User Reviews

. . . says the lead character of Warner Bros.' Looney Tune short, TORTILLA FLAPS, one in a continuing program to share Mexican Culture with America. Most Mexican food, according to Warner's Food Stylists, is put together using three main ingredients: Flatbread (or "tortillas"), cheese, and rodent morsels. Since the latter are so much cheaper to come by than Prime Beef, Taco Bell is able to undercut McDonalds' prices by a little and Mickey D's profit margin by a lot. According to this week's USA Today, Texas is the main victim of this Mexican rodent meat incursion, having seen the Lone Star Cattle Census drop by one million head in the past decade. FLAPS' Mouseburger aficionado Blue Vulture also gets the last word here--"Ouch!"--regarding the main Mexican way of dealing with losing contestants. It's balls to the face and shafts to the rump, as phallic dart after dart are buried in Blue's butt. (Something this penetrating would be rated NC-17 Today, but the 1950s when FLAPS took wing featured an easily bamboozled U.S. censorship board, dominated by Romans to whom Blue's predicament was Second Nature.)

This Speedy Gonzales short opens with Speedy putting on a show for the other mice by playing ping pong against himself; it is interrupted though when Señor Vulturo, a large black bird, decides to have one of the mice for his dinner. Speedy quickly saves his friends and makes an enemy of Vulturo. For the rest of the short Vulturo tries to catch Speedy but inevitably things don't go as he planned as Speedy lures him onto the railway tracks where he gets hit by a train, he gets shot with his own cannon and blown up by his own explosives... ultimately all he can do is surrender and join in the part games... as the dart board!

Fans of Speedy should enjoy this short as it contains the things we've come to expect; references to his womanising, foiling the plans of a rather dim adversary and saving the day for his mouse friends. There are some fine gags, my favourite being when Vulturo ends up looking very must like Daffy Duck when he tries to chase Speedy into his mouse hole. Señor Vulturo made an entertaining adversary for Speedy; it is a shame that he didn't become a regular foe. Voice actor Mel Blanc does a fine job in the duel roles of Speedy and Señor Vulturo.

This is a fairly early Speedy and a fairly novel one, in that Speedy's nemesis is a rather slow-witted bird named Senor Vulturo. As I plan on discussing some details, this is a spoiler warning:

The short opens with a large crowd of mice celebrating Cinco de Mayo, which is one of two Mexican Independence Days. The main attraction at the festivities is Speedy Gonzales, playing a game of "Peeng Pong" against himself. Incidentally, if you understand Spanish, you may find one or two of Speedy's comments during the match humorous. You might want to watch the crowd scene, as at least one little mouse is going in the opposite direction of the rest of the crowd in watching the match.

As the mice are enjoying themselves, Senor Vulturo sees the crowd and exclaims, "Mouseburgers!" and decides it's time for supper. As he dives on the crowd, the mice panic and scatter, leaving Speedy to wonder what the fuss is about. The other mice tell him and they see the bird swooping in on one hapless mouse. Speedy races to the rescue, saves the mouse and the bird see, instead of the mouse in his talon, a firecracker in a sombrero, which explodes. Speedy returns, taunts the bird, who then calls Speedy a "Cucaracha!" and tries to swat and then to catch him with no success and great personal injury.

The bird then has a run-in with Speedy and a train and then a run-in with a hand-car. There are just some days when it doesn't pay for a predator to get out of bed.

Speedy tricks the bird into following him by promising to take him to find a slower mouse, but all that happens is that the bird flies into a wall and literally cracks his skull. He then decides to get Speedy by using a toy and some nitroglycerin to blow Speedy up. Speedy turns the tables on him and the bird surrenders.

The ending is hilarious, particularly the last line, so I won't spoil it here. This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is well worth seeing. Recommended.

"Tortilla Flaps" is a Speedy Gonzales cartoon from the late 1950s and another example of how the Golden Age of Animation was almost over 65 years ago already. It is not a complete failure as there were maybe two somewhat funny scenes, but even for a 6.5-minute film, it just wasn't enough. One main reason for that may be that the main antagonist was really only stupid and embarrassing instead of interesting for any reason. And he was pretty strange looking. I guess they weren't sure how new villains should look like, so they just changed the color. I am generally not a big Speedy Gonzales fan, so I personally think this cartoon here is an example of how mediocre he was in most of his films and lets be honest, his shtick was getting old really quickly, so I don't think there should be as many cartoons as there were about him. Only positive aspect: Mel Blonc is fine as usual. Overall, a thumbs down from me though. Not recommended.

"Tortilla Flaps" is a very good Speedy Gonzales cartoon directed by Bob McKimson. All of the Mexican mice have set up their own little carnival in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, with Speedy as a ping-pong exhibitionist. When a slow-witted vulture drifts over the premises, he figures he can obtain some mouseburgers for supper, thus prompting Speedy to make darn sure that the vulture remains hungry!

Highlights: The vulture chases one helpless little mouse, who is somehow funny as he cries, "Help! 'Assistancio'!" before Speedy replaces him with a firecracker. Speedy is quite funny himself as he sneaks up from behind the vulture and shouts, "Eee-ha!!!" causing the vulture to jump up and land in a washtub full of water. The vulture then tries to swat Speedy and chase him, all the while Speedy is rapidly humming a familiar Mexican song. While standing in the middle of some railroad tracks, the vulture prepares to chase Speedy but gets his carcass knocked in the air by a small flatcar. (This scene is actually a lot funnier when watched frame-by-frame.) And finally, the vulture tries to trick Speedy into playing with a ball/string/cup contraption secretly filled with nitroglycerin, but all Speedy does is toss the ball from one side to the other, never in the cup; the vulture becomes annoyed and shows Speedy how to correctly use the toy, only to get himself blasted!

"Tortilla Flaps" is such a fun cartoon to watch. The audience already knows that Speedy Gonzales is going to win against this dimwitted vulture, so the excitement stems from observing just HOW Speedy will succeed.