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Dumbo

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For the domesticated breed of rat, see Fancy rat.
For the deep sea octopus that has been nicknamed Dumbo, see Grimpoteuthis
For the New York neighborhood see DUMBO, Brooklyn, New York

Dumbo is a 1941 animated feature film produced by Walt Disney and first released on October 23, 1941 by RKO Radio Pictures. The fourth film in the Disney animated features canon, Dumbo is based upon a child's book of the same name by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Perl. The main character is Jumbo Jr., a semi-anthropomorphic elephant who is cruelly nicknamed Dumbo. He is ridiculed for his big ears, but in fact he is capable of flying by using them as wings. Throughout some of the film, his only true friend aside from his mother is the mouse Timothy, parodying the stereotypical animosity between mice and elephants.

Dumbo
Dumbo 1941 release poster
Directed byBen Sharpsteen
Written byHelen Aberson (book)
Harold Perl (book)
Otto Englander (story direction)
Joe Grant
Dick Huemer
Produced byWalt Disney
StarringEdward Brophy
Herman Bing
Margaret Wright
Sterling Holloway
Cliff Edwards
Music byFrank Churchill
Lance husher
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release dates
October 23, 1941
Running time
64 minutes
LanguageEnglish
Budget$813,000 USD

Release: Reactions and criticisms

Dumbo was completed and delivered to Disney's distributor, RKO Radio Pictures, in fall 1941. RKO balked at the fact that the film only ran 64 minutes, and demanded that Walt Disney either (a) expand it to at least 70 minutes, (b) edit it to short subject length, or (c) allow RKO to release it as a b-movie. Disney refused all three options, and RKO reluctantly issued Dumbo, unaltered, as an A-film.

After its October 23 release, Dumbo proved to be a financial success. The simple film only cost $813,000 to produce, half the cost of Snow White and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio. Dumbo eventually grossed $1.3 million during its original release; it and Snow White were the only two pre-1943 Disney features to turn a profit (Barrier, 318). It was intended for Dumbo to be on the cover of the December 1941 issue of Time, but the idea was dropped when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, resulting in the United States entering World War II and reducing the box office draw of the film. film's sequence are directed by Sam Armstrong, Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney and Bill Roberts

Dumbo won the 1941 Academy Award for Original Music Score, awarded to musical directors Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. Churchill and lyricist Ned Washington were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song for "Baby Mine", the song that plays during Dumbo's visit to his mother's cell. The film also won Best Animation Design at the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.

The crow characters in the film are seen as African-American caricatures; the leader crow voiced by Cliff Edwards, a white man, was originally named "Jim Crow" for script purposes, and the name stuck. The other crows are all voiced by African-American actors, all members of the Hall Johnson Choir. Since the 1960s, Dumbo has been publicly criticized for the presence of the black crows, regularly seen as having racist intent.[1] In addition, during a musical scene, a group of all dark-skinned laborers pulled circus materials off the train for construction, and sung generally-perceived racist lyrics, including the phrase "We never learned to read or write."

Re-release schedule, home video, & beyond

Despite the advent of World War II, Dumbo was still the most financially successful Disney film of the 1940s, thanks to a 1949 re-release. It was also re-released theatrically in 1959, 1972, and 1976.

This film was one of the first of Disney's animated films to be broadcast, albeit severely edited, on television, as part of Disney's anthology series. The film then received another distinction of note in 1981, when it was the first of Disney's canon of animated films to be released on home video and also was released in the Walt Disney Classics video collection in 1985. That release was followed by remastered versions in: 1986, 1989, 1991 [Classics], and 1994 [Masterpiece]. In 2001, a 60th Anniversary Special Edition was released. In 2006, a "Big Top Edition" of the film was released on DVD. A UK Special Edition was released in May 2007 and was a successful Disney release.

Dumbo theatrical release history

Worldwide release dates

Home video release history

Trivia

  • At only 64 minutes, Dumbo is the shortest single segmented Disney animated feature.
  • Credited as Timothy, the mouse is never mentioned by name in the actual film. However, his signature can be read as "Timothy Q. Mouse" on the contract in a newspaper photograph at the finale. It should also be noted that Timothy was originally a bird.
  • Many of the artists who worked on the "Pink Elephants" segment were the younger artists at the studio who joined the picket line in May 1941 and eventually would become the nucleus of United Productions of America, the most influential animation studio of the 1950s.[citation needed]
  • The "Pink Elephants On Parade" sequence depicts Dumbo and Timothy's drunken hallucinations. The sequence was the first venture into surrealism for a narrative Disney film, taking its cue from the experimental Fantasia. The sequence essentially breaks all of the "rules" that the Disney animators had lived by for creating realistic animation over the previous decade: pink, polka-dot, and plaid elephants dance, sing, and morph into a number of various objects. The design of the sequence is highly stylized. This sequence also heavily influenced the "Heffalumps and Woozles" sequence in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which bears many similar traits.[citation needed]
  • The "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence appeared in the Californian version of Disneyland's night-time show Fantasmic!.
  • While trying to comfort Dumbo, Timothy says, "Lots of people with big ears are famous!" That's a joke of Walt Disney himself, who did in fact have big ears. Also, according to animation historian John Canemaker on the commentary track for the 2001 DVD release, audiences of 1941 recognized it as a humorous reference to actor Clark Gable.
  • The name of the circus (seen on a sign as the train leaves the winter headquarters) is WDP Circus (Walt Disney Productions).
  • When the movie was released, there was a concern that exposure to bright colors for prolonged periods of time might make the audience ill. The film was set in the world of a circus, and bright colors were essential to capturing the mood of the circus. To remedy this, Disney alternated sequences of bright colors with those of a darker tone, to give the audience a chance to recover.[citation needed]
  • The sequence called Bathtime for Dumbo was one of the most memorable in the film. To create this scene and Dumbo's behavior, Bill Tytla received inspiration from his own 2-year-old daughter, Susan. He didn't base it on elephants as he claimed, "I don't know a thing about elephants".[citation needed]
  • Dumbo has no spoken dialogue, compare to the appearance of Elmer Elephant.
  • Dumbo's mother, Mrs. Jumbo, speaks only once when she says Dumbo's original name, "Jumbo, Jr."
  • The human characters in the film are simplified most of the time to lend greater credibility to the animal characters. The clowns are seen in silhouette when not in the circus ring. Circus workmen have dark skin, are stylized and kept in shadow, while their moral character is portrayed by the vivid, but politically objectionable "Song of the Roustabouts."
  • A large portion of Steven Spielberg's film 1941 involves some of the main characters (including General Stilwell) watching Dumbo in a theater. According to Spielberg, this event actually occurred in real life.
  • With roughly a year and a half from script to screen, including the extensive strike during the making of the movie, this is the fastest production ever done from Walt Disney Feature Animation (WDFA).[citation needed]
  • Dumbo makes an appearance in the popular Playstation 2 game Kingdom Hearts, in the form of a summon that the player can call upon in battle for aid.
  • Dumbo II might have been put on hold.
  • The scene where Dumbo blows square bubbles of alcohol-tinted water might have inspired the Carl Barks story Lost in the Andes! where Huey, Dewey, and Louie blow square bubbles of chewing gum.
  • Dumbo and one of the Pink Elephants appear in Who Framed Roger Rabbit as employees of R. K. Maroon.
  • The scene when the clowns are performing to put out the fire is animated by Ray Patterson

Soundtrack Listing

  1. Main Title (01:47)
  2. Look Out For Mister Stork (02:16)
  3. Loading The Train / Casey Junior / Stork On A Cloud / Straight From Heaven / Mother And Baby (04:58)
  4. Song Of The Roustabouts (02:38)
  5. Circus Parade (01:28)
  6. Bathtime / Hide And Seek (01:31)
  7. Ain't That The Funniest Thing / Berserk / Dumbo Shunned / A Mouse! / Dumbo And Timothy (03:23)
  8. The Pyramid Of Pachyderms (01:58)
  9. No Longer An Elephant / Dumbo's Sadness / A Visit In The Night / Baby Mine (03:34)
  10. Clown Song (01:00)
  11. Hiccups / Firewater / Bubbles / Did You See That? / Pink Elephants On Parade (06:07)
  12. Up A Tree / The Fall / Timothy's Theory (01:32)
  13. When I See An Elephant Fly (01:48)
  14. You Oughta Be Ashamed (01:10)
  15. The Flight Test / When I See An Elephant Fly (Reprise) (00:57)
  16. Save My Child / The Threshold Of Success / Dumbo's Triumph / Making History / Finale (02:14)
  17. Spread Your Wing (Demo Recording) (01:08)

Voice Cast

Songs

On Classic Disney: 60 Years of Musical Magic, this includes Pink Elephants on Parade on the green disc, Baby Mine on the purple disc, and When I See an Elephant Fly on the orange disc. And on Disney's Greatest Hits, this also includes Pink Elephants on Parade on the red disc.

Directing animators

Dumbo's Circus

Main article: Dumbo's Circus

Dumbo's Circus was a live-action/puppet television series for preschool audiences that aired on The Disney Channel in the 1980s. Unlike in the film, Dumbo spoke on the show. Each character would perform a special act, which ranged from dancing and singing to telling knock knock jokes.

Direct-to-video sequel

Around the time of the release of the 60th Anniversary DVD Edition of Dumbo in 2001, Disney announced that Dumbo II was in production. A preview was available on the DVD, but no further announcements have been made since. The project seems to have been canceled, and some of its scenes were folded to The Fox and the Hound 2.

Books

Walt Disney's Dumbo
Happy to Help: (ISBN 0-7364-1129-1) A picture book Disney Press by Random House Disney, written by Liane Onish, illustrated by Peter Emslie. It was published January 23, 2001, this paperback is for children age 4-8. Twenty-four pages long, its 0.08 inches thick, and with cover dimensions of 7.88 x 7.88 inches.
Walt Disney's Dumbo Book of Opposites
(ISBN 0-307-06149-3) A book published in August of 1997 by Golden Books under the Golden Board Book brand. It was written by Alan Benjamin, illustrated by Peter Emslie, and edited by Heather Lowenberg. Twelve pages long and a quarter of an inch thick, this board edition book had dimensions of 7.25 x 6.00 inches.
Walt Disney's Dumbo the Circus Baby
(ISBN 0-307-12397-9) A book published in September of 1993 by Golden Press under the A Golden Sturdy Shape Book brand. Illustrated by Peter Emslie and written by Diane Muldrow, this book is meant for babies and preschoolers. Twelve pages long and half an inch thick, this book's cover size is 9.75 x 6.25 inches.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Woodward, Emily. Review for Dumbo. PopMatters. Retrieved from http://popmatters.com/film/reviews/d/dumbo.shtml on September 8, 2006

References

  • Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503759-6.
  • Maltin, Leonard (1980, updated 1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-452-25993-2.
 
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