Live Action Films

Disneyland Around the Seasons

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Original release date: December 18, 1966

Rating: TV-PG. “Contains tobacco depictions.” “It may contain outdated cultural depictions.

Length: 51 minutes

Background:

If you’re reading this when it was originally written – 2020 – you know we are in the middle of the Coronavirus lockdown. If you’re reading this in the future, congratulations… you survived the Coronavirus.

For the first time ever, all Disney parks around the world are closed for an extended period of time. The only way to see the rides is to hop on YouTube and watch ride-through videos or some of the many, many, many vloggers doing their thing and making exaggerated faces at the camera.

However, thanks to Disney+, there is one movie that will take you there. Well, it’s kind of a movie.

“Disneyland Around the Seasons” originally aired as an episode of “The Magical World of Disney,” the long-running Disney-oriented series that was off and on for many decades. In this 1966 episode (not 1967 as Disney+ tries to tell you), which has now been declared a movie by the team at Disney+, one Walt Disney gives us a look at new developments at Disneyland, Walt’s original park.

The program originally aired three days after Walt’s death, service as both a salute to Disneyland and a tribute to our Disney king.

Review:

We’re going to take this review step by step instead of overall as we would with most movie reviews.

We kick off with Walt himself in a room of the figures that would become the children of “it’s a small world,” that attraction with the song that is now back in your head.

Walt kicks us back to the beginning of Disneyland’s second decade, with New Year’s fireworks kicking off behind Sleeping Beauty Castle and the Mark Twain riverboat full of people with sparklers, which seems dangerous but they lived wild in the 1960s.

“Every day is a holiday” at Disneyland, exclaims Walt, as we see various shots of Disneyland with things such walk-around Three Little Pigs characters. We also see many shots of guests in the stereotypical Native American feature headbands, something we definitely wouldn’t see in 2020.

We also get footage of a man with a jet-pack blasting off from Tomorrowland and flying around the castle, kicking off the second decade with futuristic style.

Back to Walt and the “it’s a small world” kids, the newest attraction at Disneyland. We even see a scale model of the Disneyland entrance clock of the attraction, which is pretty dang cool. This takes us to a live shot of the real entrance clock doing its thing. For those of you who have only experienced the Magic Kingdom version of “small world,” it’s pretty well known that the Disneyland version is vastly superior. The song, however, remains the same and will annoy you either way.

We see video of the “small world” opening ceremonies, including a jovial Walt driving a car in a parade with dancers in various countries’ outfits. Children from every nation were special guests of the dedication ceremony and yes, they were made to sing the song. Water from the major oceans and seas of the world were dumped into the waterways of the ride.

We watch as Walt and the children ride the ride, which is basically a ride-through of the entire ride with some occasional Walt commentary and definitely some angles you won’t usually get riding it yourself. If you go for a ride-through video on YouTube, you’re very likely to not see this 1966 version of the ride. The ride has been updated to include “small world” style animatronics of some popular Disney characters such as Woody and Alice amongst the children of the world.

Up next, Walt discusses his personal admiration of Abraham Lincoln and the creation of “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” detailing how much work went into the attraction. This segues us into some video of Animatronic Abe in the attraction making his speech. Even for 1996, the work and movements put into the Lincoln animatronic is impressive. The video goes noticeably grainy here, probably because it is a fairy dark attraction and this is in no way HD (but looks good in most spots!).

We head to New Orleans Square, a new land at Disneyland at the bend of the river. Walt gives us a history lesson of the Louisiana Purchase, which gave us a hunk of land for $11 million. In comparison, Walt notes, New Orleans Square at Disneyland cost the company $15 million.

To the video we go with a look at the grand opening of New Orleans Square, with a look at the authentic details of New Orleans smattered throughout the construction. We get some footage of a Jack McBrayer lookalike playing banjo and a dude with a giant cigar watching him, probably the cause of the warning. We get some jazz band action to really excite the crowd as well.

We cut right out to dinosaurs, which definitely weren’t in New Orleans Square. This is for a peak at animatronic dinosaurs and the primeval world, something that was a feature of the Disneyland Railroad ride-through for a bit.

Enough of that drama though, as it’s CHRISTMAS TIME. Walt shows us models of characters and costumes for the Christmas celebrations including “Fantasy on Parade,” which is – you got it – a Christmas parade.

We get a lot of angles and views of the parade, including a walk-around Mickey beating on a drum to kick it off. We see other walk-around characters like Donald, Winnie the Pooh (and his terrifying tree), and Eeyore. These costumes have come a long way.

Captain Hook rides though with Smee, Peter Pan, and the whole crew. Hook is terrifying. A rare walk-around Dumbo appears as well.

Pluto rides though with a dog house and ACTUAL DOGS IN DRESSES AND WALKING ON TWO LEGS. Worth the watch alone, really. Mary Poppins and crew dance around to “Step in Time” while a character I didn’t know existed in walk-around form, the Reluctant Dragon, walks though as well. This is fascinating.

Goofy, looking similar to nowadays, rides through in his hunk of junk car with Minnie. The car naturally goes nuts, shooting actual fire into Goofy’s butt and squirting him with water. I’m starting to realize this is the entire parade.

Snow White and the dwarfs march through. It’s kinda cool to see a Snow White with just her hair and not the wig they all wear now. We also get a pretty clear look at the human face inside of a dwarf hat, something that is far improved in modern day.

More characters roll though, including characters from Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland, and a giant chicken with a cigar. Why not. There’s also a terrifying scarecrow band scarier than anything at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.

This all leads, of course, to Santa. Looks just like ’em! This takes us away from the parade and into the Candlelight Processional, with choir members marching and singing religious Christmas songs down Main Street.

Walt thanks us for coming, letting us know they’re working on new stuff.

The special ends with a look at next week’s episode, looking at “The Truth About Mother Goose.” That does not exist, thus far, on Disney+.

Extras:

No extras for you.

Should you watch it?

If you are curious at all about the theme parks, 100% watch it. It’s a fascinating look at some classic attractions and the parade alone is worth your hour.

Pixar Shorts

Mike’s New Car

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Original release date: September 12, 2002.

Rating: TV-G

Length: four minutes

Background:

Outside of their fantastic movies, Pixar is well known for their shorts. “Mike’s New Car” was the first time the two were smashed together.

Not surprisingly, Mike and Sulley were very popular following the release of “Monsters, Inc.” in 2001. When time came for the DVD release, the Pixar crew decided to include a bonus short as a special feature.

For the first time, Pixar decided to dive back into a world they had created – in this case, Monstropolis – and visit with characters we had seen before.

Review:

The first thing that screams – like the children in the movie – is how GREAT Sulley’s fur looks in HD. While the short isn’t full-screen and features the black side panels, everything within those two panels looks fantastic.

So Mike has bought a fancy new yellow car. He lets Sulley in to check it out, which involves lots of hijinks. Sulley takes the seat up and down, ejects Mike and grinds him up a bit in the motor gears. Oops.

Mike finally makes it in and just can’t figure out the 900 buttons on his car console. I can’t even figure out the 24 on mine, I get it.

Various button pressing causes various issues, Mike finally being so angry he throws Sulley out. Mike zooms off and… well, kaboom.

It’s a short short but full of visual gags. The original voices – John Goodman and Billy Crystal – are present.

Extras:

No extras for you.

Should you watch it?

Sure, watch it. The Monsters universe is a fun place that is a visual delight, and that shows in the short time the short runs.

Disney Animated Films, Frozen

Frozen II

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Original release date: November 22, 2019. It had its premier at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on November 7th.

Rating: PG

Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes

Background:

Strangely enough, a lot of this movie is about “the background” of the characters. We’ll get to that in a bit.

“Frozen II” was announced officially in March 2015 after the phenomenal cultural impact of the original “Frozen” movie. Remember when you couldn’t take five steps without seeing a little girl in an Elsa dress and hearing “Let It Go”? Parents, remember when you couldn’t turn the corner in your own house without hearing “Let It Go”? Remember when you secretly loved the soundtrack and listened to it even witout the kid around?

Wait, that was just me? Oh.

When it was released in theatres, its opening weekend saw it soar to $130.3 million, the fifth-highest opening for an animated film in history. It would go on to gross over a billion dollars worldwide.

“Into the Unknown” – the “Let It Go” of this film – would go on to receive a nomination for “Best Original Song” at the Academy Awards, an award it would lose to Elton John. It would win two of the eight Annie Awards it was nominated for, including one for Josh Gad’s voice acting and one for animated effects.

Review:

The first thing you notice about “Frozen II” is the same thing you noticed about the original – it’s gorgeous. The snow and water looks real. The colors pop like crazy, from Elsa’s blue dress to the shine of the colored ice crystals. The salamander is bright and moves quickly.

The second thing you notice about “Frozen II” is the music. The soundtrack was part of why the first was a success, and the second is just as good. The same team from the first movie was rightfully brought back and they struck gold a second time.

The musical flourishes pull the story all together, and what a story it is. If you haven’t seen “Frozen”, I’m afraid I have a seven year old spoiler for you. Ready?

Anna and Elsa lose their parents. I know! That never happens in Disney movies!

“Frozen II” kicks off with King Agnarr, in a flashback, telling his young daughters Elsa and Anna about their grandfather King Runeard. Their grandfather established a treaty with the Northuldra tribe to their north and built a dam in their enchanted forest. Much like the real-world parallels being drawn, the Arendelle gang and the Northuldras find a disagreement, breaking down the peace. Unlike in the real world, however, this causes a wall of mist to trap everyone in the enchanted forest and the elemental spirits to go crazy in the forest. It leads to Runeard’s death as well.

With that groundwork out of the way, we also meet our “B plot” – Kristoff and his plans to propose to Anna. He has a ring ready from the beginning of the movie, but things just don’t seem to work out for proposing.

Elsa sings – of course Elsa sings – after hearing a mysterious voice calling out to her from the enchanted forest. She then goes – you guessed it – INTO THE UNKNOWWWWWWWN along with Elsa, Kristoff, and Olaf.

Olaf? He’s going through some things. He’s maturing and realizing that the world kinda sucks. He sings “When I’m Older,” a song about everything making sense when he is older. Bad news, snowman. It makes less sense than ever.

As our heroes progress through the mist, they separate and Elsa learns the voice calling her was her mother’s. Of course it was. She learns her grandfather was actually not such a nice guy and that the damn was less of a gift and more of a barrier.

You can probably figure out how it goes from here. The good guys do some stuff, the kingdoms are united, and everyone lives happily ever after. Anna stays on to rule Arendelle while Elsa takes over as ruler of the north.

Oh, and yes, Kristoff proposes. One of the highlights of the movie is his song with Sven, the reindeer (that is better than people). Seek it out.

Extras:

The only extra at the moment is the “Frozen II Trailer” running at two minutes. Due to “Frozen II” being rushed to Disney+ with the Coronavirus going on, I’d expect the special features to appear later on.

Should you watch it?

It’s a great movie. Yes, watch it. “Frozen” at least thus far always equates to quality. It’s a good story, great voice acting, and a fantastic soundtrack wrapped up in a gorgeous package. Watch the first if you haven’t seen it, then come back for round two.

Pixar Shorts

Luxo Jr.

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Original release date: August 17, 1986 at the SIGGRAPH conference and then dusted off to be premiered to the world as the short before “Toy Story 2” debuting on November 24, 1999.

Rating: G

Length: two whole minutes

Background:

“Luxo Jr.” is one of those shorts that has transcended its original placement and has become the icon of Pixar.

The star of “Luxo Jr.” is a little lamp with the same name. That lamp has appeared at the beginning of every Pixar film since. You know the lamp.

Written and directed by John Lasseter, the Hawaiian shirt-wearing estranged mastermind of Pixar fame, the short debuted at the SIGGRAPH conference. It would go on to be the first CGI animation film to receive an Academy Award nomination for “Best Animated Short Film.”

Luxo Jr. now serves as the icon for Pixar, much like the castle for Disney. Giant versions of Luxo Jr. sit on the Pixar campus as well as Disney’s California Adventure, and Lexo Jr. is a playable character in “LEGO The Incredibles” for modern systems.

Review:

This thing is two minutes, so don’t expect a grand review.

We start with the original Pixar logo, un ugly little square that thankfully was replaced with our star.

The iconic red-starred ball seen across the Pixar Multiverse rolls into a giant lamp named Luxo. Luxo rolls it back, only for it to come back… and a diminuative lamp of the Jr. variety appears.

Luxo Jr., playful as ever, jumps on the ball… and it deflates. Sadness emerges, and this is when you really see the lifelike reactions animations were going for.

Luxo Jr. finds a beach ball, ending the short on a happy note, and rolls it right past the dejected parental lamp.

Extras:

No extras for you.

Should you watch it?

It’s a piece of Disney history that introduces Pixar lore… and it is two minutes long. Of course you should watch it.

National Geographic

Drain Alcatraz

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Original release date: December 19, 2017.

Rating: TV-PG

Length: 47 minutes

Background:

National Geographic is known for its many nature and world documentaries, and with the creation of its own channel has come various series and special. One of those is the “Drain” series.

Each edition of the “Drain” series features CGI and expert analysis to drain all of the water around the attraction to discover what might be underneath.

“Drain Alcatraz” is actually the seventh in the series of “Drain” documentaries, having already drained the Titanic, a sunken pirate city, and many places in between.

I chose it because I’ve actually visited Alcatraz before on a vacation trip and it continues to intrigue me. I’d love to go back, but until then I guess we’re about to drain some water.

Review:

First, some history… Alcatraz was a prison. It was located on an island a mile off shore, surrounded by icy waters, fog, and many creatures. It’s called “The Rock” because it can arch its eyebrow. Wait, no. Because it’s an inescapable prison on a giant rock.

Alcatraz sits alone in the waters of San Francisco Bay, about a mile from the city. It operated for 29 years and housed the most problematic prisoners in the country. Nobody escaped “officially,” though a few presumably drowned into the ocean.

Looking at today, we see the island as a museum, an attraction visited daily. We meet Ranger John Cantwell, who gives us a history lesson on the island. It was originally ran by the Army, then became the prison for the worst of the worst.

We learn fourteen official escape attempts happened, with five being unaccounted for. Folklore says they didn’t make it, between currents and sharks in the waters around it. There were problems before closing, with the bricks crumbling, metal rusting, and inmates trying to escape. We learn about John Paul Scott, the one escapee who swam far enough – the San Francisco Bridge – to count as officially escaped. However, he was so exhausted from the swim that he was an easy catch.

So why was the San Francisco Bay such a burden to those trying to escape? Let’s drain it!

The graphics and animation are nice, and you can tell some work went into it. It looks as you’d expect… the actual Alcatraz island with lots of dirt around it.

We get into some science talk, talking about plates and such causing earthquakes in the San Francisco area and how it has “violent geology.” This includes a look at how the land of San Francisco was formed and how Alcatraz Island became its own land.

This is the point where I remind you this originally aired on television, and you can tell where the commercials breaks were as we go into what would be breaks with “we’re gonna drain it!” style of teasers as well as reminders of its inescability.. It’s not horrible, but it is noticeable.

After we regurgitate more material about possible escapees, we send high-tech multibeam scanners down to the sea floor to see detail of what it looks like down there. This brings us to “the drain,” as we see CGI animation of what it would look, which is mostly clean and lined with bedrock.

I don’t know how to make the sea floor sound exciting, but it is pretty cool to see. After about five minutes of discussion, we talk about the currents and how they likely would have swept any swimming escapes under and away.

Fog made it even worse, which is something explored with a lot of weather and science talk. I’m going to leave that to the documentary.

We eventually circle back to the same escapes again, including evidence of escapes such as paddles and life vests. Could the escapees have made it? Now we’re dropping a tracking buoy in similar conditions, in which the answer is… “eh, maybe.”

We mostly wrap up with the conclusion that nobody officially escaped… and that the island is the perfect place to go if there is an earthquake.

Extras:

No extras for you.

Should you watch it?

This is really subjective to if you’re interested in the subject matter. It is a bit repetitive, which I understand is because it aired first on television with commercial breaks and teasers trying to get viewers to stay tuned. I’ll go with watch it. It was interesting enough to mostly contain my attention for 45 minutes.

Pixar Shorts, SparkShorts

Kitbull

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Original release date: February 18, 2019 worldwide on YouTube. It debuted at the SIGGRAPH conference on August 14, 2018, before having a limited release at the El Capitan Theatre on January 18, 2019 with two other shorts.

Rating: PG

Length: nine minutes

Background:

“Kitbull” is one of Pixar’s “SparkShorts.” What’s a SparkShort, you ask?

Besides having great movies (and also the “Cars” series), Pixar is known for their dynamic shorts that typically run before movies. They decided to go in a different direction with the SparkShorts program in 2018, giving employees six months and a limited budget to see what they could create.

Not surprisingly, the Pixar employees knocked it out of the park by creating fun, advanced, and mind-blowing shorts. “Kitbull” might be the most acclaimed of them thus far, scoring an Academy Award nomination for 2020’s ceremony for “Best Animated Short Film,” a category it would lose to the short “Hair Love.”

Review:

“Kitbull” immediately begins with a gorgeous animation style and a little black kitten on the prowl, searching for somewhere to eat the fish it had claimed. The kitten finds a warm box and falls asleep under a stuffed elephant, only to be awoken by a drooling pit bull.

The cat is confrontational and the pit bull just wants to play, which is definitely something I’ve learned from having a pit breed myself. Unfortunately for the pit bull, it gets chained up outside and ignored by its owners.

The curious kitten finds a bottlecap to play with, eventually knocking it to the pit bull. The pit bull knocks it back, scaring the cat. However, the neurotic cat begins a game of knocking it back and forth before becoming scared of the pit bull’s playful ripping of a stuffed animal’s head off. Fair.

Night comes and we see the pit bull’s owners actually kicking it out of the house and into the rain. Heartbreaking. Meanwhile, the cat finds its way stuck in a six-pack of soda can rings.

The pit bull lets helps the cat out, who scratches it because A) cats are mean and B) the cat was intimidated. The poor pit goes back to its house as we see more cuts on the pit, which again is heartbreaking.

Kitty feels sorrow later and tries to pass the bottlecap back to the pit who has fallen asleep. When the pit doesn’t do it, the kitten bravely goes into its kennel and starts kicking its wounds before cuddling up to it and falling asleep, causing the pit to wag and thump its tail.

The pair go out to play as they hear the owner starting to open the door and come out with a chain. The duo escape, freeing the pit from its cruel owner and giving it a friend for life in the kitten.

As the story ends, the pair find two owners who love them for exactly who they are.

Extras:

“The Making of Kitbull” is about four minutes and is exactly as it sounds, featuring footage and interviews of the animators discussing and making their masterpiece.

Should you watch it?

Maybe it is because I have a rescue pit breed dog myself who came from a bad home, but this short hit me HARD. I felt strong emotions of anger at the owners, pity for the poor pup, and I swear my heart grew three sizes bigger at the end. I can’t recommend this short enough. Show it to everybody you know. Watch it.

Pluto Shorts

Rescue Dog

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Original release date: March 21, 1947

Rating: TV-G. “It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”

Length: seven minutes

Background:

Can you believe we are already in 1947 in the chronological Disney+ experiment?

Well y’all, I’m going to be honest. I have no real background on this – thanks for nothing, Internet – but it’s a Pluto short!

Review:

It’s cold and snowy as Pluto looks out from his special rescue dog doghouse, before coming out and prancing around… or trying to prance, as he quickly falls though snow.

After taking a plunge to save his fallen canteen, Pluto skims across ice before losing his canteen to a seal in icy water. This freaks out Pluto because, well, most dogs don’t interact with seals.

Pluto grabs the canteen and attempts to march away, but the seal would rather play. Pluto is a brat though and kicks him into his icy water hole.

The seal just wants to play, marching under Pluto’s legs before playfully running off with the canteen again. We end up in an ice cave, where we get the neat echo effect for sound effects and music. This was a well-done effect for 1947.

Well, things go bad and Pluto falls down a cliff, through the ice and into frigid waters. The rescue dog gets stuck under the ice and things get dire. Is Pluto going to die? That would be a different short.

Rescue seal makes the save, diving under and pulling out the near-death dog, ice block and all. The warm contents of the canteen come in handy and our little dog friend is saved, now becoming quick cuddle buddies with the seal.

Extras:

Nothing.

Should you watch it?

Yes, watch it! So far most of the Pluto shorts haven’t landed well with me, but this one was a good ones. The seal steals the show.

Goofy Shorts

Knight for a Day

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Original release date: March 8, 1946

Rating: TV-G. “Contains tobacco depictions. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”

Length: seven minutes

Background:

While considered a Goofy short, “Knight for a Day” is technically very much not a Goofy short. All of the Goofy-style characters are said to be lookalikes. Seems Goofy.

This short is loosely based on “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

Review:

We head back to Canterbury and a jousting field, as various Goofalikes watch – including Princess Esmerelda, Goof nose and all.

First we meet Cedric the servant, making sure his competitor Sir Loinsteak is ready to joust. This includes breaking Loinsteak’s sword, shoving his big snout into a knight helmet, and accidentally pushing him over the horse.

This fall causes Loinsteak to be out, with Cedric being talked into taking his place by the fast-talking narrator.

Sir Cumference, the champion, has entered the field in the meal time as little Cedric comes out on the other end to battle for the hand of Esmerelda.

The jousting begins and this does not go well for Cedric, with Sir Cumference quickly taking the lead. However, Cedric won’t go down and eventually wins via Sir Cumference’s falling out due to exhaustion. Ah yes, that’s how sleep wins against me.

With lil’ Cedric the winner, his new fiancé Esmerelda comes down to shower him with kisses and that’s that.

Extras:

Nothing.

Should you watch it?

You can skip it. Out of the many Goofy shorts we’ve seen so far, this is one of the weaker ones.

Disney Animated Films

The Three Caballeros

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Original release date: February 3, 1945 in the United States. It premiered in Mexico City on December 21, 1944.

Rating: G. “Contains tobacco depictions. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”

Length: 1 hour, 11 minutes

Background: In my last review, I watched “Saludos Amigos,” Disney’s sixth feature-length animated film and a love letter to Latin America. That love continued with “The Three Caballeros,” Disney’s seventh feature-length animated film.

In “Saludos Amigos,” our pal Donald met Jose Carioca for the first time. Jose would return for this film, as you’ll see later, and bring a third bird (Panchito) to form the famed “Three Caballeros.”

This was the first feature-length animated film to also incorporate live-action actors, as some of the time’s hottest Latin American stars appear throughout the film’s segments.

The film received two nominations in sound categories of the Academy Awards but didn’t bring either home. Reviews of the film with mixed, with some saying it was more “razzle dazzle” and technological tricks than usual Disney quality.

The Caballeros as a group have had a surprising staying power in the Disney multiverse. Donald meets in his Caballero outfit at some Disney parks, and Jose and Panchito join him for special occasions.

The three also took over the “Gran Fiesta Tour” ride at Epcot in 2007 and appear in Disneyland’s version of “it’s a small world.”

Most notably, the tree had an animated resurgence with 2018’s “Legend of the Three Caballeros.” It was originally just on a DisneyLife app, but has since spread to Disney+. Its creators have posted about how views on Disney+ could help get the series to continue, so I highly recommend you check it out.

Review:

As the opening credits roll, we get the “Three Caballeros” song, which is one of the best Disney songs. It gets stuck in my head randomly on a regular basis.

The feature begins officially with a giant package, a birthday present for Donald on his birthday (Friday the 13th) from his friends in Latin America. He opens it to find lots of smaller presents.

The wild use of color is immediately noticed as Donald is against a hot pink and orange background, which along with his blue outfit give us a burst of color.

The first one he opens is a film projector and film, which segues us right into a segment called “Aves Ravas,” narrated by Sterling Holloway, the voice of Winnie the Pooh. We’re looking at some birds that might be Donald’s cousins, in this case some penguins in Antartica.

We meet Pablo the penguin, a penguin that just can’t get warm enough. He even has dreams of going to warmer places, so he straps his heater to his back and begins his journey. He has several missteps that freeze him up, so he comes up with a plan to sail with his igloo north. He finally finds land, sailing past the Chili coast and towards the Galapagos Islands.

Unfortunately for Pablo, the sun feels much warmer up this way, melting his ice ship and igloo. He finally finds land and warmth, which he loves… but with a twist of missing the cold.

Our next bird stop on our video tour is an educational look at the birds of the area, including the Aracuan bird, an annoying bird I’d love to never see again.

Following the educational bird lesson, we segue to “The Flying Gauchito,” a short from the new narrator’s viewpoint of being a young boy getting ready to go hunting. The narrator meets a flying donkey named Burrito. Mmmm… burrito.

Our little gauchito child struggles to ride Burrito, finally leashing him and training him for the fiesta.

Yes, we head to the fiesta and join the big race. The duo quickly fall behind to the real racers and pull up the rear, but then little gauchito loosens up the wings of Burriro, flying at a breakneck speed before flying past the rest of the racers and winning the big prize.

Next Donald opens a pop-up book, one that happens to have our bud Jose Carioca and his cigar inside. The annoying bird from earlier reappears, but is chased off as Jose introduces Donald to Bahia (spelled Baia in the film), a Brazilian state.

With that, we head into the animated version of Bahia, which is apparently very purple and pink going by the color scheme used as Jose sings.

Donald and Jose take a trip through the book to Bahia, complete with Jose’s numerous costume changes during his song about Bahia.

This is when we jump into live-action, with the real life Aurora Miranda – a popular singer – appearing alongside the animated Donald and Jose. It’s not quite as seamless as we’d get used to with Roger Rabbit and such, as you can see Donald and Jose go super-grainy as Aurora and friends dance in front of them. In 2020 it doesn’t work that well, but I’m sure it was huge in 1944.

Animation issues aside, Donald is very jealous of a mustached fellow singing to Aurora and grabbing her eye. Besides having Daisy already, Donald should really chill about his love for this human woman he met five minutes earlier. However, this section does end with him scoring a kiss, which transforms our dance scene into a multi-colored trippy scene.

We’re back to the presents now as Donald a big one labelled Mexico, which explodes into color and the “Three Caballeros” song. Is this where we meet our third Caballero?

Yes! Panchito arrives, and we get the singalong version of the Caballeros song. I’m never going to get this out of my head now. Panchito is a red Mexican bird who keeps some quick-draw guns on his hips for quick moments of exclamation.

Panchito introduces Donald to a piñata, which leads to questions about what the heck is a piñata. Panchito goes into the Biblical Christmas story but with children recreating it. Instead of having a baby Jesus though, they find a piñata. Donald gets blindfolded and takes several bad swings before finally busting it open, revealing a weird menagerie of children, books, instruments, and confetti.

This leads Panchito into a history lesson on Mexico. This includes Mexico City being built on water. The trio hop on a flying carpet and fly into the live-action world, taking in the sights of Mexico City. They learn several dances along the way and we learn Donald has a problem… a lady problem.

Yes, Donald falls quickly for another human woman, dancing with her and calling her “toots” (what a romantic duck). Panchito has him on the flying carpet again, in which they immediately find a beach with bikini woman for him to fall for. Poor Daisy.

The animation/live-action work better together here as Donald has found an entire circle of women to flirt with. The women toss him around via blanket in some masterful animated/live-action trickery before he again ends up flying through the air.

As the three travel by flying carpet, Donald falls – again – for a human woman, seeing singer Dora Luz in the sky. He’s in deep for Dora, doing dances on stars as she explores singing more. Unfortunately for Donald, he keeps envisioning the other birds and all kinds of colors mid-song.

Finally our duck meets Dora in person, as they dance together along with some dancing cacti, something that would make Janet from “The Good Place” very happy.

This is how we find our end, as the gang meet a Disney World-level of fireworks and one final run-through of the Caballeros song to send us out.

Extras:

There is a minute or so clip from the movie.

Should you watch it?

Watch it. Besides being educational about Mexico and our friends south of the border, all three Caballeros are great characters.

Disney Animated Films

Saludos Amigos

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Original release date: February 19, 1943. It also had premieres in Rio de Janeiro on August 24, 1942 and Boston on February 3, 1943.

Rating: TV-PG. “Contains tobacco depictions. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”

Length: 42 minutes

Background: “Saludos Amigos” is a special case of a Disney film, as it officially counts as the sixth Disney animated feature film despite being under an hour long.

The story behind the film is quite extraordinary and involves the U.S. Government. Before the United States entered World War II, the Department of State gave Disney a goodwill tour of South America with hopes of it leading to a film.

Walt Disney himself and a group of composers, artists, and other Disney magic makers took the tour to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru.

The progressing film was even given federal loan guarantees, which helped Disney produce it as well as ensure it would show what the Department of State wanted it to show.

It worked, as the film showed Latin American areas to U.S. citizens, with film historian Alfred Charles Richard Jr. noting that the film did more to cement interest than the State Department did in half a century.

The film was nominated – but didn’t win – three Academy Awards, as usual for Disney films they were in the music and sound categories.

Review:

“Saludos Amigos” is a mix of live action footage and four shorts, giving the kids the animated fun they need and adults a look at just how life in Latin American countries is.

As an animated sequence shows planes flying over Argentina, with half of the crew landing in live action at Lake Titicaca. I’m still not mature enough for that name.

This is educational, so we learn all about market day as we see the local citizens trading and selling goods. Bright colors are the rage, while the music is “strange and exotic.” It isn’t strange, but okay.

We get llamas! Llama footage galore, as we see animators draw some llamas. This brings us back to animation and Donald Duck, sitting on a Lake Titicaca sign. Donald appears to be suffering from high altitude issues.

Donald jumps into a basket boat, which are made with reeds. After destroying the first, he takes off in a second where he quickly gets shot out.

Locals play music as Donald takes pictures with his camera. Llama time! A local child controls a llama with a flute, which Donald exclaims is amazing as he snaps a picture.

Donald gets the flute, having also tried on a native costume. Donald kinda sucks at the flute, utterly confusing the llama and sending him falling repeatedly. Eventually Donald gets on the llama, riding though low cloud cover and across a suspension bridge before swimming away.

We’re back live action with artists and writers on a plane, back when you could smoke on a plane and seemingly the entire Disney company smoked. Before landing in Santiago, Chile, the creation of Pedro the small airplane is formed… and that’s our next animated stop.

We meet Papa and Mama Plane as well as Pedro Plane. Pedro goes to school, which is full of sight gags like an airplane skeleton being made of bones.

With Papa sick and Mama not a big flyer, Pedro is drafted to do Papa’s mail delivery flight. After a successful takeoff, Pedro first heads to Mendoza to collect the mail. However, he gets a sight of a mountain that has caused issues for others and gets scared before successfully collecting the mail.

Pedro gets distracted by a buzzard, playing as a shooting plane before coming head-to-head with the scary mountain. Pedro battles through and… yep, he makes it. It isn’t as easy of a survival as I make it sound, but I’m trying to give you a reason to watch it.

Sidenote: “Pedro” was released as a theatrical short later on. It’s a good short, and I’d throw a “watch it” rating at it by itself.

Now we fly to Buenos Aires and live action again, with our first actual look at Walt himself in live action. With his usual cigarette in hand, Walt looks at artwork of gauchos, which they then go to see in person. Guess what that leads to?

“El Gaucho Goofy” is our next short, and guess who it stars? That’s right, the Goof. We meet the Goof on his horse, Goof is a Texas cowboy, but gets a wardrobe change to fit in as a gaucho. His close friend is his horse, who gives him a big kiss and immediately becomes an amazing character.

We learn about the way a gaucho eats, which gives Goofy a knife. That seems like a horrible idea. Turns out it was, as he takes a big bite out of the knife.

The Goof successfully catches an ostrich, which is impressive, then breaks out his dancing shoes to dance with the horse – the horse which as FOUND A DRESS. This horse needs its own series. A+ short on horse usage alone.

The cartoonists are set loose again in live action Brazil, drawing up Jose Carioca, a cigar-smoking, smooth-dressed green bird that is still part of Disney animation today.

The Disney crew takes a part in the carnival of Brazil, with lots of fun footage of singing, dancing, and floats. One of the popular songs is “Aguarela de Brazil,” which just so happens to be our final short of the film.

As we hear the song, colorful animation develops and really shows off the magic of Disney animators. The colors eventually lead us to one Donald Duck, who has Jose Carioca drawn and alive right next to him. This would be the start of a beautiful friendship.

The music quickly gets Jose moving, and eventually grumpy Donald joins in before they share some cacacha, which is so hot to Donald that he breathes enough fire to light Jose’s cigar.

The samba really lays in and the two dance with silhouettes of ladies… which leads to a very abrupt ending to the entire film. Guess we are done here!

Extras:

There is a minute and a half clip from the Donald portion early in the movie. That’s it.

Should you watch it?

Really, “Saludos Amigos” is the story of five parts – the live action sections and the four shorts. Three of the four shorts border on great and the live action is fun. At under 45 minutes, the film breezes by. I highly recommend that you watch it.

Riding in the Disney time machine to review everything Disney from 1928 to today!

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