Two Crows from Tacos

Two Crows from Tacos
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Airdate:	24 November 1956
Series:	Merrie Melodies
MPAA Number:	17906
Production Number:	1420
Vitaphone Number:	2679
Runtime:	7 minutes, 11 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	18 April 1984
Starring:	Jose and Manuel
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Don Diamond (uncredited) Tom Holland (uncredited)
Director:	Friz Freleng
Written By:	Tedd Pierce
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Virgil Ross Arthur Davis
Layout Artist:	Hawley Pratt
Background Artist:	Irv Wyner
Film Editor:	Treg Brown
Musician:	Carl Stalling

Two Crows from Tacos is a 1956 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.

Title

The title is a play on the 1948 film Two Guys from Texas.

Plot

Two drunken Mexican crows, Jose and Manuel, sit in their tree singing until Manuel spot a Mexican grasshopper on Jose's sombrero. The two chases after the jumping critter, only for their attempts to often injure each other instead:

1. Jose and Manuel first leap out of their tree to club after the grasshopper with a whip and their guitar, but Manuel accidentally clubs Jose on the head; in retaliation, Jose thwacks Manuel with his guitar.
2. The crows attempts to dive after the grasshopper from the sky but ends up colliding towards each other head-on.
3. Jose tries to lure out the grasshopper out by pretending to be a big grasshopper. The dimwitted Manuel whacks the "big grasshopper" and ends up socking Jose.
4. The grasshopper flees into a tree. As Jose tries to grab the grasshopper, the grasshopper hands out a small stick of dynamite towards Jose's protruded hand. Thinking they got the grasshopper, the two realizes that only one of them will be fed and fights over the dynamite until it explodes at the two.
5. The grasshopper decoys a cactus as a Mexican civilian and poses near it. The two crows think the cactus has stolen the grasshopper for itself and attacks it, only to run out screaming covered in prickles.

Jose and Manuel finally give up, and continue to drunkenly sing on their tree.

Availability

(2010) DVD
Foghorn Leghorn & Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth

(2013) DVD
Looney Tunes Super Stars 3-Pack, Disc 2

(2014) DVD
Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature, Disc 2

Streaming

Amazon Prime Video (2011 - ) (restored, HD)

Notes

• This short marks the first appearances of Jose and Manuel, as well as their only solo cartoon.
  • This cartoon is a slight modernized remake of 1942's "Hop, Skip and a Chump".
• The characters of Jose and Manuel would be revisited in "Mexicali Shmoes", in which the same characters are redesigned as cats and set out to chase Speedy Gonzales. They were later redesigned as mice whom are allies with Speedy Gonzales in "Cannery Woe", and returned as crows in "Crows' Feat".
• This is the first cartoon to change the "COLOR BY TECHNICOLOR" byline on the opening titles to simply "TECHNICOLOR".
• This cartoon has seldom aired on American television ever since Nickelodeon stopped airing the Looney Tunes cartoons due to heavy Mexican stereotyping that would be deemed offensive to modern audiences.
• This cartoon was shown in theaters with Giant during its original release.

Gallery

Color guide