. . . there was no need to wait until the 2016 U.S. Presidential Primaries to find out. Long before any American had even heard of Trump or Cruz, Warner Bros. was predicting trouble along the Southern U.S. Border as early as the animated short SPEEDY GONZALEZ from the Mid-1950s. Warner uses rodents to represent Mexican citizens eager to steal the fruits of American Labor and Industry. These lazy creatures are portrayed as not lifting a finger to produce their own food, harboring the sole interest of illegally crossing our border to steal our stuff. Their entire survival is dependent upon filching food from the American Working Class. Warner uses Sylvester Cat to symbolize the heroic American Border Guards risking Injury & Death to stand as a Last Line of Defense against the Economic Terrorists to the South. About 1:38 into this story, Sylvester adds "Manuel's" sombrero to those of at least 7 other Mexicans (and more likely 50 or 100) that this extraordinary border nemesis has dispatched so far. Then a new racing robber literally tears Sylvester a new one. Warner then suggests that the only way to protect our cheese (or the Wealth of America) from these rapacious Mini-Rats to the South is to create a No Man's Land with a full stock of land mines and other defenses. But Milhouse Nixon turned a blind eye toward SPEEDY GONZALEZ, and now an expensive wall must be built.

This is a great little cartoon featuring one of my childhood favourites; Speedy Gonzales, the fastest mouse in all of Mexico.The cartoon opens outside the Ajax cheese company warehouse, a group of Mexican mice are at the fence drawing lots to see which of them will run in and try to get some cheese without being caught by Sylvester the cat. Manuel draws the short straw and hand his sombrero to another mouse before rushing in. Judging by the reaction of the mice he doesn't survive and his sombrero is thrown onto a pile of hats. One on the mice says his sister is a friend of Speedy Gonzales to which another mouse retorts that everybody's sister knows speedy. The mouse goes off and returns with Speedy. Speedy has much better luck, nothing Sylvester does to stop him succeeds, not nets, not traps nor land mines... eventually he plans to lure Speedy in with a huge pile of cheese which he has packed with TNT, he detonates it too soon and the cheese rains down on the grateful mice.I enjoyed everything about this cartoon; Speedy and his friends' dodgy Mexican accents, the slightly racy joke about him being friends with everybody's sisters and Sylvester's increasingly desperate attempts to stop him... a must for all fans of Warner Brother's cartoons.

Directed by the supreme Friz Freleng, "Speedy Gonzales" is a cartoon starring - guess who - the celebrated fastest mouse in all Mexico! Co-starring is Sylvester, one of the funniest felines in cartoon history, who encounters plenty of difficulty in trying to prevent Speedy from stealing all the cheese from the Ajax Cheese Company to feed all of his "compadres".Just a few highlights: In trying to net Speedy, Sylvester gets dragged over a saguaro cactus and through a narrow pipe! He also gets caught in his own mousetraps and steps on one of his own land mines."Speedy Gonzales" is a clever cartoon with plenty of bravado for Speedy and plenty of trouble for Sylvester. I suspect that the Spanish that is spoken at the beginning of this cartoon is mostly fabricated, which only adds to the humor. I also like Carl Stalling's wonderful music score, particularly the charming melody at the very beginning when several starving mice gaze at the cheese factory from behind a wire fence, and the snare drum cadence shortly afterward as Sylvester marches in front of the fence.

Despite the title, this is Speedy Gonzales' SECOND appearance, after Robert McKimson's Cat-Tails for Two. This is, however, his first time in the costume and design we know him from. In this short, after another mouse gets done for in trying to get cheese past the guard-Sylvester, Speedy accepts the challenge. The red-nosed cat is ready for the "fastest mouse in all Mexico" but gets defeated at every turn. This Oscar-winning cartoon from Friz Freleng gives us another classic Warner Bros. character that lasts for decades despite some PC controversy that almost got Speedy gone for good. Turns out many Hispanics consider Mr. Gonzales a hero for his exploits and don't find anything offensive about him. I certainly don't and I never understood why anyone would either. Anyway, while I don't consider this a great cartoon, it's certainly another highly enjoyable outing from Mr. Freleng.