Legend of the Three Caballeros

The legacy of The Three Caballeros varies depending on where you’re from. In the US, it spent many years mostly forgotten, one of the package films and not the best of them. (Obviously Fantasia is the best of them, but even leaving Fantasia aside.) But in Brazil, it’s remembered for introducing, you know, a Brazilian character to the Disney canon. In recent years, Disney has brought its characters back, both in the new Duck Tales and in their own show, a one-season serialized story.

Clinton Coot (Thomas Lennon) has died, leaving his cabana to his great-grandson, Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo), as well as Brazilian parrot José Carioca (Eric Bauza) and Mexican rooster Panchito Romero Miguel Francisco Quintero Gonzalez III (Jaime Camil, or if you’d prefer Jaime Federico Said Camil de Saldaña Da Gama). It turns out the trio are the descendants of the legendary Three Caballeros, a trio committed to fighting the evil of Lord Felldrake (Kevin Michael Richardson). Who is currently trapped in a staff, where he advises his own descendant, Baron Von Sheldgoose (Wayne Knight).

The Three Caballeros are advised by Xandra, the Goddess of Adventure (Grey Griffin)—as well as April, May, and June (Jessica DiCicco), Daisy’s nieces. They have adventures through time and space, either thwarting Lord Felldrake or training to defeat him once and for all. They encounter various figures of mythology and legend, have wacky misadventures, and what with one thing and another it’s your standard Don Rosa-style Donald Duck adventure.

Panchito is kind of the middle child of the trio, if you want my opinion. Technically he’s the youngest, give José initially appears in Saludos Amigos, which Panchito does not. While José became exceedingly popular in Brazil, there is no corresponding popularity for Panchito in Mexico, or anyway if there is, it’s not discussed on his Wikipedia page. There’s a short in Melody Time with José, and he appeared on a 1960 Wonderful World of Disney, but it does not appear that Panchito had anything similar.

In fact, more popular and familiar than Panchito is the Aracuan Bird (Dee Bradley Baker), who is, yes, a character on this show. I’ve always been so-so on the Aracuan Bird, though he’s more fun here, where he lives in the cabana with the Caballeros and in theory does helpful things and in practice is his standard chaos self. However, to my even greater personal joy, they accidentally bring a bear rug to life, and he is Humphrey (Jim Cummings), or at least based on Humphrey. Who is my absolute favourite obscure Disney character who associates with the Big Three at all, so it was very nice to see him brought back.

It’s a fun show. It’s honestly the kind of thing I’d like to see Disney doing more of—fun adventure stuff with their old characters. I don’t worry much about Disney canonicity when it comes to these characters; the Three Caballeros appear in the new Duck Tales as Donald’s old band, and it doesn’t matter if they’re connected in any way with this version of the same characters. They’re silly, but what’s wrong with silliness? So okay, they’re fighting an ancient evil, but in a way that leaves room for wacky shenaniganery.

I like Xandra okay. I’m quite fond of the nieces, who are smarter and more together than any of the adult characters. Frankly, if I had my choice of who I’d want to be on my side to fight an ancient evil, give me them over the men. (Okay, adult male birds, but “men” for a very loose definition of the word “men.”) Honestly, I don’t much think the ancient evil makes the story better. I like a good Wayne Knight character, but I don’t think he needs to be tied to cosmic darkness to make the character better.

Most of the recurring characters are distinct. I don’t find that to be true of the nieces, but also the assorted nieces and nephews are traditionally more interchangeable than the other characters. It’s only with the new Duck Tales that Huey, Dewey, and Louie are made different. But Donald is, well, Donald, though there’s a fun episode where he’s sent to a Yeti spa that involves making him overcome his anger management issues. Panchito is spacy. José is the most sensible of the three. Ari, the Aracuan Bird, is helpful chaos; Humphrey is brainless chaos—well, he’s probably literally brainless.

2018 was frankly not a great year in Disney unless you expand that to include the MCU—hello, Black Panther—and this is the best thing I’ve covered for Year of the Month for this month. My eight-year-old, admittedly shown this month to have the tastes and preferences of an eight-year-old, was excited when she saw me watching the show the other day. So I enjoy it, and my child enjoys it, my twelve-year-old says it’s “good sometimes.” So yeah. You could do worse; you could be watching Mary Poppins Returns.