; Mickey as the Sorcerer's Apprentice; Mickey in the world of tomorrow with flying cars etc.; Mickey shrinks and visits the world in an atom; etc. etc.– user14111Sep 26, 2013 at 3:48
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1 Answer
In general, the obvious: Goofy is anthropomorphic, Pluto is not. In effect, for plot purposes, you can think of Goofy as a human, and Pluto as a dog.
It goes deeper than than, but you have to look at their origins a bit.
Pluto
Pluto was based upon the Bloodhounds from the movie 'Chain Gang', the only significant difference being the color of his ears. Like his inspiration, he's a dog, first and foremost, and his role was to be a dog. As such, he was able to act as a foil to other characters, serve to move the plot as needed due to doing 'doggy' things, and so forth. He was a minor character, until 'Playful Pluto', where he finally took a starring role.
Pluto also didn't speak. He could bark, growl and so on, but he couldn't actually verbalize. As a result, the animators were forced to portray his thoughts, moods, etc., via body language and facial expressions. (At least once, they cheated somewhat, by having an Angel/Devil pair on his shoulders that could speak, but this was unusual.)
Pluto was clever (sometimes), but he was still just a dog; the situations he got into were those that his level of intellect was appropriate for, and he had only the tools that a dog had for resolving them.
Goofy
Goofy was an anthropomorphic dog. He could speak, he had some degree of reasoning and intelligence, and, in effect, the 'dog' aspect was never significant. Much like Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and others, he was, in effect, a human with various animal inspired qualities to his appearance. In Goofy's first cartoon, he was referred to as 'Dippy Dawg', and was shown as basically an annoying rube annoying others at a performance.
As with Disney's other anthropomorphized animals, he got into situations that you would normally see a human get into. He spoke to others, he used his intelligence (or, often, lack of it) to move the plot along, and was able to do anything a normal human could.
If you look at the plots of situations they were both involved in, they really aren't very similar; Goofy is in plots where a human could readily have been substituted, and Pluto is in distinctly animal plotted cartoons.
From the Wikipedia article on Goofy:
Disney has needed to deal with a certain amount of confusion concerning the fact that the anthropomorphic Goofy is treated as a human while Pluto (an ordinary dog) is treated as a household pet, despite being of the same species. On their web site, it stated that "Goofy was originally created as Dippy Dawg" and "was created as a human character, as opposed to Pluto, who was a pet, so [Goofy] walked upright and had a speaking voice".
Why did Disney chose to make Anthropomorphic animals as their stars? It could be for any number of reasons, including avoidance of offending any specific human group (unlikely, given the era, but possible), making them more attractive to kids, and so on.. But that's another question. :)
