Was it always this trippy? Revisiting Three Caballeros

I don't really want to write about the trippyness of the Three Caballeros, Disney's animated feature from 1944 that used some unused footage from the earlier, surprisingly successful in South America, Saludos Amigos, mixed love action and animation, used simplified backgrounds to save money, and let the animators go a little crazy.

The film is quite weird, mildly uneven, and has that psychedelic Mexican "third act" section that I probably should talk about later. My brother and I watched it regularly as kids---at least I remember that way, and with Disney+, I just recently watched it with my son.

I remember being fascinated with the categorical trio of avian ethnicities: Donald, and American duck; Jose, a Brazilian parrot; and Panchito, a Mexican rooster.

What I did want to write about this time were two things, one I completely forgot about until the audible cue came up, the other was something I noticed because of the elevated level of sophistication in my more mature ears.

The first was the song of the aracuan bird, a character and musical cue I had totally forgotten about:

For some reason, the annoying song and presence of this Woody Woodpecker-inspiration is something I love? Dearly? I guess? I can't explain it. On Youtube someone has pasted together a six-hour animated cycle of the annoying song scene, and while it would be a form of torture to be tied up and forced to listen to it, I think I could last longer than most before losing my faculties.

Instead of a full-order review of this animated project, I just wanted to keep this short and sweet. The aracuan bird, and this other observation:

When Donald meets Jose for the first time, in the middle third of the piece, there is about 25 to 30 minutes of regular samba beats, Brazilian music for a solid brick of time. The music shifts noticeably, and it should, when we head to Mexico with Panchito. It's all pretty informative for the era---the 1940s---and yet is characteristic, I'm sure, of specific regions in those countries.

But you hear them and think: "Brazil" or "Mexico."

At one point, Jose and Panchito are pushing a reluctant Donald to go dance with a pretty live-action lady at Mexican fiesta, and Donald complains that he doesn't know the dance steps. He gets up on the stage and the music changes: the band starts to play a jazzy dance number, with pianos and horns, and I realized: this is American music.

It's a noticeable shift, and in the movie theaters of the 1940s, anywhere in the world, all three of the music cues would have been obvious to listeners; samba, garricha, and jazz. In another room not watching but still able to hear, it's obvious.

I have a thesis about portrayals of the concept of "American" to foreign audiences, like Jiminy Cricket, or Joseph Cotten in The Third Man, or the kid who plays Han Solo in the stand-alone movie. And these music cues are another aspect of that thesis.