Tamales Gonzales

Pedro and Manuel are frustrated that all the pretty girls go out with Speedy Gonzales. "All that are left are Chihuahuas," they say.

Every time one of those poor guys is starting to get somewhere with a pretty females, the obnoxious Speedy races in and beats them to the punch. Finally, the mice organize because "we've got to do something about Speedy Gonzales, who is taking away all our girls."

Jose comes up with the best idea: to hire a "gringo pussycat" to run Speedy out of town. Enter: good 'ole Sylvester! You know who lost this battle. The best gag was the gun in the cat's hand being dismantled piece by piece until only a bullet was left, floating in the air.

I remember liking Speedy when I was a kid, but now he's just loud, too repetitive and just plain obnoxious. I'm sorry Sylvester didn't devour him.

This is not the best Speedy/Sylvester cartoon, but it is entertaining. It is standard and predictable and the production values are somewhat bland, plus Speedy is rather loud and repetitive here. However, what does make it entertaining are some good dialogue, some interesting sight gags, decent music and Mel Blanc's voices. Plus you feel sorry for Sylvester, the poor cat suffers horribly here, being forced to eat chilli peppers isn't that nice really and that's not even the worst of it. And I liked the title of the cartoon, it has real flair somewhat. And while I find the pacing off sometimes in Speedy cartoons, this one moves quite quickly. Overall, not great but watchable. 7/10 Bethany Cox

In case you've ever doubted just how in-your-face the Looney Tunes cartoons were, just check out "Gonzales' Tamales". In this one, Speedy Gonzales - who, as you may have noticed from other cartoons, is a total playboy - is seducing the female mice, and making the male mice very angry. So, they get Sylvester to go after him. Needless to say, Speedy knows just how to avoid getting caught.

Anyway, the real "gotcha" moment comes towards the end. Speedy was singing "La cucaracha". Since I knew what the lyrics were, I listened to see if the people making the cartoon would use them. Sure enough, it ends with "marijuana que fumar" (meaning "marijuana to smoke")! To think that in the midst of the strict McCarthyism world of the 1950s, they sneaked in something about Mary Jane! Only the Termite Terrace crowd could do that! Overall, a really funny cartoon.

i was watching this today on the third golden collection DVD set, and suddenly realized that in the scene when Speedy is singing in his hole, the words to his version of "la cucaracha," are translated to English thus:

the cockroach,

the cockroach,

no longer can walk,

because he doesn't lack

because he doesn't have

any marijuana to smoke!

leave it to the guys at Termite Terrace to sneak in subversive bits of humor past censors and such.

In a lazy Mexican village, the male mice are tired of Speedy Gonzales taking all the girls. They set off to trick Sylvester the Cat to come challenge Speedy. Sylvester is obviously overmatched especially in the brains department.

Speedy is a fine character, but I never really got into him that much. In this one, he is being a Latino playboy. I would go a different way. He doesn't have to be stealing other people's girls. I would simply have the girls complain that the guys are not measuring up to Speedy. In that way, Speedy would be perfectly innocent. In this, Speedy is not in the right, but I do like his fight with Sylvester.