Today's quick post is a result of nostalgia, the delay in planning a dinner or other kind of outing for my birthday, and my most recent viewing of The Three Caballeros.
The movie starts with Donald Duck getting ready to open a big birthday box from his friends in Latin America. Lucky him, there are three presents for him to open, and we get to open them with him and be by his side as he watches home movies, dances in a condensed street of Brazil which happens to be contained in a pop-up book, and sail across and through moving photographs of Mexico. And then there are the crazy moments that appear out of nowhere of glimpses into Donald's brain of Latin American women looking pretty and Panchito and Joe Carioca behaving incredibly bizarre and somewhat colorful in what may be a drugged up environment. (Donald, of course, is getting high on life, because that is the best high.)
Talk about the ultimate birthday gift! If I could only decide what to do, an international trip guided by good foreign friends with very attractive potentials would definitely be on the list. Donald is one lucky duck.
I also love the cultural immersion that comes from watching this movie as well as another simplistic Disney favorite, Saludos Amigos. Yes, it's about 70 years old, and times have changed since then, but it is fascinating to watch different cultures in action, with their dances and costumes and languages and rituals and all that they encompass. Even when I was a kid, I was interested in learning what I could about these various cultures south of the border. It was harder to distinguish at a younger age, but the older I get, the more I enjoy learning about them and their differences.
With that note, an American duck, a Brazilian parrot, and a Mexican rooster are a pretty diverse group at that. I would love to have all three of them as my amigos. (I also want to be able to hold a note out that long someday too.)
