December 21, 1944. It was released in the United States on February 3, 1945, and in the United Kingdom in March of that year. The Three Caballeros was re-released to theaters on April 15, 1977. For this re-issue, the film was edited significantly and re-released in featurette form at 41 minutes, to accompany a re-issue of Never a Dull Moment. Television For the film's television premiere, The Three Caballeros aired as the ninth episode of the first season of ABC's Disneyland television series. Edited, shortened, and re-titled A Present for Donald for this December 22, 1954, broadcast and subsequent re-runs, Donald receives gifts from his friends for Christmas, instead of for his birthday as in the original. Home media November 19, 1982 (VHS and Betamax) October 6, 1987 and October 4, 1988 (VHS, Betamax and Laserdisc) October 28, 1994 (VHS and Laserdisc – Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection) 1995 (Laserdisc – Exclusive Archive Collection) May 2, 2000 (VHS and DVD – Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection) April 29, 2008 (DVD – Classic Caballeros Collection) January 30, 2018 (Blu-ray – 75th Anniversary Edition 2-Movie Collection) Reception Critical reception The Three Caballeros received mixed reviews upon its original release. Most critics were relatively perplexed by the "technological razzle-dazzle" of the film, thinking that, in contrast to the previous feature films up to this time, "it displayed more flash than substance, more technique than artistry." Bosley Crowther for one wrote in The New York Times, "Dizzy Disney and his playmates have let their technical talents run wild." Other reviewers were taken aback by the sexual dynamics of the film, particularly the idea of Donald Duck lusting towards flesh-and-blood women. As Wolcott Gibbs put it in a negative review of the film for The New Yorker, such a concept "is one of those things that might disconcert less squeamish authorities than the Hays office. It might even be said that a sequence involving the duck, the young lady, and a long alley of animated cactus plants would probably be considered suggestive in a less innocent medium." The film holds an 83% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews, with an average score of 6.50/10. The site's consensus reads, "One of Disney's more abstract creations, The Three Caballeros is a dazzling, colorful picture that shows the company at an artistic acme." Box office The film returned rentals to RKO by 1951 of $3,355,000 with