You'll find the East Indies, you just don't know where!
Yakko:
It took them five months, but they crossed the Pacific.
They spotted a land that was dotted with palms.
Magellan proclaimed...
Magellan:
Yes! That's the East Indies!
Yakko:
But then someone shouted...
Wakko:
Hey, I think that's Guam!
The Warners:
Ai yi yi yi, oops, Magellan!
Your fun little journey's become a nightmare!
Whoopi-ti-yi-yo, keep trying, Magellan,
You'll find the East Indies, you just don't know where!
Yakko:
They sailed due west to the Philippine Islands
Magellan was pleased as the natives drew near
But then someone shouted...
The Warners:
I think they're attacking!
Yakko:
Magellan said...
Magellan:
What?
Yakko:
And got hit by a spear
The Warners:
Whoopi-ti-yi-yo, farewell, Magellan!
You almost made it! It's really not fair!
Whoopi-ti-yi-yo, oh, ghost of Magellan
The East Indies Islands were right over there!
Trivia[]
Errors[]
Magellan actually knew perfectly well where the East Indies were. The purpose of his voyage was to find an alternative westward route to them. Christopher Columbus had attempted the same thing years earlier but instead ended up in the West Indies, which are today known as the Caribbean. It might be more accurate to say that his "search" was to "find" the East Indies by another route, or to find a different (better?) route to them.
Magellan didn't mistake Argentina (which wasn't a country at the time and didn’t become a country until 1816) for the East Indies. He anchored there for the winter. Where he landed is now known as Puerto San Julian (a town in Argentina).
The reduction of the five ships to three wasn't due to a storm. The Santiago was shipwrecked while scouting and the San Antonio deserted the other ships and returned to Spain. Also, Magellan named the Pacific Ocean because of how comparatively calm it seemed to him. Far from the stormy weather depicted in the song.
Magellan didn't land in Chile. He discovered the Strait of Magellan, which is now Chilean waters.
Magellan's voyage actually took just over three months to cross the Pacific, around 99 days in fact.
Some definitions of the East Indies consider Guam and the Philippines to be part of them, so by some accounts Magellan can be said to have 'found the East Indies'. In fact, Magellan only stopped in Guam to resupply. However, some historians believe he may have landed on Saipan (which is today part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands), not Guam.
Magellan and his allies were the ones doing the attacking, not being attacked. After reaching the Philippines, he managed to convert some of the tribes to Christianity, as well as the King, who fought with the Mactan tribe for not converting and Magellan sided with him.
Magellan was killed by a poisoned arrow, not a spear. The King Rajah Humabon poisoned some of Magellan's men afterward as revenge for failing to defeat his enemy.
This error was corrected in the Brazilian Portuguese dub, which states "E ele falou e uma flechada levou," roughly translating to "And he spoke and he was shot with an arrow".
While Magellan may have died during the voyage, the journey wasn't a total wash out as the Warners make it out to be. Juan Sebastian del Cano and some of the remaining crew did make it to the Maluku Islands (which are today part of Indonesia) and went on to circumnavigate the globe, proving definitively that the world is round in the process. The Conception was deliberately burned due to lacking the necessary crew and the Trinidad was shipwrecked after being attacked by a Portuguese vessel. Also, despite returning to Spain with a much depleted crew (less than 20 out of 270 at the start) and only one ship (Victoria) out of five, the voyage did ultimately turn a profit.
