Plot
Huey, Dewey, and Louie pity the depressed Donald Duck because of the mistreatment he receives from his relatives Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, and Daisy Duck. They decide that he needs good friends to help him find his smile again, so they nominate him into delivering some merit badges to the Junior Woodchucks in Rio de Janeiro and give him a pamphlet containing the Woodchuck Guidebook's information on Brazil. Meanwhile, Donald's nephews send two telegrams—one for José Carioca and the other one for Panchito Pistoles—to reunite the Three Caballeros.
When Donald arrives in Brazil, he and the other two caballeros enjoy a reunion before deciding they need an adventure. So, at José's suggestion, they become diamond hunters in the Mato Grosso, where Donald buys an ox and a llama to explore the interior plateau of Brazil.
Donald is kidnapped by an evil Indian Chief, who traps animals and sells them on the black market. The chief tells Donald about the "Mines of Fear". José and Panchito free Donald, along with the captured animals, but the chief's necklace is caught by Sẽnor Martinez, Panchito's horse, and he goes after them.
The trio camp in the mountains near a swamp, where Donald reads information from the pamphlet about a lost city. They see the three shining arcs behind the swamp, which form the gate to the lost city. They build a raft and sail to the city where they find the Mines of Ophir, lose their raft, and meet a huge anaconda. The chief find their mounts and the mines, so he makes a reed canoe to finds the trio.
The chief takes a bag of jewels and leaves the caballeros to be eaten by the anaconda. This is the final straw for Donald, remembering his relatives' mistreatment of him, and he grabs a vine, jumps on the chief's canoe, and they fight. Donald's bravery inspires José and Panchito to help him. The chief goes over the falls and the caballeros ride the anaconda out of the swamp where they meet the Indian tribe, who give Panchito the necklace his horse found.
The caballeros then return to Rio. Their role in catching the Chief, a notorious animal rustler, gains José fame for his nightclub act; with the necklace, Panchito has the money for the ranch he has always wanted to buy. When they ask Donald what he got out of their adventure, he points to his own smile and says, "this". Joyfully, the Three Caballeros carouse down the famous Portuguese pavement on Copacabana beach, singing their song.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist (screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro. They are the nephews of Donald Duck and the grand-nephews of Scrooge McDuck. Like their maternal uncles, the brothers are anthropomorphic white ducks with yellow-orange bills and feet. The boys are sometimes distinguished by the color of their shirts and baseball caps. They appeared in many Donald Duck animated shorts, as well as in the television show DuckTales and its reboot, but the comics remain their primary medium.
Gyro Gearloose is a cartoon character created in 1952 by Carl Barks for Disney comics. An anthropomorphic chicken, he is part of the Donald Duck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, and anyone who is associated with them. He was also featured in the animated series DuckTales. Gyro first appeared in the Carl Barks comic "Gladstone's Terrible Secret", and was the regular lead character in 4-page backup stories in Barks' issues of Uncle Scrooge, starting with issue #13 and continuing through #41.
José "Zé" Carioca is a cartoon anthropomorphic parrot created by the Brazilian cartoonist José Carlos de Brito and shown to Walt Disney on his trip to Rio de Janeiro in 1941. The Walt Disney Company then incorporated the idea, being introduced in the 1942 film Saludos Amigos as a friend of Donald Duck, described by Time as "a dapper Brazilian parrot, who is as superior to Donald Duck as the Duck was to Mickey Mouse." He speaks Portuguese with a Brazilian accent. He returned in the 1944 film The Three Caballeros along with Donald and a Mexican rooster named Panchito Pistoles. José is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Saludos Amigos is a 1942 American live-action/animated propaganda anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Set in Latin America, it is made up of four different segments; Donald Duck stars in two of them and Goofy stars in one. It also features the first appearance of José Carioca, the Brazilian cigar-smoking parrot. Saludos Amigos premiered in Rio de Janeiro on August 24, 1942. It was released in the United States on February 6, 1943.
The Three Caballeros is a 1944 American live-action and animated musical propaganda anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film premiered in Mexico City on December 21, 1944. It was released in the United States on February 3, 1945 and in the United Kingdom in March 1945. It marks the tenth anniversary of Donald Duck and plots an adventure through parts of Latin America, combining live-action and animation. This is the second of the six package films released by Walt Disney Productions in the 1940s, following Saludos Amigos (1942). It is also notable for being one of the first feature-length films to incorporate traditional animation with live-action actors.
The Duck family is a fictional family of cartoon ducks related to Disney character Donald Duck. The family is also related to the Coot, Goose, and Gander families, as well as the Scottish Clan McDuck. Besides Donald, the best-known members of the Duck family are Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald's triplet nephews.
The Mickey Mouse universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting for stories involving Disney cartoon characters, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald and Daisy Duck, Pluto and Goofy as the primary members, and many other characters related to them, being most of them anthropomorphic animals. The universe originated from the Mickey Mouse animated short films produced by Disney starting in 1928, although its first consistent version was created by Floyd Gottfredson in the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip. Real-world versions also exist in Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland, called Mickey's Toontown.
The Junior Woodchucks of the World is a fictional scouting organization appearing in Disney comics and the DuckTales animated television franchise, most notably in adventures featuring Disney characters Huey, Dewey, and Louie as members.
Panchito Pistoles is a cartoon anthropomorphic rooster created by Fred Moore. He first appeared in the 1944 Disney film The Three Caballeros with his friends Donald Duck and José Carioca. He later appeared in several Disney comics, including a year-long run in the Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip (1944–1945) as well as Don Rosa's comic book stories The Three Caballeros Ride Again (2000) and The Magnificent Seven Caballeros (2005). He speaks Spanish with a Mexican accent.
Robert P. Gregory was an American comics artist and writer best known for writing and drawing hundreds of Gold Key comics starring the Disney comics character Donald Duck.
This is a list of appearances made by Donald Duck in Disney features and cartoons.
The Mickey Mouse Revue was an indoor audio-animatronic stage show at the Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland theme parks. It was one of the three original opening day attractions in Magic Kingdom's Fantasyland in 1971. After closing at Magic Kingdom in 1980, it was moved to Tokyo Disneyland for that park's opening in 1983 where it remained for 26 years before closing permanently in 2009.
Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros is a musical dark boat ride housed within the pyramid-shaped Mexico Pavilion, at the Epcot theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. It was the first World Showcase attraction to feature Disney characters based on an existing property. Norway followed suit in 2014 when it closed its Maelstrom ride to make room for Frozen Ever After, which opened in 2016.
"The Three Caballeros Ride Again" is a 2000 Donald Duck comic by Don Rosa.
Legend of the Three Caballeros is an 2018 animated television series based on the 1944 animated Disney film The Three Caballeros and features the characters Donald Duck, José Carioca and Panchito Pistoles.
Silly Symphony is a weekly Disney comic strip that debuted on January 10, 1932, as a topper for the Mickey Mouse strip's Sunday page. The strip featured adaptations of Walt Disney's popular short film series, Silly Symphony, which released 75 cartoons from 1929 to 1939, as well as other cartoons and animated films. The comic strip outlived its parent series by six years, ending on October 7, 1945.
Joaquin Garay was a Mexican actor and singer known for voicing Panchito Pistoles in the 1944 Walt Disney film The Three Caballeros.
