History Main / GratuitousSpanish

* Panchito of ''WesternAnimation/TheThreeCaballeros'' has a few Spanish words, but he's put to shame by fellow Caballero José, who has half of his dialogue in Portuguese. In his first appearance, in ''Westernanimation/SaludosAmigos'', he ONLY speaks Portuguese.

-->'''Gonzo (as Gonzales)''': Arriba! Olé El toro enchilada![[note]]Above! Olé! The bull / beef tortilla roll![[/note]] Dance, you little firebrand, dance! Dance! Tortilla, burrito San Diego![[note]]Flatbread, wrap roll Saint Didacus![[/note]] Show them what Gorgonzola can do! ''(music ends)'' Chop chop chop...

* ''VideoGame/DragonAge'':

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has the Cockatrices. If playing the game in Spanish, they speak in Argentinean accent.

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[[quoteright:198:[[Recap/TintinTheSevenCrystalBalls https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gratuitous_spanish.png]]]]

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->''"El inglés es ideal para hablar de negocios, el alemán se hizo para las ciencias, el francés es la lengua del amor y el español... Ah, el español, es el idioma para hablar con Dios…"'' [[note]]"English is perfect for talking business, German was made for science, French is the language of love, and Spanish... Ah, Spanish, it is the language with which to speak to God..."[[/note]]
-->-- '''Creator/VictorHugo''', possibly referencing UsefulNotes/CharlesV
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Since a good amount of TV is produced in California, specifically southern California, which shares a border with Mexico, and since [[UsefulNotes/SpanishLanguage Spanish]] is the second language of the United States with a 13% share of speakers as of 2021, it is only natural that American TV writers would insert Spanish words and phrases into their series to make things seem more foreign. This trend has become popular in Japan recently, though it has a ways to go before it becomes as popular as German or English. But since more and more people in the US speak Spanish (and Spanish-speakers are increasingly present in all professions and classes, including entertainment), Spanish is becoming more and more common in both fiction and real life.

** The episode "Stump Day" has Star saying "¡Es muy importante!", which means "It's very important!"

* On ''Cedric the Entertainer'''s show, he had a skit called "¿Qué hora es?" ("What time is it?") which parodies this trope describing it as "the Mexican soap opera for people who only had three weeks of Spanish in the fourth grade." Each skit had a scene where all the characters speak only in colloquialisms commonly taught in introductory Spanish classes and Latin-American pop-culture references, both of which usually had nothing to do with the scene that was playing out. At one point, during a wedding scene, the priest gives up and says "[[ElSpanishO Pronouncio manio y wifeio]]". Then [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers one last character]] would burst in to deliver a LoveConfession in fluent Spanish, prompting the rest of the cast to break character to figure out what he was saying.

* Music/{{Beck}}:

* Then there's the Music/{{Madonna}} hit with which "Alejandro" is often compared, "La Isla Bonita" (1987) (although the song was originally intended for Music/MichaelJackson). The title of that song ''itself'' is Gratutitous Spanish (meaning "beautiful island"), and the lyrics include the phrases "¿Cómo puede ser verdad?" ("How can this be true?") and "Te dijo te amo" ("I'm telling you I love you").

* In ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'', after Buzz's reset button is hit, he turns into a flamenco dancing version of his Space Ranger Persona. [[HilarityEnsues ¡Buzz Lightyear al rescate!]]

* "Anthony Is Mexican" by WebVideo/{{Smosh}}. [[HilarityEnsues It dissolves into a train wreck]]. ''Muy rapido.''

* ''WebAnimation/{{Anon}}'': Hunter and Antonio always tend to talk in Spanish whenever they need to talk in public without anyone understanding them.

* Subverted by Panther Caroso of ''VideoGame/StarFox'' - his name, his stature, and his character gives him a feel of being "Spanish", but he speaks purely in English.

* ComicBook/MilesMorales, despite being half-Latino on his mother's side, didn't do this very much during the time Brian Bendis was writing him, especially during the Ultimate universe days. When Saladin Ahmed took up the writer's reins, Miles begins pepping his speech with the occasional burst of Spanish.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'' and his mom generally averted this despite being Mexican, however she did slip into this when she was in the hospital.

* Music/{{Beck}}'s song "Loser" has the chorus start with "soy un perdedor"[[note]]"I'm a loser"[[/note]]. "Hotwax" continues the theme by having the chorus entirely in Spanish ("yo soy un disco quebrado/yo tengo chicle en el cerebro"), and similarly [[SelfDeprecation self-mocking]] (that second line means "I've got chewing gum in my brain".
** And let's not forget "¿Qué onda, Güero?" (Translation: "What's up, white boy?"), which is completely full of random Spanish words. Apparently it's meant to simulate the experience of being a white boy in LA. Like Beck.
*** Beck mentions that he was the only white guy in his street and so was friends with many Hispanic and Black people, thus inspiring both his love of latin music and hip hop.

* The title of the song "Que Sera, Sera" from ''Film/TheManWhoKnewTooMuch'' does not actually translate into "Whatever will be, will be", but something more like "What's it going to be?" Composer Jay Livingston had seen the 1954 film ''Film/TheBarefootContessa'', in which an Italian family has the motto "Che sarà sarà" carved in stone at their ancestral castle; he later translated the phrase to Spanish (the original Italian is also incorrect). Something closer would be "lo que sea será".
** In the Spanish dub the Spanish lyrics are kept while the English part is translated, which could have been redundant if they didn't mean completely different things. For those interested, the song goes: "Qué será, será; lo que quiera ser será..."

-->-- '''Creator/VictorHugo''', possibly referencing King UsefulNotes/CharlesV

-->-- '''Creator/VictorHugo'''

Since a good amount of TV is produced in California, specifically southern California, which shares a border with Mexico, and since Spanish is the second language of the United States with a 13% share of speakers as of 2021, it is only natural that American TV writers would insert Spanish words and phrases into their series to make things seem more foreign. This trend has become popular in Japan recently, though it has a ways to go before it becomes as popular as German or English. But since more and more people in the US speak Spanish (and Spanish-speakers are increasingly present in all professions and classes, including entertainment), Spanish is becoming more and more common in both fiction and real life.

* Pablo Sanchez from the ''VideoGame/BackyardSports'' series only speaks Spanish, unlike the other Backyard Kids, who only speak English in-game.

* Zevran periodically does this in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' when you select him out in the world--provided he likes you, anyway. ("¿Sí, amor?", among one or two others.)
** In the ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' Isabella mentions that the Antivan fleet is called "La Felicísima Armada", a very elegant but somewhat pompous name, [[GeniusBonus an interesting remark is that the real Spanish fleet used to be called with that name]], before they were known as "La Armada Invencible".
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', when the party first encounters the "master swordsman" Siegfried, he leaves with an "Adios, amigos!" Yes, even in the Japanese version: "Adiosu amigosu!"

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' (In the former they are mostly Cubans while in the latter they are mostly Mexicans) have the Hispanic pedestrians let out words, sometimes even full phrases, in Spanish. Save for the few odd exceptions (such as the use of the word "mamífero" as an insult in ''Vice City'', which literally translates to "mammal" and thus makes no sense as an insult), these pedestrians speak very accurate Latin-American Spanish.

-->'''Smoke:''' ¡Hola, yo soy [[ElSpanishO El Grando Smokio]]! And I want that grass, ¿comprende?\\

* Nearly everyone in ''VideoGame/{{Guacamelee}}'' peppers their speech with Spanish words and phrases. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], as the game takes place in Mexico.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has the Cockatrices. If playing the game in Spanish, they speak in Argentinean accent.
* The SouthOfTheBorder region in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''.

* In the climax of ''[[http://www.holywowstudios.com/teachestyping/ Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing]]'', you have to type in Spanish passages, all of which were poorly translated from English.

* Selena Recital from ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha 3'' tends to slip up Spanish words in her sentences, such as ''Gracias, soshite Adios''.

* ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'':
** ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'': Plunder Island is haunted by a legendary cryptid called "El Pollo Diablo" ("the demon chicken"). If you visit Blondebeard (who normally speaks english with [[TalkLikeAPirate a 'pirate' accent]]) while Guybrush is tarred and feathered, Blondebeard will mistake Guybrush for the cryptid and yell out "¡Madre de dios! ¡Es El Pollo Diablo!" ("Mother of God! It's The Devil Chicken!"), causing the BGM to stop and a Spanish guitar to start playing out of nowhere. Guybrush can respond with "Huh?" or "Yes! I have released your prisoners and now I have come for ''you!''"...in English ''or'' Spanish. ("¿Qué?" or "¡Sí! ¡He dejado en libertad los prisioneros y ahora vengo por ti!"). The game's other dubs exchange the English with appropriate translations, except the Spanish one, which instead offers two different Spanish phrases for each option.
** The MacGuffin of ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'' is a mythical sea sponge called "La Esponja Grande", which was being searched by a man called Coronado De Cava. [[spoiler:Coronado himself speaks with Gratuitous Spanish from time to time when Guybrush finally encounters him also.]]. It's worth noting that a few times Guybrush plays off the name, he gets the adjective and noun title wrong and uses the ''masculine'' form when the noun is ''feminine'' ("La Esponja Gordo" (rarely, since this may be a production error where the item's name was changed during development, which is especially evident in Chapter 3 when he talks to De Cava), [[spoiler:"La Esponja Pequeño", "Señor Esponja Not-So-Grande"]]).
* ''VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune'': Nate claims "El Dorado" means "the golden man", when it actually means "the gilded one". He probably got confused by the original legend, which describes the king of the city pouring golden water all over himself every morning, but you'd think a treasure hunter would know the words "hombre" and "oro".

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

* ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'''s [[ComicBook/New52 2011 relaunch]] features Bunker, a teen metahuman from a small village in Mexico, who peppers his speech with random Spanish words. He's actually pretty restrained compared to most examples, using one or two Spanish words or phrases per issue (as opposed to "per word bubble"). At one point he even lampshaded it.

** In his review of ''Film/TheRoom'', Future Critic says "¡Vámonos!" when he and present-day Critic escape from two seahorses who were going to seize them for watching the movie.