.jpg)
About a month ago I learned of the most interesting rumor about “Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros.” The little-known 1940s flicks, which feature Donald Duck traveling to Central and South America, meeting, and having adventures with Brazilian parrot Jose Carioca and Mexican rooster Panchito Pistolas, were supposedly commissioned by the U.S. State Department.
As soon as I read this, I instantly had to know more. I really wanted to learn the real story, if one existed, behind the rumor and share it with you here. I couldn’t do that, however, until I was able to find at least some verification from a reputable source.
Finally I found it, on the Walt Disney Corporate Studio Careers “About Us” web page. The site features little blurbs about each decade in Disney feature animation. Its text for the 1940s: “Walt Disney’s 1941 South and Central American travels inspire two films: Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1945) (made at the request of the U.S. State Department).” I doubt the official Walt Disney Corporate website would contain false information, so now I have license to believe the story and draw more information, where I can, from less official sources.
Or perhaps I can, from the most reputable source of all: Walt Disney himself. Armed with knowledge of the rumor’s legitimacy, I trawled the depths of Google for more information. Soon I stumbled across a very interesting thread on the forums of movie website filmspotting.net.
A post under the topic “Disney Animation Marathon” talking about “Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros” contains a video of Walt Disney discussing the making of the two films. One of the first things he reveals is that he traveled to South America at the behest of the State Department.
I suppose that this video, hosted on YouTube, could somehow be a fake. If so it’s an excellent one by someone with way too much time on his or her hands. For now, I’m going to believe that it and the information it contains is authentic.
In the video, Walt explains that in the early 1940s the State Department was apparently afraid that some Central and South American countries might have Nazi sympathies. It was decided to send Walt Disney down in an attempt to bolster goodwill toward America.
At first, Walt says, the State Department just wanted him to do a sort of “hand-shaking” tour, but the film legend demurred that schmoozing wasn’t really his forte. Instead Walt took a team of his animators, Mary Blair included, and made a series of shorts set in the regions they visited.
Donald Duck, rather than American “icon” Mickey Mouse, was chosen to head up the shorts because the filmmakers found that his garbled articulation solved the problem of the language barrier. Jose Carioca apparently became even more popular than Donald for a while after the full film’s release, especially in South America.
That’s the story, then, behind these two obscure early Disney flicks. I personally find the behind-the-scenes information even more interesting than the movies themselves, which, as slapped together feature lengths of a series of shorts, just aren’t that compelling.
What I find most interesting of all is that the government chose Walt Disney to act as their ambassador-of-sorts to Central and South America. It really shows just how influential a figure Walt was in his time, not just in film or technology but in society at large.
Related Articles:
Art Show Coming to Downtown Disney
“Suite” Star to Helm New Series
(*This image by Joe Shlabotnik is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
