the audience applauded

Just perfect...

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This short opens with two Mexican mice discussing their plans for the evening, one suggest that they should go out with pretty girls but the other points out that all the pretty girls are in love with Speedy Gonzales and that only chihuahuas are left. We then see various scenes where Speedy races in to steal the hearts of various mice's girl friends. Fed up with Speedy getting all the señoritas they hatch a plot to get rid of him by getting "the Gringo pussy cat" to run him out of town. What follows is what one would expect when Sylvester goes against Speedy... The poor cat ends up getting injured, blown up and tricked into eating chillies and drinking Tabasco.While it is fairly predictable it also provided a few laughs, mostly at the expense of Sylvester.

Friz Freleng's 'Gonzales' Tamales' is a typically so-so Speedy Gonzales cartoon. It seemed to be Sylvester's fate to be paired with some of the least funny characters in the Warner Bros. repertoire and the poor gringo pussy cat got lumbered with Speedy for a long time, until he was finally relieved of that duty by Daffy Duck, bizarrely enough. 'Gonzales' Tamales' actually starts out promisingly with an interesting premise: all the other Mexican mice are tired of Speedy taking all their women so they decide to dispose of him. How? Therein lies the cartoon's problem. They decide to manipulate Sylvester into chasing Speedy out of town, at which point 'Gonzales' Tamales' becomes a standard Speedy and Sylvester cartoon, in which Sylvester tries to lure Speedy out of his hole in a variety of different ways. While there are a couple of laughs (I particularly like a scene in which Sylvester attempts to shoot Speedy only for the mouse to quickly dismantle the gun piece by piece), 'Gonzales' Tamales' largely seems like old hat. Even as a child when I loved even the dullest Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, I was disappointed when a Speedy cartoon came on and that feeling hasn't left me. 'Gonzales' Tamales' is just another in a long line of Speedy clangers.

i was watching this today on the third golden collection DVD set, and suddenly realized that in the scene when Speedy is singing in his hole, the words to his version of "la cucaracha," are translated to English thus:the cockroach, the cockroach, no longer can walk, because he doesn't lack because he doesn't have any marijuana to smoke!leave it to the guys at Termite Terrace to sneak in subversive bits of humor past censors and such.

I can't really discuss this cartoon without including at least some details, so consider yourself warned as to spoilers: The male mice in a small village have something of a problem-his name is Speedy Gonzales. Every little senorita mouse is far more interested in the dashing Speedy than they are in anyone else. In a brilliant display of vigor and young mouse-hood, they decide the solution to their problems is by arranging for someone else to do their dirty work-"El gringo pussycat", for instance. So they make it look like Speedy's insulted Sylvester and the chase is on. As you might expect, Sylvester gets the worst of Speedy and things don't end terribly well from his point of view.Pairing Sylvester and Speedy up in a cartoon is an obvious and effective teaming, when you think about it a bit. It does have the same obvious limitation the Sylvester versus Tweety shorts have-you know from the outset that no one will be lunch, even if one character does consider the other a part of their basic food groups. The reason these shorts work (when they do) is because of the gags involved and the background material. You hear a character singing a couple of lines of "La Cucaracha" (which are particularly funny if you understand Spanish), or you see the physical results of Sylvester trying to catch Speedy and it doesn't matter that Sylvester has a better chance of hitting the lottery than does of catching his prey du jour.This is available on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3 and is most definitely worth getting. I recommend the Collection without reservation. Highly recommended.