Donald Duck takes some Hard Drugs

Disney has made some weird stuff in its time. Before the mid-80s, it was churning out some bizarre-o films. One such film, is one I watched repeatedly as a kid. At the time I kind of clued in on how strange it gets, but didn't fully realize just how completely batshit insane it actually is.

I'm talking about "The Three Caballeros" released in 1944.

It's a collection of shorts about Latin America. In it, Donald Duck receives some presents from his bird pals in South America. We're introduced to a couple of characters you've probably never seen or heard of unless you live in Mexico, and learn all about the Latin traditions, past-times, and lifestyle.


Educational, right?


Right. That is until we get to the final chapter of the film, where it falls RIGHT OFF THE RAILS AND LANDS SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF PCP-VILLE.

Apparently, not many of my friends have seen The Three Caballeros, and I’m not totally sure where my parents found a VHS copy of it either. Disney apparently released a censored and re-cut version, but the one I saw is definitely the original.

Here’s a quick overview of the final chapter where things start to get absolutely loony. These photos are in %100 chronological order, %100 true, and believe me when I tell you that they’ll make very little sense whether they’re in context or not.

So Donald falls in love with this girl in a photo. He jumps into the book…

…and begins to dance around the sky, collecting starts to throw about in joy over his newfound love.

She starts serenading him while he’s perched on the moon from inside a star…

And suddenly the background transforms into guitars that close in on Donald.

The guitars morph into kissy-mouths, which smooch Donald all over his face until he takes off like a rocket…

And we enter the electro-realm of insanity in which Donald is a hummingbird who huffs neon flowers.
One of the flowers explode, and Donald bursts through the screen, being chased by scantily clad women. Then, this happens...

Donald escapes the women, and starts spying on them. His head rotates around 360 degrees to peep at all these girls who are searching the ground for Donald.

Donald bursts through the screen again, and runs until he encounters a dead end. He turns around, and sees himself and his new amigos dancing, but with women’s legs attached to their bodies.

Then all three of them leap up from the legs, which march away…

…and come back with this horse-thing attached to them, which Donald and friends proceed to ride while singing “We are three gay amigos, just three gay amigos…” in a high-pitched tone.

Then the screen goes all flowery, and we take a breather from this frantic action, to watch a weird flower-woman dance around, while surrounded by Flower-Donalds.

Then Donald is transported to a weird desert with lots of cacti about. The Flower-Woman marches up, now dressed in Mexican clothing, and starts commanding this terrifying marching cactus army.

Finally, Donald becomes a raging bull who fights a matador. The matador wins, lighting the various explosives attached to Donald’s bull body…

And it explodes into a red white and blue “THE END”

As a kid, I didn’t enjoy this part of the movie. It really falls apart here. It’s like they let a team of schizophrenic opium-junkies into the Disney studios and each direct one minute of the film. Anyway, you can watch the whole sequence below. There’s lots of crazy shit I didn’t include, so you’re welcome to enjoy this.

I wouldn’t recommend taking a load of acid and mushrooms before watching this. You’d probably be a changed person afterwards.