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Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: October 7, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
On the way to Miami Beach Bugs misses a left turn at Albuquerque again and reaches the South Pole, where’s confronted with a little penguin chased by an Eskimo, who is as mean as he is out of place. Although Bugs wants to go to the beach, he saves the little fellow.
This is one of the weaker Bugs Bunny cartoons, mainly because of the rather inactive penguin, whose cuteness softens Bugs’s character and because of the large amount of dialogue, provided by Bugs alone. The short’s best scene is when Bugs dresses as a female Eskimo to rescue his waddling little friend. Jones would reuse the little penguin the next year in ‘8 Ball Bunny‘ with moderately better results.
Watch ‘Frigid Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/663/bugs-bunny-frigid-hare.html
‘Frigid Hare’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 65
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Windblown Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Which is Witch?
Director: Norm Ferguson
Release Date: December 21, 1944
Stars: Donald Duck, Joe Carioca, Panchito, The Aracuan Bird
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Donald stars in his first and only very own feature film.
In the opening scene he receives a large package full of presents. When he opens these presents, they lead him to the mild story of Pablo the cold-blooded penguin (narrated by the melancholy voice of Disney-favorite Sterling Holloway), and to the childish story of ‘Gauchito and his flying donkey Burrito’, before it reintroduces Joe Carioca from ‘Saludos Amigos‘ (1942). Joe takes Donald to Baía, where they dance the samba with Aurora Miranda, nicely blending animation with live action, something that occurs throughout the picture.
Another package introduces the Mexican rooster Panchito. Together the trio sings the intoxicating theme song, wonderfully animated by Ward Kimball, who regarded the scene as his best work. Panchito takes Donald and Joe on a magic serape ride over Mexico, visiting Mexico City, Veracruz en Acapulco Beach, where Donald plays blind man’s buff with a bunch of girls in bathing suits. Actually, Donald keeps hunting girls like a hungry wolf throughout the picture.
‘The Three Caballeros’ was the second of two ‘Good neighbor policy’ features, focusing on South America, and the second of six compilation features Disney made until returning to real features with ‘Cinderella‘ in 1950. When compared to ‘Saludos Amigos’, ‘The Three Caballeros’ is brighter, bolder and more nonsensical. It is noteworthy for its bold color design and for its beautiful color book artwork by Mary Blair, which in its modernity looks forward to the 1950s (especially in the opening titles, during the train ride and in the Mexican Christmas episode).
It is most interesting however, because of its zany surrealism, which invades many scenes with associative images, where metamorphosis and abstraction run haywire, not even sparing Donald himself. In this respect ‘The Three Caballeros’ is the boldest feature Disney ever made.
However, its lack of story, its strong touristic content, its outdated live action imagery, its sentimental songs and the two childish stories at the beginning of the feature all harm the picture. Thus watching the movie feels like being on a colorful journey full of beautiful images that nevertheless turns out to be unsatisfactory in the end.
Watch the title song from ‘The Three Caballeros’ below:
‘The Three Caballeros’ is available on DVD
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