Gonzales' Tamales

Gonzales' Tamales
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Airdate:	30 November 1957 Blue Ribbon reissue: 10 July 1968
Series:	Looney Tunes
MPAA Number:	18325
Production Number:	1472
Vitaphone Number:	2770
Runtime:	6 minutes, 20 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	22 April 1985
Starring:	Speedy Gonzales Sylvester
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc June Foray (uncredited)
Director:	Friz Freleng
Written By:	Warren Foster
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Gerry Chiniquy Art Davis Virgil Ross
Layout Artist:	Hawley Pratt
Background Artist:	Boris Gorelick
Film Editor:	Treg Brown
Musician:	Milt Franklyn Carl Stalling

Gonzales' Tamales is a 1957 Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng.

Plot

The majority of male mice in a Mexican village lament the fact that Speedy Gonzales has been getting between them and the "pretty girls." One of the mice suggests that they get the "gringo pussycat" Sylvester to chase Speedy out of town. The mice forge a note from Speedy, stating that he will pull Sylvester's tail out by the roots, which Speedy happily does when confronted. In trying to get Speedy, Sylvester first uses a shotgun and then a hand grenade, with the usual disastrous results. Speedy, however, falls for the cat's final attempt: a wind-up doll. With Sylvester hot on his feet, Speedy grabs the wind-up toy, and takes refuge in a box of red hot peppers, forcing the hungry pussycat to swallow them one by one in order to find the resourceful rodent. In between each ingestion of pepper, Sylvester runs to a nearby water cooler for relief. On his last trip to the cooler, he fails to notice that he's drinking out of a similar cooler filled with Tabasco Sauce, which sends the cat fly high into the horizon.

Availability

(1984) VHS
The Looney Tunes Video Show, Volume 14 (uncensored)

(1985) VHS
Speedy Gonzales' Fast Funnies (uncensored)

(1990) VHS
Speedy Gonzales (1990)

(1996) VHS
Looney Tunes Collection - Speedy Gonzales

(1997) VHS
Warner Bros. Movie World Souvenir Video

(2003) VHS
Speedy Gonzales (2003)

(2003) VHS
Wile E Coyote & Road Runner Speedy Gonzales

(2005) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3, Disc Four (uncensored)

Streaming

iTunes ( - ) (restored)

HBO Max Latin America / Brazil (2021 - 2024) (restored)

Censorship

• On most TV channels worldwide, a rather innocuous part where Sylvester says, "I'll get you if I have to eat every one of these things," as he is trying to find Speedy Gonzales in a box of chili peppers was cut.
• When this short aired on CBS in the 1970s and 1980s, the two times Sylvester gets blown up (by a disembodied bullet and a hand grenade, respectively) were cut to remove Sylvester's appearance after the smoke clears.
• International dubs of this short shown in Latin America (on Cartoon Network's Latin America channel), Italy (on Mediaset Italia 1), Poland (on Canal+ Poland), and France (on Canal+ Family) have the same edits done to this cartoon that CBS and Nickelodeon's American channel have done, only Cartoon Network Latin America deletes the entire hand grenade part, not just for the violence, but also because of the drug references in the song, La Cucaracha (see below in "Notes").
• This short prompted Cartoon Network America to keep Speedy Gonzales cartoons out of rotation in the United States starting in 1999 due to their stereotypical depictions of Mexicans, though several Latino and Hispanic fans protested that Speedy Gonzales was not a stereotype and demanded the shorts to be shown. In Cartoon Network's final days of regularly airing classic cartoons (between 2002 and 2005), some Speedy Gonzales cartoons did crop up on the network (mostly the late-1950s ones and a few from the post-1964 era). However, this one only aired once, possibly because the censors caught the "...marijuana par fumar" line of La Cucaracha and decided to shelve the entire short rather than cut the line (contrast with the short "Mexican Boarders", where Cartoon Network's and Boomerang's Latin American feeds did air the short, but cut the "...marijuana que fumar" part of La Cucharacha rather than shelve the entire short).

Goofs

• Sylvester lays a sizable wedge of cheese on the ground to lure Speedy out of his hole. When Speedy takes the cheese, it has changed to a small, thin slice of cheese.
• Most televised prints of this short (including in European countries) have a glitch at the end of the ending title card. After the ending title card, the screen then cuts to black, while the ending music still plays intact. However, copies of this transfer do exist without this glitch, which is only on The Looney Tunes Video Show VHS release. The glitch in the transfer is evident by the extremely washed-out colors.

Notes

• This version of La Cucaracha Speedy sings is the first verse from the Mexican Revolutionary version of the song from 1910 to 1920.
• This short provides an anomaly in the Speedy Gonzales shorts: in this one, Speedy is the antagonist/aggressor whom is a menace whom the Mexican mice hate as opposed to the hero that is adored by the Mexican mice, and the Mexican mice try to get Sylvester to chase Speedy out of town, with unsuccessful results.
• The title card background is reused from the title card of "Speedy Gonzales".
• This is one of the only two post-1948 Looney Tunes shorts which were shown censored with a minor edit on the unrestored TV prints (even on the PAL masters) worldwide regardless of the TV channel. The other one is "Prince Violent", which, for a time, was retitled "Prince Varmint" on all domestic and international channels. As of 2021, both shorts have been released uncut and fully restored on home media.
• This cartoon is the latest non-Bugs Bunny cartoon to get a Blue Ribbon reissue.

Gallery

Credits

Directors' credit

Production background