Western Animation / Legend of the Three Caballeros

"This... will take a miracle."

Xandra, The Goddess of Adventure: Wait! But I can take you anywhere on Earth. Magical places no one has ever gone. You can protect the innocent! Vanquish evil! BE HEROES!
The Three Caballeros: Meh.
Xandra:...and there's treasure.
Donald Duck: Well, why didn't you say so?!
José: You had me at "treasure"!
Panchito: You had me at "and"!

It all started on his birthday. Dumped by his girlfriend, fired from his job, and newly homeless after his house burned down, hapless everyman Donald Duck's fortunes appear to flip when he inherits the dilapidated, but antique-engorged estate of his great-grandfather, Clinton Coot. Along with his fellow heirs (the charming but penniless José Carioca, a Brazillian parrot, and a daredevil rooster from Mexico named Panchito Romero Miguel Francisco Quintero Gonzalez III), Donald wastes no time in trying to profit from the horde of priceless artifacts, only to be dragged kicking and screaming into an immense and deadly cosmic war.

An animated series featuring the titular heroes of the 1945 film The Three Caballeros, the series took several traits from theatrical ''Donald Duck'' shorts, in addition to the Disney Ducks Comic Universe. It debuted on the DisneyLife streaming app in the Philippines on June 9, 2018, with thirteen episodes. The show came out in America on Disney+ on November 12, 2019.

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The show provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Xandra, the Goddess of Adventure, a mighty Greek deity with a direct link to the golden atlas.
• Action Prologue: The series opens In Medias Res with the final battle between the Three Caballeros and Lord Felldrake before cycling back to the beginning of the tale.
• Adaptation Name Change: Panchito's original surname Pistoles is dropped and replaced with a significantly longer one which was previously used in his appearance in House of Mouse.
• All Myths Are True: Greek and Aztec gods, as well as King Arthur, Merlin and his Knights of the Round Table, show up. There's also ghosts, alien colonizers, the magic of the Nazca Plains, and goblins in a parallel dimension accessible through Stonehenge.
• All Webbed Up: Donald in "Nazca Racing."
• Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: The Caballeros' amulets.
• Ancient Astronauts: Egypt was a colony of an ancient Moon civilization, with the pyramids being rocket ships they used to go between Earth and their home on the dark side of the Moon. Pyramid ships are even crewed by mummies in space suits.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Sheldgooses, who have been involved in every major atrocity in history.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Baron Von Sheldgoose is an example of this trope.
• Art Course: Nazca Realm from the episode "Nazca Racing" is similar to ChalkZone's titular dimension but restricts the objects to line art with no filling colors. The place is described thusly:
  José: The sparseness of line and attention to negative space is primitive, yet evocative.
  Panchito: And also cool.
• Art Shift: Most of "Nazca Racing" takes place in a world made of chalk.
• Artistic License – History: In Mount Rushmore Or Less George Washington's ghost has statues in his section of Mount Rushmore, one of them shows Marsha Washington holding nunchucks. Played for Laughs.
• Ascended Extra: The Aracuan Bird from the original movie returns here as Ari, the estate's groundskeeper.
• Authority Equals Ass Kicking: The ghosts of Mount Rushmore's presidents make short work on Sheldgoose and Felldrake. Also, King Arthur, with Xandra claiming he's the best heroes trainer ever.
• Back for the Finale: Pretty much everybody. In the final battle, Sheldgoose summons the various Monsters of the Week to attack the Caballeros, which Xandra counters with summoning the Caballeros' various allies.
• Because Destiny Says So: The Caballeros accept their destiny as defenders of the world.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The ghosts of the four presidents whose faces adorn Mt. Rushmore guard the Spark of Life, a magical crystal that can animate inanimate matter and was hidden in the mountain.
• Big Bad: Lord Felldrake, with his descendant Baron von Sheldgoose as his Dragon.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Between Donald and Daisy...at the end of the world, no less!
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The Shangrila-Di-Da resport spa is run by yetis that greatly resemble those seen on the Matterhorn.
• Birthday Beginning , A Birthday, Not a Break: The series starts on Donald's birthday, and it’s not the most happiest of starts.
• Bowdlerise:
  • The new version of the Three Caballeros theme song replaces the line "gay" with "brave" due to the word having a different connotation in 2018 than it did in 1945. Justified, since the latter word fits better considering the show's about globetrotting adventures to stop an Evil Sorcerer.
  • José no longer smokes cigars due to Disney's self-imposed ban on on-screen smoking in their media since 2007.
  • Panchito no longer carries his pistols and his original surname Pistoles is likewise dropped to accommodate this.
• Brawn Hilda: What you get when you give the Mama Bear of a bratty child the appearance (and voice!) of Peg-Leg Pete.
• Broken Aesop: "Shangri-La-Di-Da'', is centered around Donald's anger problem. He has some sort of fantasy where a spirit tells him to reflect on everything that's happened so far that's gotten him into trouble. While Donald's anger is a defining characteristic, losing his barber shop job was because of the kid who refused to sit still and let his hair to get cut, the breakup with Daisy was her not letting him explain anything and his hair cut boss demanding he come in to work or be fired (who has worse anger issues than him) so he can't do both. His house burning down was due to the firefighters chopping everything with axes rather than using water. None of those things were due to his anger. However, this could also be the spirit telling Donald to reflect on the source of his anger rather than what was caused by his anger.
• Bros Before Hoes: A rare reverse example when Daisy gets a new boyfriend and tries to make Donald jealous. Donald tells him to have a good time, but José and Panchito are having none of it and tell off the man.
  José pointing at Donald: He does not like you!
  Panchito pointing at José: He does not like you either. But I'm on the fence.
• Butt-Monkey: Tends to bounce between Donald and Sheldgoose, but Sheldgoose usually ends up getting the worst of it.
• The Cameo: Scrooge McDuck makes a cameo in the penultimate episode when the Cabelleros cobble together a Wave-Motion Gun from the stuff in their hut to blast through a magic force field, which not only blasts through it, it melts the front off the money bin too.
• Canon Foreigner: Lord Felldrake, Baron von Sheldgoose, Xandra, and a lot of the supporting cast.
• Catchphrase: Panchito often says "Ya-whoo!"
• Celestial Bureaucracy: The Underworld has several "managers", most of which being part of Sheldgoose's family naturally. They all answer to Donald Satan, who fired our Sheldgoose.
• The Chew Toy: Take a wild guess? Hint: It's Donald.
• Cliffhanger: Uniquely, every episode ends on one of these that leads into the next one.
• Color-Coded Characters: Donald, José and Panchito are blue, green and red, respectively; Xandra is golden-yellow; the villains (Sheldgoose, Felldrake and Leopold) are purple. As for the secondary characters, April and June are also yellow and purple, but different shades, May is orange and Daisy is pink.
• Crossover Cosmology: The cosmology of this show is a mish-mash of various mythologies. There are Greco-Roman gods (who for some reason reside in a World Tree like Norse gods, rather than on Mount Olympus but you can blame Marvel for that); Mexican gods of Life and Death; an Underworld run by a Satanic figure resembling Donald, but with a Celestial Bureaucracy and Yōkai that are able to kill ghosts; the core of Earth is guarded by the Nazca creatures; Stonehenge is a portal to another dimension inhabited by Goblins; Egypt was founded by Ancient Astronauts... and so on.
• Cunning Linguist: José thinks he's one of these. In truth, his grasp on foreign languages is rather poor and he more often than not insults the person he is trying to kiss up to.
• Dagwood Sandwich: Donald makes himself one in the first episode, when mistaking Baron von Sheldgoose's house for his own. He makes a pretty big mess while eating it.
• Darkest Hour: Episode 12. Sheldgoose has stolen the Caballeros' amulets, Felldrake is on his way on becoming the most powerful warlock in the universe, José, Panchito, and Xandra are ready to fight Sheldgoose and Felldrake, and Donald isn't here until the very end.
• Deflector Shields: Sheldgoose's mansion and the Caballeros' cabana have one. They are designed to keep only Felldrake and the Caballeros out of each other's homes, but others can pass freely.
• Devil, but No God: Donald Satan exists and controls the Underworld. There are many benevolent or neutral gods, but no specific judaeo-christian counterpart nor an alternative afterlife. On the plus side, the Underworld's not so bad (youkai aside), so this "Satan" is more like the Grecian Hades amusingly enough.
• Disney Death: The Three Caballeros, Sheldgoose, and Felldrake are all sent to the Underworld by the God of Death, and an entire episode is dedicated to them trying to come back to life.
• The Ditz: Panchito's personality is modified to being enthusiastic to the point of stupidity.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Charon used to be a pretty a pretty grim guy, but he has since changed to a more festive personality, and doing so made business boom.
• Doppelgänger Dating: Daisy's new boyfriend, Dapper, looks remarkably similar to Donald.
• Downer Beginning: Donald loses his job, his girlfriend, and even his house in the span of eight minutes in the first episode.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Donald starts the series fired, homeless, and dumped by Daisy. At the end of the first season, he's the President of The New Quackmore Institute, inherits the Mansion and has got back together with Daisy.
• Ear Worm: Panchito and José find the "Goblin Jail" song extremely catchy and join it, to Donald's confusion. In the next episode, when Donald and José say an Accidental Rhyme, Panchito believes they're continuing the song.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: In one episode, Baron Sheldgoose tries to explain his absence from the Quackmore Institute that he's supposed to be running:
  Sheldgoose: I had to go away for a month... to the moon; there were robots!
  Aristocrat: Poppycock! There's no such thing as the moon!
• Evil Is Hammy: Lord Felldrake, even while trapped in a staff and not able to move under his own power, manages to Chew the Scenery to an impressive degree, thanks to Kevin Michael Richardson's performance.
• Expy: Xandra loosely functions as an animated equivalent to the live-action human women that the Caballeros would interact with/lust after in the original "Good Neighbor Project" films, though this time only Casanova Wannabe José flirts with her.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: As usual with Disney Ducks media, the show just throws in whatever fantasy elements fit the episode the best. Sorcerers, gods, robots, goblins, ghosts, yetis, dragons, yokai and living moai show up in various episodes.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: The first episode has an Iris Out only partway through the episode. A mailman shoving a letter in Donald's face quickly brings the episode into the series' main plot.
• Firehouse Dalmatian: In the first episode, when Donald Duck's house burns down, the fire squad that comes to put out the fire consists of anthropomorphic Dalmatians.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Having been trapped in a book for a few thousand years, Xandra isn't quite up-to-date with modern society.
• Foreshadowing: Donald gets into an argument with Baron von Sheldgoose in the first chapter in regards to who owns the manor, with Donald insisting that it's his. We later learn that Donald is actually right and he obtains the manor in the finale.
• Fratbro: Xandra's attempts to fit in at the upper-class Institute soirée leave a lot to be desired as she scarfs down all the food and laughs inappropriately at dry British humor.
  May: We will NOT be invited back.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The golden atlas which also doubles as Xandra's prison.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: In the second episode, Donald gets two devils who are both in perfect agreement with each other. Of course, following their advice only gets him into bigger trouble.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The Three Caballeros use melee weapons (sword, scimitar and polearm) in combat; Xandra uses a magic bow and arrow.
• Heartbroken Badass: Donald's heartbroken over his breakup with Daisy for most of the series and he has trouble coping with it.
• The Hero's Journey: The entire plot. The Caballeros start out as three ordinary guys with a number of personality flaws, who learn that they descended from great heroes, are heralded into adventure by Xandra, fight various supernatural foes, die and return from death at one point, and ultimately become powerful enough to clash against the Big Bad in one epic showdown.
• Hollywood Skydiving: Panchito makes his entrance into the series this way. The parachute fails to open before after he's crashed into the ground — and it turns out this was entirely on purpose:
  Panchito: Wow, that tour guide was right! It is more of a rush to wait until after you land to open the parachute!
• Identical Grandson: Donald, José, and Panchito are initially mistaken for their ancestors by Xandra. She even questions why they look so similar.
• King of Beasts: King Arthur.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Donald's status as a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal is alluded to in Episode 4, when he states he's freezing and Panchito points out he's not wearing pants. (José defends him, of course.)
  • It happens again in Episode 5, when Donald tries to explain to Daisy why he's wearing a grass skirt and says he "lost his pants," only for Daisy to point out he doesn't wear them.
• Legacy Character: Donald, José, and Panchito are the descendants of the original Three Caballeros, a trio of knights who (partially) freed Xandra from an evil wizard's thrall and (mostly) defeated him and his evil army.
• The Legend of X: Legend of the Three Caballeros.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Sort of. Most characters, including historical figures, are depicted as anthropomorphic animals (including dogfaces), but the gods themselves are human-looking as are ancient egyptian mummies (though given the latter's status...) and as mentioned in Furry Lens it's heavily implied everyone's actually human beings in-universe.
• Living Statue: The focus of "No Man is an Easter Island", the Moai serve as guardians against a swarm of lava lizards that want to carry their queen to the surface.
• Masked Luchador: Panchito has a new extra persona of "El Gallo Loco", a famous masked wrestler.
• Mr. Exposition: In addition to teleporting them to wherever they need to go, Xandra also supplies helpful knowledge of the "mystic points" when the Three Caballeros arrive there.
• Musical World Hypotheses: The show may not be a musical, but it does have musical numbers...that greatly confuse Donald.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In an attempt to earn some money from Clinton Coot's treasures, the Three Caballeros (and Daisy's nieces) inadvertently sell a powerful cursed trinket to Baron Von Sheldgoose for $1000.
• Not So Above It All: Xandra usually plays the Only Sane Woman to the Caballeros' antics, but she will occasionally join in on the silliness, such as the popcorn fight in the fourth episode.
• Only in It for the Money: The Caballero's initial motivation to become heroes was to get treasure. They were perfectly willing to sell the book even after Xandra told them everything.
• Our Hero Is Dead: "Mexico A Go-Go" ends with the Three Caballeros getting killed by the God of Death.
• Prison Episode: "Stonehenge Your Bets", where the Caballeros end up in Goblin Jail.
• Pun-Based Title: All of the episode titles.
• Running Gag:
  • Various characters exclaiming "So long, suckers!" while running off.
  • Every place the Caballeros visit has giant letters on the ground, spelling out where they are. Whether it's just a visual aid for the viewers or actual physical text on the ground is ambiguous.
• Run the Gauntlet: Sheldgoose uses Felldrake's loaned powers to bring forth villains from all the previous episodes using portals called zoom points. Xandra naturally counters by summoning all their old allies.
• Sadly Mythtaken: The Greco-Roman Gods dwell in the World Tree — which has more to do with Norse mythology's Yggdrasil than with any part of Greco-Roman mythology. One wonders why didn't they just use the Norse gods instead (Answer as seen on the Trivia page, Marvel intervened).
• Saving the World: It's the Caballeros' destiny, after all.
• Skewed Priorities: At the end of Episode 10, Sheldgoose, who has managed to become the manager of The Underworld, has failed to cross the gate in time, thus he cannot return to life. Immediately afterwards, he is fired for letting the main characters escape. While this has the positive effect of returning him to life, Sheldgoose is more focused (and upset) on the fact that he got fired.
• Sequel Hook: The last episode has the Three Caballeros defeating Felldrake and Donald being made acting president of the New Quackmore Institute, however, Felldrake ends up sealed inside Sheldgoose, and the two, alongside Leopold, begin planing their revenge on the Caballeros with the help of an "old friend" of Felldrake's.
• Shout-Out:
  • After the bratty kid who Donald gave a haircut to calls for his mother, footsteps are heard and ripples are seen in a glass of water like in Jurassic Park.
  • In the same scene, Donald's sneeze accidentally blows a lot of brown hair in the mother's face, making her look like Chewbacca. Then she lets out an angry roar which also sounds a bit like a wookiee.
  • When The Minotaur in Episode 2 becomes enraged and attacks The Caballeros, his hair turns gold.
  • Episode 3 ended with a shout-out to the warehouse scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • Episode 6 features the Goblin War Beast, which is a Godzilla-like monster.
• Spooky Séance: The nieces try one to get at least one of the Caballeros back from the Underworld.
• Spoiler Opening: Baron Sheldgoose is initially introduced as simply a snobbish, and greedy next-door neighbor. The intro sequence though shows that he becomes a series villain.
• Spexico: Panchito, a Mexican character, mentions the "running of the bulls", which is a Spanish tradition linked to the (equally) Spanish corrida. During the Caballeros' encounter with Larry the Minotaur, they defeat him using a corrida-inspired tactic, waving a red cloth to trick him into charging into a massive pillar.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitutes: Instead of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald is assisted by Daisy's nieces April, May, and June, triplet sisters who respect him even less than the boys do.
• Take Over the World: Lord Felldrake's plan.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Lord Felldrake and Baron Von Sheldgoose tend to have this dynamic, generally due to the latter being incompetent (although he has his moments), and the former being a jerk with a high opinion of himself.
• Tempting Fate: Donald has a nasty habit of doing this. Whenever he tries to look on the bright side of anything, the universe immediately conspires to make absolutely certain that whatever positive thing he was trying to focus on, is either taken away or was never there in the first place.
• Theme Naming: Each episode is known as "Chapter" and the titles are a mash-up of the location of the episode and a phrase (Example: Pyramid-life Crisis = Pyramid + Mid-life Crisis)
• 13 Is Unlucky: Like the original movie, the plot begins with Donald's birthday, which happens to occur on Friday 13 here. As you might expect, it goes poorly, with Donald losing his girlfriend, his job and his house all in the same day before his fortunes take a turn for the better.
• Took a Level in Badass: Over time, Donald, Panchito, and José become quite competent warriors. This is more evident after training with King Arthur, who basically gives them the equivalent of one year of hero training in a single day.
• Totem Pole Trench: April, May, and June do this to pose as a waiter at a fancy restaurant in Episode 5.
  • They do it again in Episode 9 to pose as Donald (with Donald in the magic mirror) to help him impress Daisy, while he's in Mexico.
• Trauma Conga Line: Happens to Donald in the beginning of the first episode. Donald is unable to eat breakfast, loses his job, loses his girlfriend, and even loses his house on his birthday.
• Upper-Class Twit: Baron von Sheldgoose is an evil example of the trope.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: April, May, and June mostly play this role thanks to finding two magic handmirrors.
• Wham Episode: "Mount Rushmore or Less"^note The Three Caballeros learn that Baron von Sheldgoose is the guy under the hood and "Mexico A Go-Go" ^note In which both the good and bad guys die
• Wham Shot: Episode 11, Sheldgoose revealing he successfully stole the Caballeros' amulets.
• World of Funny Animals: Most characters in the show are (or at least look like) anthropomorphic animals, including historical and legendary figures such as the Presidents of the USA and the Knights of the Round Table. The only exceptions from the rule are gods (who are depicted as human-like) and a few mythical beings.
• Yōkai: A variety lurk about in the dark alleys of the Underworld City with a Tengu warrior guarding a gateway out of the afterlife that leads to the foothills of Mount Fuji.

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