| How to Hook Up Your Home Theater | |
| Director: | Kevin Deters Stevie Wermers |
| Producer: | Tamara Boutcher |
| Story: | Kevin Deters Wilbert Plijnaar Stevie Wermers Dan Abraham |
| Starring: | Bill Farmer |
| Narrator: | Corey Burton |
| Music: | Michael Giacchino |
| Editing: | Jeff Draheim |
| Animator: | Andreas Deja Mark Henn Eric Goldberg Dale Baer |
| Production Companies: | Walt Disney Animation Studios |
| Distributor: | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
| Color Process: | Digital Technicolor |
| Runtime: | 6 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater is a 2007 American animated comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, directed by Kevin Deters, and co-directed by Stevie Wermers-Skelton. It was the first theatrical Goofy solo cartoon short in since Goofy's Freeway Troubles (1965) 42 years earlier, and the first official short of the Goofy series since How to Sleep (1953).
In the style of Goofy's "Everyman" cartoons of the 1950s, this short follows Goofy as he buys and then sets up his home cinema system to watch football.
The short was partially produced using a new "paperless" production pipeline for Disney, the first major change in production technique for hand-drawn animation at Disney since the introduction of CAPS, and was also an attempt to see if the new digital animation tools could be used to produce a short with the same graphic look as that of a late 1940s, early 1950s cartoon. Instead of animating with pencil on paper, some of the animators, such as Dale Baer,[1] worked on Wacom's cintiq tablets along with Toon Boom Harmony for the animation, while other animators such as Mark Henn and Andreas Deja continued to work in the traditional method with pencil on paper. About 50% of the short was done using the new paperless technique.[2]
The short was released with Disney's on December 21, 2007. It was also paired with The Game Plan for the film's release in the United Kingdom. The short was shown early at the "Animate with the Greats" class taking place at Facet's Theatre. Several Walt Disney Animation Studios animation artists taught the class, including Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers. It is also available for purchase on the iTunes Store. It was included in the Animation Show of Shows in 2007.
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater was released on the DVD Have a Laugh, Volume 1 on October 26, 2010. It was subsequently released on the Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection Blu-ray and DVD set on August 18, 2015.[3]
The short is available for viewing on the Disney website. It is not available to stream Disney+.[4]