Takes itself way too seriously

ridiculous rating

Good start, but then it gets ruined

A Disappointing Continuation

. . . 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.

What a timely cartoon....50 years later....although illegal immigration isn't the issue here - it's stealing and eating some cheese! Here we see a bunch of little mice (in sombreros) behind barbed wire at the border in Mexico. Just 50 yards away on the American side is the Ajax Cheese Company....and those mice want that cheese. Guarding the border is the hapless Sylvester the Cat.They draw straws to see who is going to race over give it a shot. Timid "Manuel" draws the short straw, but he lasts only seconds. The mice throw away is sombrero in a pile, signifying he's the latest casualty in the unsuccessful venture.Finally, one of the mice suggests they go get "Speedy Gonzales." Most of the others haven't heard of him but those who have all describe him as "the fastest mouse in Mexico." One guy says, "I can contact Speedy because he's a friend of my sister." A wise-guy mouse remarks, "He's a friend of EVERYBODY's sister!! (You can read into that, what you want!)Speedy then struts his stuff, and Sylvester tries to stop him. The racing rodent goes back and forth a number of times and the cat tries a different method to stop him each time. You can guess the result.A steady diet of Speedy yelling "arriba! arriba!" all the time might grow tedious, but seeing him once in awhile is a treat.

An apparent criticism of the Speedy Gonzales cartoons is that they stereotype Mexicans as sombrero-wearing wackos. I guess that this one - actually called "Speedy Gonzales" - basically does that, but it's still a really funny cartoon, as the Fastest Mouse in Mexico gets hired to snatch cheese out of a factory (presumably across the US-Mexico border) guarded by Sylvester.If in fact it's the US-Mexico border, then the cartoon raises the immigration debate. We see the people - or mice - in our southern neighbor needing to get into our country for better opportunities (as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as an illegal immigrant). Then again, maybe I'm reading way too far into the cartoon; it was probably intended as nothing more than silly entertainment. If so, then it succeeds. Worth seeing.He's the friend of everybody's sister. Speedy certainly seems like he could be a playboy.

This cartoon won the Oscar in the same year that "Legend of Rockabye Point" and "Good Will To Men" were eligible, which atonises me no end! While it's a good cartoon, either of those two run rings around this enjoyable, but unexceptional piece of work. I have no idea why it happened, but it is one of the more surprising flubs in the Animated Short category's history. *sigh* Oh, well. A pleasing and enjoyable cartoon anyway and well worth watching.