A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: The Three Caballeros
By Dave Shute
Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians and author of Jim’s Gems in The easy Guide, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
THE RETURN OF THE THREE CABALLEROS
By Jim Korkis
The Mexico pavilion at Epcot opened in October 1982, featuring a boat ride attraction entitled El Rio del Tiempo (“The River of Time”) that took visitors through a leisurely cruise through the history of Mexico from Mayan high priests to modern merchants.
(c) Disney
In 2007, a new storyline was developed where guests would still enjoy a boat tour experiencing the arts, culture and history of Mexico, as well as some of the famous modern day resorts and locales.
However, in the new storyline, the tour hits a snag when Panchito and Jose Carioca discover their amigo, Donald Duck, has gone sightseeing in Mexico on the very day the famous Three Caballeros are to perform a reunion concert in Mexico City.
The Three Caballeros—Donald Duck representing the United States; Jose Carioca, a parrot, from Brazil representing South America; and Panchito Pistoles, a rooster, representing Mexico—is an animated compilation feature film of the same name produced by Disney in 1944. In the film, after singing their memorable theme song, they all go on a magic serape ride over Mexico combining animation and live action.
In charge of this new revision of the ride reuniting the Three Cabelleros was director George Scribner (who was also director of Mickey’s PhilharMagic) and animation director Eric Goldberg (supervising animator on Aladdin‘s Genie and co-director on Pocahontas).
The new film elements were a combination of traditional character animation, overlaid onto film clips of live background footage that were projected onto a series of screens framed by dimensional walls, arches and rockwork to set the scenes. Throughout the attraction, props, set facades, lighting and the sound system also were refurbished and enhanced.
When this version of the Gran Fiesta Tour opened April 6, 2007, the final scene featured a large screen with animation of the Three Caballeros performing together. On December 4, 2015, this finale was replaced with three audio-animatronics figures of the three characters who had first appeared at WDW over forty-five years earlier.
The Mickey Mouse Revue was an attraction that opened at the Magic Kingdom October 1, 1971 and featured multiple small audio-animatronics figures of popular Disney cartoon characters designed and animated by Imagineer Bill Justice. These figures included the Three Caballeros singing their iconic song.
Over the years, the attraction’s popularity waned. It closed at Magic Kingdom on September 14, 1980 and was shipped to Tokyo Disneyland, where it opened April 15, 1983. It continued to operate for twenty-six years until it was replaced by Mickey’s PhilharMagic in 2009.
At that time, Epcot management made arrangements to save, purchase and have shipped to the United States three of the Three Caballeros figures from the attraction.
Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, there was no money left in the budget to install them in the new Gran Fiesta Tour attraction as originally intended. So for many years, they were stored safely backstage at Epcot as each year’s budget kept getting directed to other needs in the park.
The figures made their next public appearance at Disney’s Contemporary Resort as part of D23’s Destination D: Walt Disney World 40th in May 2011, when the Walt Disney Archives curated a special exhibit honoring four decades of the Vacation Kingdom and needed items that didn’t incur any costs from being shipped from the West Coast.
To celebrate the occasion of the figures being incorporated into the attraction, Disney Design Group artist Richard Terpstra working with the Walt Disney Archives as well as inspiration from the original theatrical poster for the film designed artwork for a limited edition t-shirt that was only available through December 10, 2015.
“We always thought the Three Caballeros would be perfect for the Mexico pavilion,” said Goldberg. “And it’s a great way to introduce the Disney characters to the Epcot pavilions and keep them within the context of the travel and tourism story of the World Showcase.”
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Thanks, Jim. And come back next Friday for even more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew
, which reprints much material first written for this site, and The Vault of Walt: Volume 4, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.
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