The Shuffled Disneyverse 2.0: Another Alternate Disney Canon Timeline
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Saludos Amigos (1943)
Saludos Amigos (1943)
The year 1941 was notoriously tough for Disney. He was still recovering from the box office failures of Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book the prior year. He was especially heartbroken about Alice since the original stories by Lewis Carroll were part of his childhood, and critics ripped it apart for lacking the warmth and sympathy inspired by Cinderella and Americanizing a great piece of British literature. Not helping matters was how expensive they were to make and the fact that World War II had cut off most of the European and Asian markets, drastically decimating Disney’s revenue which he very much depended on to make his animated shorts and films. Unlike other film studios, Walt could not merely engage in budget cuts to make ends meet while expecting to turn out colorful, stunning animated fantasies. Audiences did not quite receive warmly his experiment to recoup some money with Tangled. Sure, The Lion King was a modest hit and restored critical and audience faith in Disney, but the studio still needed to earn back millions of dollars in debt.
Suddenly, Walt Disney saw a new challenge. Nelson Rockefeller, who was the State Department Coordinator of InterAmerican Affairs (CIAA), wanted to create new economic opportunities by attempting to open up Latin America to replace the ones lost in Asia and especially Europe. There was also the matter of German and Italian immigrants in Latin America allegedly developing ethnic allegiances towards the Axis Powers and many Latin American governments themselves developing strong ties to them, which America disliked. So, this was something of a dual mission to Rockefeller. In early 1941, his personal representative, John Hay Whitney, urged Disney to take a goodwill tour of Latin America since his characters were beloved there, with special attention given to Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. Walt initially refused, stating he could not go around gallivanting across Central America and South America. But Whitney promised to pay $70,000 worth of travel expenses and advance payments of $50,000 per short (up to five shorts) if he made short films inspired by the tour. They had a deal.
In August 1941, Disney, his wife, and a team of artists arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and enjoyed a lengthy stay there before splintering off into smaller groups to visit Argentina (excluding Buenos Aires), Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay where the artists made numerous sketches and paintings. Two party members, Lee Blair and Larry Lansburgh, brought 16mm cameras with them to record their impressions of South America, some of which they later blew up to 35mm for exhibition. While he was there, the group returned to the Disney studio in California in late October 1941 and began producing their series of short films. A separate team would go to Mexico in late 1941 and stay there through early 1942. The original plan was to produce up to 12 one-reel cartoons based on the trip and release them in groups of four, but by June 1942 (per the Hollywood Reporter) the studio decided in correspondence with film mogul David O. Selznick to combine six of them into a single feature (which he called Saludos Amigos) because features always made more money than shorts and Disney needed the money.
Donald Duck and Goofy are among a group of live-action tourists (played by various Disney artists) touring Latin America, with each segment representing a different country. Their first stop is Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia and Peru, where they learn about the traditions of the people who live there and attempt to sail across it before hiking through the Andes Mountains with a stubborn llama. They then travel to Chile and meet Pedro the airplane, who recalls a story about how he delivered mail for his parents as they could not do so because of technical defects. Pedro then flies out from Santiago to receive mail from Mendoza. He nearly dies on his flight back but gets home alive and retains a lone Chilean postcard. Donald and Goofy cross the Andes into Argentina, where Goofy gets lost in the Pampas, with locals mistaking him for a gaucho. He inadvertently learns of their ways while getting into hijinks and confrontations with a trickster horse. Goofy later reunites with his friend and the two travel into the Brazilian jungle. They emerge to meet a parrot named José Carioca. José takes them to Rio de Janeiro, where he gives the cachaças to drink and teaches them to dance the samba. He then joins them on their sight-seeing journey to Uruguay, where they encounter an old man who tells them about his childhood adventures with a winged donkey named Burrito. Lastly, Donald, Goofy, and José fly to Mexico and meet a roster named Panchito Pistoles, who gives them a tour of the country on a sarape and teaches them a few Mexican dances and songs.
The shorts focusing on Argentina, Brazil, and Chile were initially released as standalone entities in their respective countries in August and September 1942. Saludos Amigos did not premiere worldwide until February 6, 1943, in Boston, Massachusetts, because the animators still needed to work on the Uruguay and Mexico segments. It was released in the United States on February 19 before its wide release in Latin America and the rest of the world starting in March. It initially grossed $2.25 million worldwide [1] and received mixed to positive reviews from critics. They praised it for the characterization of Donald, Goofy, José, and Panchito and its usefulness as an educational tool in the United States. The art style, on the other hand, was divisive, with some critics deriding it as prioritizing style over substance. It was not an audience favorite at the time because of the war. Westerners disliked that it was not a single-story film, and some Latin American audiences questioned the cultural accuracy of the artists and animators. Nevertheless, Saludos Amigos has garnered attention over the years and is a cult classic in modern times. [2]
Live-Action Cast:
- Lee Blair as himself
- Mary Blair as herself
- Walt Disney as himself
- Norman Ferguson as himself
- Frank Graham as himself
- Larry Lansburgh as himself
- Frank Thomas as himself
- Dora Luz as herself
- Carmen Molina as herself
- Carlos Ramírez as himself
- Trío Calaveras as themselves
- Stuart Buchanan as the flight attendant
- Clarence Nash as Donald Duck
- Pinto Colvig as Goofy
- José do Patrocínio Oliveira as José Carioca
- Nestor Amaral as José Carioca's singing voice
- Joaquin Garay as Panchito Pistoles
- José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Melendez as the boy
- Nestor Amaral as José Carioca's singing voice
- Fred Shields as the narrator and old man
[2] Reasons include Donald Duck's flirting with women being toned down from OTL's The Three Caballeros, it being much longer than 45 minutes like OTL as well as having a more coherent storyline, and also Donald, Goofy, José, and Panchito being the highlights of the film with all of them having major roles.
Because Saludos Amigos retained its OTL slot, it was very easy to work on and get out quickly. And I wanted to include Panchito Pistoles here due to the placement of The Three Caballeros ITTL.
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So Saludos Amigos ITTL is a combination of both OTL's version and Three Caballeros? I think I'll prefer this version over what we got IOTL, even if the Three Caballeros song is butterflied away.
Also I'll take a wild guess and say either Make Mine Music or Ichabod and Mr Toad is up next.
Also I'll take a wild guess and say either Make Mine Music or Ichabod and Mr Toad is up next.
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The Three Caballeros song may or may not show up ITTL even if at a later point. As for the next one, it's a film that was either made or considered being made IOTL during the 1930s or 1940s but both of those titles should be coming soon. I don't disclose when.
It's gonna be hard to guess what that could be considering we're in the Package Era. Maybe something like Winnie the Pooh before it was eventually made in the 60s-70s? Don Quixote under another title?
Since it wasn’t conceptualized until the 1990s, the answer to that is, unfortunately, no.
No guarantees for either during the Package Era but both of these ideas will be a reality by the time the Disney Renaissance begins.
As of now I haven't started focusing on the next film in this TL yet due to other projects but I hope to get to soon.
Not quite yet. A bit too soon for the Muppets.
So far, Mickey is the main standout but Roger Rabbit is climbing in popularity.
Can't wait to see TTL's Who Framed Roger Rabbit when that comes. Also speaking of Mickey, will Mickey (and Donald/Goofy) appear in any feature films?
The trio will definitely have one together and I’m tentatively considering giving Mickey a second movie too.
Hi everyone,
Happy belated New Year and I'm currently in the crosshairs of two potential directions this next film could go in on top of other projects so it might be a bit of time before this is updated.
Happy belated New Year and I'm currently in the crosshairs of two potential directions this next film could go in on top of other projects so it might be a bit of time before this is updated.
Lady And The Tramp (1944)
Lady And The Tramp (1944)
Unlike its predecessors (sans Saludos Amigos), this film was not based on previously published literature but was not quite an original movie either. Its basis was on a true story: that of Disney story artist Joe Grant, whom Disney hired as an artist in 1933, and his English Springer Spaniel named Lady. This idea dates back to 1937, during the production of Cinderella. Grant approached Disney with sketches of his dog, and Disney liked them so much he commissioned Grant to use them to develop a new feature. Lady would follow the antics of the titular dog as she gets shoved aside when her human owners have a baby of their own, much like what happened with Joe Grant’s dog in real life upon the birth of his daughter. Between 1937 and 1941, Joe Grant and other story artists worked on the story diligently. Walt Disney, however, was concerned because he thought Lady was too one-dimensionally sweet and that there were no real stakes in the film for the title character.
In the meantime, Disney sent his animators out to do field research. He wanted the story to not be in a city but in a small town to capture the small-town atmosphere in America during the turn of the twentieth century, which was when Disney grew up. And where else to capture that feeling of nostalgia but the town of Marceline, Missouri, where Disney’s family moved to in 1906 from Chicago? After all, it was where Walt saw his first film and theatrical production, sold his first drawing, and put on his first show. It was also where he developed his life-long passions of art, animals, and nature. Also, the Disney animators needed to observe life extensively, or dog life to be more specific. Disney brought a bunch of dogs into the studio for the artists to study to capture how they moved as realistically as possible. Unlike with The Snow Queen, from which the idea of studying animals originated, this needed to be perfect. They needed to understand how they walked, moved their shoulders, interacted with each other, etc.
Disney and Grant originally intended Lady to be a full-length single-story feature film. Unfortunately, the onset of World War II necessitated that Disney prioritized military and war films, otherwise only being able to work on package films to make money that the studio so desperately needed. Following Saludos Amigos, there needed to be another package film to follow up with it to bring in more money to help eliminate its debt. Disney did not have much faith in Lady succeeding as a single feature film because of the concerns he raised about it before, so he suggested that it be a package film to help address these issues, and the team was able to convert Lady into a package film within three years. Even with this change, there still needed to be some new characters and plotlines. The most notable changes were additional romantic elements [1] and the expansion of Homer the Mongrel. The writers conceived Homer as merely a potential suitor for Lady, but it was decided to elevate his status to deuteragonist of the feature, which was soon renamed Lady and The Tramp.
Lady and The Tramp is divided into four segments framed by a scrapbook with photos containing vignettes of Lady’s life. The first segment opens on a Christmas morning when a married couple named Jim Dear and Darling exchange presents, and Darling is gifted a puppy English Springer Spaniel named Lady. The couple initially devotes all their time to Lady, but as they have a baby the following spring, they begin to push Lady off to the side, and the dog struggles to understand why. The second segment focuses on Jim Dear’s mother-in-law Sarah, who comes to visit the baby with her cats, Si and Am. The cats cause much mischief and property damage around the house. Sarah, who strongly dislikes dogs, blames Lady and sends her to the local dog catcher, where a Mongrel named Homer (nicknamed the Tramp) rescues her. The third segment expands on the newfound friendship between Lady and Homer that becomes threatened when her designated love interest, a boastfully arrogant Russian Wolfhound named Boris, belittles Homer for his homelessness and mongrel status. Despite that, Lady and Homer spend a night in the town, climaxing with a spaghetti kiss between the two. The fourth and final segment is mostly confined to Lady’s house with Sarah and her cats over again, this time with an evil rat sneaking into the house and threatening to hurt Jim Dear and Darling’s baby. Now, Lady must seek help before the rat does irrevocable damage and before Sarah can notice.
Lady And The Tramp premiered in Chicago, Illinois on December 21, 1944, followed by New York City on February 3, 1945, and finally nationwide throughout the United States on February 22 of that year. It received mixed reviews from critics. Some thought that the film was too sentimental and gooey. Others were charmed by it being simultaneously both delightful and haunting The background animation and voice acting were praised, but critics took issue with the relative lack of songs compared to previous Disney works. They were divided over the usage of a big band jazz version of The Lady is A Tramp at the opening credits. Audiences, on the other hand, were more pleased with the final product. While not on par with the first five Disney features, most found it an improvement over Saludos Amigos and especially Tangled, considering that this was more than an hour long, and one could argue it was four smaller stories as part of one bigger story based on the scrapbook. On a budget of just under $1 million, it earned $1.7-1.8 million worldwide on its initial release. Today, this is one of the two Package Era films that most people fondly remember.
Voice Cast:
- Barbara Luddy as Lady
- Frank Graham as The Tramp (Homer)
- Fred Shields as Jim Dear
- Dinah Shore as Darling
- Verna Felton as Sarah
- Sterling Holloway as Si and Am
- Alan Reed as Boris
- Frankie Darro as Herman The Rat [2]
[1] IOTL, Joe Grant hated the romance plot per Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Gabler, 2006) and it carries over into TTL. Disney essentially forces this into the script for there to be more action.
[2] Apparently, that was the name of the rat in early versions of the script for Lady and The Tramp IOTL.
As far as The Lady Is A Tramp would go, the version I had in mind personally in terms of what it would sound like is the version by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. Also the spaghetti kiss is still memorable but not quite as much as there is no Bella Note here.