Fred Shields

A whimsical blend of live action and animation, "Saludos Amigos" is a colorful kaleidoscope of art, adventure and music set to a toe-tapping samba beat. From high Andes peaks and Argentina's pampas to the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro, your international traveling companions are none other than those famous funny friends, Donald Duck and Goofy. They keep things lively as Donald encounters a stubborn llama and "El Gaucho" Goofy tries on the cowboy way of life....South American-style.

World War II propaganda film on the importance of American farming. A morale booster film stressing the abudance of American agricultural output.

Animated documentary promoting timely filing and payment of Federal income taxes, demonstrated by Donald Duck's difficulties with his tax return.

Donald is visiting South America, where he is first overcome by altitude sickness. He spends some time in the picturesque market. Then he takes a llama up into the mountains, with exciting results.

Pedro, a small airplane from Chile, engaging in his very first flight to pick up air mail from Mendoza, with near disastrous results.

American cowboy Goofy gets taken mysteriously to the Argentine pampas to learn the ways of the native gaucho.

Mickey and Pluto make a short stopover on a South American flight. Mickey throws Pluto's ball into the jungle, and he chases it but it looks exactly the same as an armadillo that's rolled up into a ball. This, of course, greatly confuses Pluto for a while. But he eventually makes friends with the armadillo. He chases the critter into a cave right behind his ball, and rips the ball apart thinking it's the armadillo, which makes him very sad until the armadillo shows up again.

Donald Duck deals with income taxes and their benefit to the American war effort in this inspirational documentary short animated film.

Goofy demonstrates a number of crazy vehicles.

Goofy shows us the national pastime. After a brief overview, we have a demonstration of the many possible pitches. On to the World Series, where we go through an eventful inning, culminating in a baseball that disintegrates when being hit.

Donald is trying to collect a condor's egg when the condor returns. He hides inside an empty egg and regrets this when the large, warm mother returns. He regrets it even more when he "hatches" and mama encourages him to fly. And mama proves to be even more protective than Donald would like.

Goofy shows us, in his inimitable way, the fundamentals of golf, guided as usual by the somewhat sarcastic narrator.

Big game hunter Goofy and his trusty elephant search for a tiger to hunt.

The Marquis de Wavrin, a Belgian explorer, spends four years in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador looking for a lost friend who may have fallen victim to headhunters.

In 1925, during the occupation of Haiti, a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant was stationed in charge of the small island of La Gonave. He befriended the natives and was so popular that they named him King Faustin I and installed him as their ruler. He ruled the island for three years, then left and returned to make this documentary.

For Donald's birthday he receives a box with three gifts inside. The gifts, a movie projector, a pop-up book, and a pinata, each take Donald on wild adventures through Mexico and South America.

This generous collection includes 46 of the 48 shorts that starred Goofy between 1939 and 1961 (but none of the great Mickey-Donald-Goofy films from the mid-'30s). The "How to Ride a Horse" sequence in The Reluctant Dragon (1941) set the pattern for many of these cartoons. An elegant narrator (artist John Ployardt) explains a sport that Goofy attempts to demonstrate. The character that animator Art Babbitt described in a 1935 lecture (quoted in the DVD bonus material) as an easygoing dimbulb gave way to an enthusiastic but spectacularly maladroit figure. One of the funniest entries in the series, "Hockey Homicide," contains several studio in-jokes: dueling stars Icebox Bertino and Fearless Ferguson, and referee Clean-Game Kinney are named for artists Al Bertino, Norm Ferguson, and director Jack Kinney.