Animation Celebration Double Feature - Saludos Amigos & The Three Caballeros

And saludos to all of you! In honor of Cinco Del Mayo, the Mexican celebration of independence, we're going to join Donald Duck, Jose Carioca, Goofy, and Panchito the Rooster in their exploration of the culture, music, and beauty...including feminine beauty...of Latin and South America. Why don't we join the Disney animators as they board a plane bound for Lake Titicaca and other points south to see how well these unusual animated anthologies hold up today?

Saludos Amigos
Disney, 1943
Voices of Clarence Nash, Pinto Colvig, and Jose Olivera
Directed by Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney and others
Music by Ary Barroso and others

The Story: The tale of Disney's animators traveling south of the border to soak up inspiration for their work is actually split into four shorts.

Lake Titicaca: Donald visits the title lake on the border of Peru and Chile, where he watches the locals at work and attempts to ride a stubborn llama at high altitudes.

Pedro: Pedro is a baby plane who must deliver the mail when his big daddy plane gets a bad cold. He finds it easy to fly over the Andes at first, until he runs almost headlong into Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America!

El Gaucho Goofy: American cowboy Goofy finds himself thrown into the Argentinian Pampas (grasslands), where he must learn to dance, catch a fast-moving rhea, and eat his barbecued meat in the gaucho manner.

Aquarela do Brasil: Rio De Janeiro native Jose Carioca is introduced in this lovely watercolor tribute to Brazil and Carnival.

The Animation: The Donald and Goofy shorts are pretty par for the course for this era. More care was put into "Pedro," with its rugged mountains and chilly snow storms, and the beautiful "Aqualera do Brasil."

The Song and Dance: "Aquarela" is by far my favorite of the four shorts. The watercolor animation is genuinely gorgeous, and the songs "Brasil" and "Tico-Tico no fuba" are as lovely and lively as the animation. Jose makes a nice, laid-back contrast to Donald, and he's voiced by actual Brazilian Jose Olivera to boot. While the animation isn't as creative, there are some fun gags in "El Gaucho Goofy" and "Lake Titicaca."

Trivia: Most versions of "El Gaucho Goofy" currently on DVD and streaming edit out a sequence of cowboy Goofy smoking a cigarette. Apparently, the unedited version can be found as a bonus feature on the DVD of the documentary on the making of these movies, Walt & El Grupo.

At 42 minutes, this is the shortest Disney animated movie to date.

What I Don't Like: First of all, it's too short. They could have added at least one more cartoon, maybe representing Columbia or Venezuela. "Pedro" has it's moments, but it's ultimately too cutesy. The Goofy and Donald segments feel more like their typical cartoons set in South America than something that really represents those countries.

The Big Finale: The short length and mostly comic shorts makes it an ideal introduction to South America and Donald Duck for younger children; animation fans and older kids may find more to enjoy in the follow-up The Three Caballeros (see below).

Home Media: The solo Gold Collection DVD is out of print, but not hard to find, and it's on several streaming platforms. I'd still recommend looking for it paired with the similar Three Caballeros (below).

DVD
Amazon Prime

The Three Caballeros
Disney, 1944
Voices of Clarence Nash, Jose Olivera, Joaquin Garay, and Aurora Miranda
Directed by Norman Ferguson, Jack Kinney and others
Music by Agustin Lara, Manuel Esperon, and others

The Story: It's Donald's birthday, and he's gotten many gifts from his friends south of the border. The first gift is a reel-to-reel camera that shows three shorts:

The Cold-Blooded Penguin: After introducing several native South American birds (including the wacky Aracuan Bird), we go way south to Antarctica learn more about Pablo, a penguin who wishes to head to somewhere warmer. He's constantly thwarted in his quest, until he turns his igloo home into a raft. Even then, he runs into trouble when his home melts and starts to sink.

The Flying Donkey: A young lad from Uruguay discovers a donkey that can fly in the Andes. They become great friends, and he even enters the little fellow in a local race

At the conclusion of the shorts, we flip over to a pop-up book from Jose Carioca on Baia in his native Brazil, which introduces a beautiful live-action cookie singer (Miranda) and Donald's lusty overtures to anything female. After dancing with Yaya, Panchito the Mexican Rooster comes in to show Donald the Mexican Christmas tradition Las Posadas and dances native to Mexico and Latin America on a magic carpet ride. The movie ends with them singing the title song...and Donald's libido going wild, first on a trip to the beaches of Acapulco, then in a colorful, surreal finale that has pretty girls turning into flowers, cacti, and other Latin American motifs.

The Animation: The first two shorts are, once again, par for the course in this era. The rest is a lot more creative. The live-action/animation combination still looks pretty good to this day, particularly Don dancing with Yaya and chasing after all the girls at the beach in Acapulco. The finale is a stunner, with its blooming girls-into-flowers and swirling cowgirls who become cacti.

The Song and Dance: Wow, does this one get weird. It doesn't start that way, but by the end, you start to seriously wonder what kind of drugs were being consumed at the Disney studios in the 1940's. The work of Mary Blair, the Disney artist who would later go on to do animation for Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland, and Peter Pan and would help do the designs for the "It's a Small World" ride, is all over this movie, especially in the "Las Posadas" sequence and the finale.

And once again, I applaud Disney for its use of actual Mexicans and South Americans in this film, both behind the camera and the microphone.

Favorite Number: The title song is by far the most famous song from either of these films. Don, Jose, and Panchito are hilarious, especially when they're trying to figure out how to end Panchito's long final note! I also love the real-life folk dances in Mexico, with their colorful and fun native costumes, and that bonkers finale to "You Belong to My Heart."

What I Don't Like: That infamous finale really gets a little too weird, especially for what's supposed to be a goofy Donald Duck vehicle. Let's just say, if you're expecting anything like the relatively subdued Saludos Amigos or a typical Donald short, you'll probably be as baffled as critics and most audiences in 1944. Donald chasing after anything in a skirt may be a bit PG-rated for many audiences today as well.

The Big Finale: By far my favorite of the two "Donald South of the Border" films, if only for the creative animation and great music and dancing. If you're a fan of Donald too, enjoy truly deranged animation, or want to take a lighthearted-but-loony look at our neighbors in Latin and South America, this one is definitely worth a look.

Home Media: Once again, the solo Gold Collection DVD is out of print, as is the original DVD set featuring both films. If you love Donald or these movies, your best bet may be to stream them or look for the Blu-Ray set.

Blu-Ray - Saludos Amigos & The Three Caballeros
Amazon Prime