vintage

Savage Wild West Adventures of the Border Patrol (1951 toons)

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borderpatrolcover“Heroic” Border Patrol Agents of Lore: Or “That’s Not the Migra I Know!” More Tales of Greedy “Mexicans,” “Savage” Native Americans, and “Heroic” Uber Gringos!

Pappy’s Golden Age of Comics Blog is at it again — posting delectable artifacts from American comic book history that are also revelatory chronicles unraveling the collusion of race, ethnicity, violence, and more in popular “entertainments.”

Mas…Savage Wild West Adventures of the Border Patrol (1951 toons)

Sometimes you feel a little … Mexican @ Chi-Chi’s (video)

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Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you feel a little Mexican. Am I right, people? ¡Orale! Let’s hear it out there! Give it up for the Mexicans! You, Pedro wearing the Pendleton, put down the filero before you applaud. OK. No offense, ese. Just sayin’.

Everybody feels Mexican in this this goofy 1987 commercial from the “casual dining” chain Chi-Chi’s — including the popo!

The outfit closed in this country in ten years ago but will forever be remembered for the invention of the word “salsification.”

PREVIOUSLY ON MEXICAN FOOD COMMERCIALS:

Mas…Sometimes you feel a little … Mexican @ Chi-Chi’s (video)

U.S. ♥ Mexico WWII propaganda film: ‘Mexican Moods’ (1942)

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Seventy years ago, when Mexico joined the Allies (AKA the United Nations) to fight against Nazi Germany, the U.S. Office of Inter-American Affairs produced and released Mexican Moods praising our new BFF.

Sometimes shaky period color footage is matched by shaky period narration and musical production numbers as the film celebrates Mexico’s joining the United Nations, silver making in Taxco (right), modern Mexican airports, Aztec ruins and rituals and Mexican movie and stage stars like handsome young law-school-dropout/comic actor Cantinflas. The 11-minute video, produced and directed by Aldo Ermini, is right down here…

Mas…U.S. ♥ Mexico WWII propaganda film: ‘Mexican Moods’ (1942)

Laurel and Hardy are El Gordo y El Flaco in ‘El Flaco Va Al Dentista’

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Is Will Ferrell — currently starring in Casa de Mi Padre — the first Anglo comic actor to make a Spanish-language comedy without knowing a word of Spanish?

No guey! As you can see in this old movie clip, black and white jailbirds Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel AKA El Gordo y El Flaco visited the Dentista and delivered their lines phonetically from a script 60 or more years ago. If you don’t know about Ferrell’s movie, you can peep the trailer below — it’s in Spanish AND color!

Mas…Laurel and Hardy are El Gordo y El Flaco in ‘El Flaco Va Al Dentista’

Sabado Pochonte: DTLA, Olvera St., 1937 (Vericolor, Cliché-o-Vision)

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A Street of Memory (1937): You’ll meet “soft-speaking olive-skinned guides, languid in business” the narrator intones as he guides tourists in a walk through Los Angeles’ quasi-historic Olvera Street.
Brain-exploding old school stereotypes spice up this documentary by William M. Pizor – a “Vericolor production offering touristic views of  Olvera Street and the old Mexican quarter in Los Angeles, California” according to the Internet Archive.

Do you see anyone you know? Recognize any landmarks?