The 1940s were an odd time period for the Walt Disney company, Bambi did not do financially well upon its initial release and World War II in full swing. The company did not have the material nor funds to really do much outside of a collection of package films, shorter segments sewn together to make a feature length production. However, at the start of the "Package Film Era" of the Animated Canon, or "The Wartime Era" (Which actually extends beyond 1945 but... whatever, I guess), the American government wanted to combat the ties Latin America had with Nazi Germany, something called the "Good Neighbor Policy". The end result of that was Saludos Amigos in 1942. It was apparently popular enough to warrant a sequel, yes a sequel. The Three Caballeros is one of the rare sequels in the Animated Canon, and is the first of all of them. That all being considered, the one question that needs to be asked remains; Is this film any good?
The Three Caballeros stands out from the rest of the package film era because it actually does have a central plot, although it does end up being like the "Central Plot" of Fun and Fancy Free, where it just serves as a vehicle to bring us to all the different segments of the movie. It's Donald Duck's birthday, and he gets a bunch of gifts from his friends in Latin America, and that's pretty much it. I think rather than go through each segment individually, I'll talk about them in chunks because there aren't any really major jumps or dips in quality.
We start with a film projector with two shorts, "The Cold-Blooded Penguin" and "The Flying Gauchito", over all these shorts are cute, not really hilarious, but cute none the less. I remember really liking the Cold-Blooded Penguin segment a lot as a kid, although if I do have one criticism it's that, as much as I love Sterling Holloway (Come on, he was the voice of Winnie the Pooh), he really didn't seem like a good fit for this short. I could imagine someone with a punchier voice doing it and making the deliveries funnier, but for what we got, Sterling did a good job as the narrator of this segment. Afterwards, we meet José Carioca, and we get a segment about Bahia, which leads to some songs, some live action mixing and some really wacky animation. Honestly the same can be said about the segments with Panchito Pistoles, it's a collection of songs, the characters interacting with live action footage, and wacky animation.
I guess that kind of is the biggest problem with the movie, that's just kind of all it is, outside of the two shorts at the start, we get a bunch of songs, a lot of live-action mixing and a lot of wacky animation, and it's just not really engaging. Even as a kid I remember fast forwarding through a lot of the movie to get to the parts I liked. I think the best example of this is during one of the moments of live-action footage. We see a bunch of people dancing, and that's it. We don't get anything about how the dance is performed, we don't get the history or cultural significance of the dance, all we're told is that it's "Panchito's favourite dance" and we just watch it. Believe it or not, learning about other cultures is very fascinating, and I would have been way more interested in talking about this dance than watching it, especially because... well I'm not taking part in the dance, I'm sitting down watching a movie on my couch, so I can't really get into the excitement of the moment.
Really, after a while I just found myself getting bored of some scenes. I'm sure to some they'd be impressive examples of film and animation, but it's like going to a party. It's fun at first, and kind of neat, but after a while you're just drained and you want to go, but your ride wants to stay and hang out, so you just sit in the bathroom and try to rejuvenate but then you go back out and you just drain even faster. At that point, I don't really care how pretty the décor is, or how nice the music selection is, I'm bored and I'd rather be doing something else.
Speaking of Décor and Music, I must say this film is... okay. Animation wise I do think it's on par with the rest of Disney's output at the time. They do have a lot of wackier and more cartoony bits, and they're fine. I'd say music is pretty fair, they use a lot of more traditional songs rather than writing their own songs, and they're fine songs. With the exception of maybe two songs, one of them being the memorable "The Three Caballeros" which is genuinely one of my favourite Disney songs. I think this scene is a perfect summary of what the film was intended to be like, it has the more energized animation and the fun song, but I guess it was never going to be easy to make an entire movie like this one segment.
Honestly, as much as this movie failed to engage me, I am kind of glad it became kind of a popular franchise. The Three Caballeros have made their way to multiple comics, with two being written by Don Rosa himself. José cameos in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there was the mini-series Legend of the Three Caballeros, and they even appeared in DuckTales 2017. I'm gad they're popular within the Disney world, I do like these characters. Still, the movie is not very interesting. I feel like if they took these characters and had them explore different aspects of their cultures, or meeting other characters and exploring their cultures, that it would be more interesting than this movie. On some level, I can kind of recommend it, it is an odd curiosity in the Animated Canon. But unlike something like Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, I don't think this is a movie that is a must watch. I don't think you really need to watch this movie unless you're a huge Disney fan. It is on Disney+, and you can probably find individual segments here and there so, I can't stop you if you want, but I can't really recommend this one.
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