Tabasco Road

Speedy Gonzales is the subject of a big celebration at the local mice saloon. As the bar closes, his friends start to depart. Two of them, Pablo and Fernando, are stumbling into the night together. They are stalked and pursued by a big alley cat. It is up to Speedy to rescue his drunken friends.

It is four years after Speedy's debut and his third outing with the classic design. He is a Mexican villager wearing a yellow sombrero and a standard peasant outfit. This is fine for the most part. His two drunken friends are rather funny. I don't know if we should celebrate guys getting sh17-faced drunk, but they are funny.

1957 must have been an awful year for cartoons for this mess of a short to be nominated. There are some very funny Speedy Gonzales cartoons out there, but TABASCO ROAD is not one of them. The Speedy Gonzales cartoons tend to be a little annoying anyway, but this movie is just plain unfunny and unbearable to sit through. If you really want to watch a Speedy Gonzales cartoon then check out CAT-TAILS FOR TWO or MEXICALI SHMOES. Now, those are funny. All three of these cartoons are available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Four. If you are easily offended by racial stereotypes then I would avoid this cartoon - actually all Speedy Gonzales cartoons for that matter.

This time, Speedy Gonzales isn't fetching cheese, but is rescuing his drunken friends Pablo and Fernando, both in danger of getting eaten by a cat (not Sylvester). Watching "Tabasco Road", I get the feeling that it may be one of the Looney Tunes cartoons that drew criticism: it basically portrays Mexicans as drunks. On that subject, maybe the cartoon was intended as an anti-alcohol warning.

Then again, maybe I'm trying too hard to analyze it. As long as we understand that it sort of makes stereotypes about Mexicans - namely with "ceety leemits" - we can enjoy it. And as long as we know to drink responsibly.

Speedy Gonzales was essentially a one-note character (kind of like the Roadrunner) so the quality of a Speedy cartoon is largely dependent on the surrounding characters and situations they get themselves into rather than Speedy himself. The two mice Speedy is rescuing frequently, Pablo and Fernando are excellent characters. The songs they sing in this are very funny and the situations that arise from their actins are what makes the cartoon. Not easy to find and rarely aired on Cartoon Network, but well worth digging up and Recommended.

Like many of the Warner Brothers cartoons of the late 1950s, the beautiful backgrounds and gorgeous animation were giving way to a UPA-style of cartoon making--with crappy backgrounds and simpler characters. While this particular cartoon is still very watchable, it's not up to the quality standards of the studios cartoons from just a few years earlier.

This is a Speedy Gonzales cartoon. I am NOT a huge fan of this character, so keep this in mind--if you love him, I am sure your opinion will probably be a bit more favorable--though I did enjoy it. However, apparently Speedy and his alcoholic friends are not politically correct, as the film had an added speech in the prologue about hurtful stereotypes. However, I saw this same cartoon many times as a child and never once assumed all Mexicans (or Mexican mice) were alcoholics nor did they run at 100 miles per hour! And, unless you are VERY thin-skinned, I think you'll enjoy the heck out of this violent little cartoon (yeah, violence!). It's quite funny and very good despite the budget cutbacks at Looney Tunes.