Both films were born of the "Good Neighbor Policy", wherin many movie studios started to make short films extolling the virtues of their neighbor countries in hopes of drumming up some new outlets for foreign distribution. Disney travelled through Mexico and into other countries with his crew of writers, animators and composers in tow, in order to soak up the local customs and flavor and help generate goodwill as well as ideas for new cartoons. From that, the first of the two anthology features on this new DVD, Saludos Amigos, was born.

There's basically no narrative throughline to this compilation of stock footage bridging new animated shorts. There's narration over footage of Lake Titicaca (stop sniggering) and the Andes and Chile, intercut with animation of American "tourist" Donald Duck (the great Clarence Nash) and a cute short involving an anthropomorphic mail plane named Pedro. Therein follows a discussion of Argentine Gauchos (the equivilent of the American cowboy), with Goofy (Pinto Colvig) demonstrating his inept riding and roping skills (censorship note: this DVD still edits Goofy's introduction by digitally removing a lit cigarette from his hand in his introductory scene. Gawrsh!). Finally, the film introduces us to the Brazillian parrot Jose "Joe" Carioca (Jose Oliveira), who introduced Donald and the audience to the beauty of Rio De Janeiro in the exuberant musical number "Aquarella Do Brasil". The resulting "film" (which runs only a scant 41 minutes) is best digested in bite-sized chunks (kids will likely be bored stiff by the "edjucational" live-action segments).

1945's lengthier The Three Caballeros (71 minutes) is an improvement on it's somewhat stodgy predecessor, although it too is a very episodic production with it's own highs and lows. There's a vague attempt at creating a narrative backbone for the various segments with Donald Duck receiving a package of birthday presents from "Your friends in Latin America", which opens the film with a pair of unrelated shorts Donald hooks up to a projector. "The Cold-Blooded Penguin" is a grass-is-always-greener fable about a penguin to longs to escape his Arctic envrironment for a tropical paradise, until he gets his wish and starts yearning for a cooler climate. Following a brief bridging segment about a visit with rare birds, "The Flying Gaucho" is a pleasant piece about a young gaucho who ropes himself an amazing find...a flying donkey named Burrito, who he then uses to enter a race.

At this point, the film suddenly takes a sharp turn into the surreal when Donald's old friend Jose Carioca pops out of a book and seranades him with the lovely tune "Baia" as he and Donald travel to the country, only to become instantly smitten with the "Cookie Lady", in a live-action/animation blend (said Cookie Lady portrayed by Aurora Miranda, Carmen Miranda's comely sister) set to the infectious musical number "Os Quindines Do Yaya".

Things start getting progressively weirder as Jose and Donald shrink and grow and are introduced to the spitfire Mexican rooster Panchito (Joaquin Garay), sparking off the film's terrific title number and a trip into Mexico on a flying serape, wherin the three visit Vera Cruz, Alcapulco Beach (with Donald chasing after live-action bikini babes Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style, the shots of said babes bouncing Donald up and down in a beach towel featuring a remarkably convincing marriage of Donald to the backgrounds) and the "romantic skies of Mexico". Things finally come to a head in the blithely nonsensical final number "Jesusita", a vertitable orgy of colorful animated surrealism that brings to mind the acid trip "Pink Elephants On Parade" number in Dumbo.

Taken together, both films offer a cacophany of elaborate sights and sounds and wonderful Latin music. Some may want to skip past the drier segments of Amigos, but both films offer up Disney at it's most creative and experimental. Modern kids may fidget, but for adult animation aficionados, both films offer much to savor. Ai-yi-yi!

Presentation
While not receiving the kind of lavish, frame-by-frame restoration of other recent Disney DVD releases like The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians,  both films in this collection still look very good for their age, although the animated segments fare better than the live-action ones, which often suffer from mild grain and other print irregularities (Saludos Amigos in particular, being the older of the two and leaning more heavilly on stock footage of varying quality). Still, the colors in both films pop, especially in the surreal climax to Three Caballeros. The sound, remixed to 5.1 for both films, is equally good, the bouncy musical scores and infectious songs getting some good bass. Unfortunately, the original mono soundtracks to both films are not to be found here, continuing the maddeningly uneven Disney policy of seemingly only including the original, theatrical sound mixes to their classic animated film on every other DVD release.

Extras
There are no commentaries to be found here, just four items spread across two submenus (and, thankfully, there's no section full of crappy, set-top games for the kiddies). Under "Backstage Disney" there's the vintage featurette South Of The Border (33:18), a heavilly self-promoting yet entertaining piece featuring footage of Walt Disney and his creative team of animators and composers travelling through several countries in search of new cartoon ideas and to soak up the local color and customs and music. One can't help wishing that the silhouettes of Tom Servo and Crow would pop up at the bottom of the screen at times ("Progress Island, U.S.A....!"), but this is an enjoyable look back at a more innocent form of behind-the-scenes propoganda. Also here is an excerpt from a Walt Disney CBC Interview, which runs a brief 1:46 and has Uncle Walt discussing the "Good Neighbor Policy" that led to the creation of both films.

Under the "Bonus Shorts" menu, there are a pair of Donald Duck cartoons, "Don Donald" (8:03) and "Contrary Condor" (8:04), the former obviously thematically linked to the feature presentations (Donald woos a sexy duck seniorita by trading in his old burro for a flashy new car), the latter having little to do with anything (Donald tries to steal an egg from a condor's nest, only to have to impersonate the mama condor's offspring). Both shorts are in good condition, with little grain and solid colors.

And, lest one forgets, there's the "Sneak Peeks" menu, pimping most of the same shit that Disney has plunked on every one of their DVD releases for the past six months, although at least the Wall-E trailer (2:31) is new. Feast your eyes on numbing ads for The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (1:03 - "Every story has a beginning"...? Wasn't that the tagline for The Phantom Menace...?), Jungle Book 2 (1:03), Little Einsteins: Flight Of The Instrument Faries (0:57 - I swear I didn't make that title up), 101 Dalmatians 2: Patch's London Adventure (1:28), Handy Manny: Manny's Pet Round Up (0:53) and Sleeping Beauty (1:57). Aren't you glad you use condoms...? 

Bottom Line
While undoubtedly episodic, these two features offer the kind of lavish, painterly, lively animation that's become all but extinct, the recent passing of the last of Walt's "Nine Old Men", Ollie Johnston, hammering the point home all the more. Colorful, tuneful multiculturalism at it's most winning, both features are perfect for cherry-picking your favorite segments or soaking up both in a two hour marathon.