Saludos Amigos

• In the early 1940s, the US Dept. of State commissioned a Disney goodwill tour to South America as part of the Good Neighbor Policy to counter the Latin American governments’ ties with Nazi Germany. Disney made the trip into a hybrid film, with documentary-esque shots of South America and four different segments. The resulting film, Saludos Amigos, was released in 1942.
  
  
  The film has clips of the Disney artists roaming the country and drawing cartoons of the local culture and scenery.
  In the first animated segment, Lake Titicaca Donald Duck is an American tourist visiting Lake Titicaca and meeting some of the locals, including an obstinate llama.
  In the second animated short, Pedro, the title character, a small airplane from an airport near Santiago engages in his first flight to pick up air male from Mendoza. On his way back, near Aconcagua, he chases a vulture and gets caught in a terrible storm. He makes it back to the airfield with the mail. It’s just a postcard.  This segment was later released as an independent short.
  Third, El Gaucho Goofy features Cowboy Goofy taken mysteriously to the Argentine pampas to learn the way of the native goucho.
  Finally, Aquarela Do Brasil  involves a new character, Jose Carioca showing Donald Duck around South America and introducing him to the samba.
  
  
  Why did this need to be a film? The shorts are good, but would have been fine individually and there wasn’t any real need to film the goodwill tour.
  
  
  Final Call: This didn’t need to be a film. It drops like a stone across the Edge of Dissatisfaction and become #6, right above Victory Through Air Power.