#06 - Jose Carioca

Favorite Disney Character Challenge - #06: Jose Carioca from Saludos Amigos (1942)

I bet a lot of you thought this guy came from The Three Caballeros, didn’t you? Well, it’s not surprising really, because barely anyone I know has even heard of Saludos Amigos. It was made as part of the “Good Neighbor Policy” to establish good ties with our neighboring countries south of the border. And clocking in at barely over 40 minutes, it’s the shortest Disney feature to date, and is a semi-precursor to Disney’s “package features” which made up most of Disney’s theatrical output for the remainder of the 1940’s.

Saludos is not perfect by any means, but it has it’s moments. And one of them, in the final few minutes of the film, features Jose being born (literally painted to life), giving Donald Duck a brief tour of Rio de Janiero and teaching him the ways of the samba to the tune of “Aquarela do Brazil”. He’s a good-natured, suave and intelligent Brazilian parrot who loves to smoke cigars, dance and drink cachaça. He’s also prone to speaking Portuguese unintelligibly-fast when excited, much to the confusion of those around him, especially Donald.

Jose went on to appear in two more feature films with Donald, but sadly not much of anything else, besides the occasional cameo here and there. But he’s lived on over the years in the comic pages, down in South America