He is never mentioned by name in the film, but his signature can be read on the contract in a newspaper photograph at the finale.
He teaches Dumbo how to become the "ninth wonder of the universe", and the only flying elephant in the whole world. Mouse, an anthropomorphic mouse who becomes the only friend of Dumbo and his mother Mrs. Much like Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo has no spoken dialogue. He is an elephant who has huge ears and is able to use them to fly, carrying what he thinks of as a magic feather.
Timothy wonders how they got up in the tree, and concludes that Dumbo flew up there using his large ears as wings. The next morning, Dumbo and Timothy wake up in a tree. As a result, Dumbo and Timothy both become drunk and see hallucinations of pink elephants (the famous Pink Elephants on Parade sequence). On the way back Dumbo cries and then starts to hiccup so Timothy decides to take him for a drink of water from a bucket which, unknown to him, has accidentally had a bottle of champagne knocked into it. To cheer Dumbo up, Timothy takes him to visit his mother. Despite his newfound popularity and fame, Dumbo hates this job and is now more miserable than ever. Dumbo is made a clown as a result, and plays the main role in an act that involves him falling into a vat of pie filling. The circus director makes Dumbo the top of an elephant pyramid stunt, but Dumbo's ears cause the stunt to go wrong, injuring the other elephants and bringing down the big top. Mouse, who feels sympathy for Dumbo and becomes determined to make him happy again. Dumbo is shunned by the other elephants and with no mother to care for him, he is now alone, except for a self-appointed mentor and protector, Timothy Q. Jumbo loses her temper at a group of boys for making fun of her son, and she is locked up and deemed mad. The baby elephant is quickly taunted by the other elephants because of his large ears, and they nickname him "Dumbo". Jumbo, one of the elephants, receives her baby from a stork.
While circus animals are being transported, Mrs. It was a deliberate pursuit of simplicity and economy for the Disney studio, and at 64 minutes, it is one of Disney's shortest animated features. Throughout most of the film, his only true friend, aside from his mother, is the mouse, Timothy - a relationship parodying the stereotypical animosity between mice and elephants.ĭumbo was made to recoup the financial losses of Fantasia. He is ridiculed for his big ears, but in fact he is capable of flying by using his ears as wings.
The main character is Jumbo Jr., a semi- anthropomorphic elephant who is cruelly nicknamed "Dumbo". The fourth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, Dumbo is based upon the storyline written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Pearl for the prototype of a novelty toy ("Roll-a-Book"). Dumbo is a 1941 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released on October 23, 1941, by RKO Radio Pictures.