Those of you who saw Walt Disney's Saludos Amigos didn’t know you were in on the première of something new, but you were, actually. You probably thought that Walt had gotten tired of confining his Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to one-reelers and wanted to expand, to entertain his audiences for a longer period of time. Not true at all. This is what happened: Walt and a crew of his experts had taken a flying trip through Latin America at the behest of the Motion Picture Society for the Americas. You know, Good Neighbor Policy. After the Disney gang returned, they made four shorts, depicting four of the countries they had visited. Walt and his economic advisers hated to put these one-reelers out on the shorts market and sell them for the same price the other shorts were getting; it didn’t seem enough for as good as they were. So, said Walt, why not hook them together and present them as a feature? The notion was tried and tested before west coast audiences. The ticket buyers loved it. Thus was the idea born. And that is why you are about to see ten shorts rolled into one and presented as Make Mine Music. […]
