Disney+ Removes Smoking Scene out of Classic Movie 'Saludos Amigos'

Disney has altered one of its animated films for its streaming service, Disney+. The 1942 film, Saludos Amigos, was noticeably lacking a scene in which Goofy, who portrays a cowboy in the old west, was smoking a cigarette. The change, as noted by Gizmodo, comes alongside the ubiquitous warning found on several of its older entries, which reads: "This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions."

Despite the digitally-altered scene, which you can see alongside the original here, the film also comes with a warning that the animated feature "contains tobacco depictions." This is because it does leave a different scene that features a cigar-smoking parrot. While it's clear why The House of Mouse would want to steer clear of its animated characters using tobacco, it's unclear why one scene was edited while another was not.

Additionally, the film's IMDb page states that the scene with Goofy was edited for the film's initial DVD release, but claims it was restored for the Blu-ray release some years later. Interestingly, the Disney+ warning about "outdated cultural depictions" was designed to allow unaltered versions of some of the studio's older titles without a significant blowback, though it appears some titles may be altered for streaming anyway.

This creative choice comes on the heels of the streaming service pulling a handful of titles from its streaming library in the U.S., including the first two Home Alone films but not Home Alone 3. There was so much outcry online about the whole thing that Netflix, the streaming giant that's considered one of the biggest competitors of Disney+, also weighed in. Though they were pretty clear that they wouldn't be offering the 1990 holiday comedy anytime soon.

While all the titles that were pulled are owned by Disney, a spokesman explained that they ended up going on a temporary hiatus due to contractual obligations that precede its own streaming service, which just launched back in November. There's no word on when any of them will be returning to their catalog, so we might just have to wait for the upcoming Home Alone reboot, instead.

In the meantime, there's no shortage of new content coming to Disney+ this month, including everything from the studio's legacy titles to original content produced for the service exclusively.