Saludos Amigos

Saludos Amigos
Original theatrical release poster
Directed by	Norman Ferguson Wilfred Jackson Jack Kinney Hamilton Luske Bill Roberts
Produced by	Walt Disney
Story by	Homer Brightman William Cottrell Richard Huemer Joe Grant Harold Reeves Ted Sears Webb Smith Roy Williams Ralph Wright
Starring	Lee Blair Mary Blair Pinto Colvig Walt Disney Norman Ferguson Frank Graham Clarence Nash José Oliveira Frank Thomas
Narrated by	Fred Shields
Music by	Paul Smith Edward H. Plumb
Production company	Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	August 24, 1942 (1942-08-24) (World Premiere-Rio de Janeiro) February 6, 1943 (1943-02-06) (U.S. Premiere-Boston) February 19, 1943 (1943-02-19) (U.S.)
Running time	42 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English Portuguese

Saludos Amigos (Spanish for Greetings, Friends) is a 1942 American animated package film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is the sixth Disney animated feature film and the first of the six package films produced by Walt Disney Productions in the 1940s. Set in Latin America, it is made up of four different segments; Donald Duck stars in two of them and Goofy stars in one. It also features the first appearance of José Carioca, the Brazilian cigar-smoking parrot.Saludos Amigos was popular enough that Walt Disney decided to make another film about Latin America, The Three Caballeros, to be produced two years later. Saludos Amigos premiered in Rio de Janeiro on August 24, 1942. It was released in the United States on February 6, 1943. It garnered positive reviews and was theatrically reissued in 1949, when it was shown on a double bill with the first reissue of Dumbo.

In early 1941, before U.S. entry into World War II, the United States Department of State commissioned a Disney goodwill tour of South America, intended to lead to a movie to be shown in the US, Central, and South America as part of the Good Neighbor Policy. This was being done because several Latin American governments had close ties with Nazi Germany, and the US government wanted to counteract those ties. Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters were popular in Latin America, and Walt Disney acted as ambassador. The tour, facilitated by Nelson Rockefeller, who had recently been appointed as Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA), took Disney and a group of roughly twenty composers, artists, technicians, etc. from his studio to South America, mainly to Brazil and Argentina, but also to Chile and Peru.