Lee Eisenberg In the last Warner Bros. cartoon made before the studio closed its animation unit, a man tells his friend the story of Senorella, a Mexican version of Cinderella. Obviously, fairy tales are some of the easiest stories to work with, and the Warner Bros. animation unit had been doing it from very early on. I should note, however, that the animation looks kind of metallic here and the narration starts sounding like an echo.Otherwise, "Senorella and the Glass Huarache" is worth at least checking out. As for possible stereotyping of Mexicans, it's nothing that we haven't seen in a Speedy Gonzales cartoon. Now available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5. And if you ask me, considering that around the time that this came out was also about that time that the studio retired Bugs Bunny, they shouldn't have attempted anything after that (except for the compilation films).Back when Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising made the first Bosko cartoon for Leon Schlesinger Productions in 1930 (which released its cartoons through WB), they probably had no idea that their studio would branch out into things like this.

Robert Reynolds This short was the last short produced by the Warner Brothers animation department. The studio shut down the animation department, only to farm out the production of cartoons to the Depatie-Freleng Studio, which also produced the Pink Panther shorts. I'm going to talk a bit about the short, so there will be mild spoilers below: Though there really isn't anything particularly exceptional about this short, I noticed some things I thought were at least somewhat interesting about it when I saw it today for the first time. For one thing, it had a lot of visual similarities to the shorts produced by Depatie-Freleng-the character design of Senorella, for example, is very similar to female characters in a couple of later Pink Panther shorts. The backgrounds are also very much like the later backgrounds, which I suppose is hardly surprising, given that a number of the people who worked on this short went on to work for Depatie-Freleng.As for the short itself, it's a largely by-the-numbers version of Cinderella, with the nominal twist of it being populated with Hispanic characters. Apart from the narrator's accent and pronunciation, the slant given this short is generally benign and marginal. The short's greatest deficit is that it really isn't terribly funny and there isn't enough variation in the plot to make up for the lack of decent jokes. It's rather predictable to anyone who knows the story of Cinderella.Still, it is worth seeing once and is currently in print on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 5. Recommended for Looney Tunes completest.

ccthemovieman-1 A Mexican version of the famous "Cinderella And The Glass Slipper" story? Yup, that's what you get here in this modern-day Looney Tunes cartoon. I say "modern day" because I don't recall seeing any cartoons in the LT Golden Collection DVDs made as late as 1964. I have seen all the collections but Volume Four, and can't recall any of the '60s. The opening graphics are so different than the '40s and '50s it was almost a shock to see. The artwork was good, though: very colorful and done well in a new style for Looney Tunes.The story would probably be censored by Politically-Correct Police of today as it uses names for Mexicans such as "Sarsaparilla, Tabasco," and other phrases; anything that sounds Spanish and the accents are a bit exaggerated. (I'm not on PC side unless it is overtly racist or mean-spirited to any group.) This has a nice side; it's not trying to demean Hispanics but by today's standards, it comes across as a bit condescending in spots. Not every Mexican is a bullfighter, or wears a sombrero everywhere, or can't spell or brutalizes the English language, etc.Anyway, the humor is "fair," nothing super but not bad. I liked the colorful and modern artwork, and the faces and "latest dresses from Madrid" of the women, were a lot of fun to watch. This was a hoot for the eyes, even if the jokes were a little too corny to laugh.

bbwvixen67 WARNING: My brief comments on this film may contain a spoiler, so please don't read if you don't want your curiosity to be ruined.I first watched this classic Warner Bros. short on the Nickelodeon children's network when it was a part of their daily "Looney Tunes" program and I instantly fell in love with it. After that first showing, I was hoping the network would show it again at a later date, as I was taping most of the Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes shorts for later viewing. They did show it again--and yes, I taped it. I watch "Senorella" along with the other shorts on tape every now and then, and it still makes me laugh every time I view it.This animated short starts off with two Mexican drunks in a bar who are only seen as figures in shadow over a visible sign for a play (or movie) called "Cinderella and the Glass Slipper", and one of them relates the "Senorella" story to the other--but with a few exceptions. Senorella is shown as a dirty, disheveled, thin girl; the wicked stepmother and stepsisters are gluttonous; there are bugs helping Senorella with the chores instead of mice; and instead of Prince Charming, there's a single but inept bullfighter named Don Miguel, whose wealthy father desperately wants to marry off.Don Miguel's dad arranges a ball in which all of the women of the village are invited, and like in the classic Cinderella tale, Senorella gets uninvited by her stepmother. Of course, the Fairy Godmother comes to her aid, and in a hilarious twist, she makes Senorella look like a gorgeous hooker--complete with glass huaraches! Senorella then goes to the ball, dances with the bullfighter, and runs out of the ball at the stroke of midnight; leaving one of her glass huaraches behind.After a nervewracking search, Don Miguel and his dad finally found Senorella in a muddy pig's trough the following day (she was put there by her stepmother to hide her away from them). He then placed the huarache on her foot and took her away from her wretched stepfamily to marry her. They ended up living happily ever after as "manuelo and wife" (as the narrator ended the tale before we see the drunks' shadowy figures one last time as the cartoon comes to a close).The good folks at Warners did a great job with this short, and although it's not a big side-splitter by any means, it is an enjoyable change of pace from the standard Bugs Bunny and Co. fare, which is what most animation buffs tend to remember and enjoy more over the years. I give this hilarious but forgotten piece of animation history ten stars.