During the second season opening episode of Walt Disney’s Disneyland television series on September 1, 1955, a slightly shortened version of Dumbo was broadcast. During his introduction, Walt Disney said, “From time to time people ask me, which is your favorite of all the pictures that you’ve made? Well, it is the one that you are going to see right now on this program; the story of the little elephant with the big ears, Dumbo.”
One would have expected Walt to favor Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which had contributed so much to the growth of his studio or the lavish Pinocchio, or the groundbreaking Fantasia that transformed animation into an art form. Instead, Walt favored the 64-minute Dumbo that took only 1 ½ years to create.
Dumbo is not only one of the shortest Disney films, second only to Saludos Amigos, but with its low production budget was immensely profitable for the studio that had suffered huge losses with Pinocchio and Fantasia.
According to Disney animator and writer, Joe Grant, Walt and his team discovered the story of Dumbo through a novelty toy called a Roll-A-Book. Imagine a little box with 16 drawings with small text telling the story on a roller. As you turn the rollers, you view the images and text through a small window on the box. It was sort of like viewing a slide show or a film.
Dumbo was the first feature-length animated film to be produced entirely in the new Burbank studio, moving ahead of Bambi, which had begun preliminary work in 1937, whilst Dumbo began in 1939. Variety reported that Peter Pan, targeted for 1942, was delayed. Peter Pan would debut in 1953.
In interviews, Walt said of Dumbo, “From the very start, Dumbo was a happy picture. It really started from a very simple idea, and …. Just grew. We were not restricted by any set storyline, so we could give our imagination full play. In other words: If a good idea came to us, we’d put it in the story.
Dumbo was originally conceived as a long short subject. Joe Grant and Dick Huemer wrote a 102 page treatment of the story with both tragic and humorous themes. Grant and Huemer sent their treatment to Walt in a serialized form designed to build suspense and excitement. Walt read each chapter from January through March of 1940. To keep Walt’s interest and anticipation in wanting to read the next installment of the treatment, Huemer said, “I’d draw a teardrop on the page which said, ‘Read no further unless you are of strong character and can take it, because what we are going to tell you, you won’t believe – see you tomorrow!’ … Very corny writing, but we thought it was a good way to intrigue him.” Walt would go to their offices and say, “That’s coming along good. We’ll make it!”
Grant and Huemer conceived of the storks delivering the baby circus animals, the pink elephant sequence, and changed Dumbo’s mother’s name from “Mother Ella” to “Mrs. Jumbo”. They capitalized on elephants’ alleged fear of mice by replacing a wise robin named “Red” from the original story with the wisecracking Timothy Q. Mouse character. They also added a “rusty black crow”, which was later expanded into five crows. Otherwise, very little was changed from the original draft.
Since he is a baby, Dumbo never speaks in the film. He communicates through his expressions and body language. With his round body and simple features, the animators were able to make him an expressive and endearing character.
Dumbo’s childlike innocence shields him somewhat from feeling like a victim and giving in to humiliation and evil. This can be attributed to Bill Tytla who animated the character of Dumbo. Walt admired Tytla’s talent and had assigned him responsibility for animating villains like the evil puppeteer Stromboli in Pinocchio and the demonic Chernabog in Fantasia. Now Walt assigned him to create a completely opposite character, an innocent baby elephant. Walt gave Tytla the character after seeing his test animation for Dumbo. Tytla also animated the key scenes with the other elephants.
Timothy Q. Mouse, Dumbo’s only friend other than his mother, was designed by Fred Moore who was also in charge of his animation and gave him that strong personality despite his small size. Said Moore, “The greatest problem with Timothy was not to make him too cute. We had to get a tough guy with a big heart … I just played around with him … had him walk a couple of dozen steps in twelve frames, then in eight … until I got just the right cockiness to it … when I finally got rolling on him, he was the easiest fellow I’ve ever done.”
The characterizations in Dumbo are a major part of the film’s success. The idea of having a mouse as the best friend of an elephant is brilliant especially as Dumbo follows Timothy by holding his tiny tail with his trunk.
As part of their research, Walt sent his artists to local circuses for inspiration and to soak up the atmosphere. Walt also looked within his own studio for circus experience, including a former circus knife thrower now working in the Camera Department, a former female high-wire walker now working as an artist, and a volunteer carnival strongman now working as a studio painter. All of them provided advice for the film.
However, much of the circus atmosphere for the film came from Bill Peet who had grown up loving circus. As a teenager, he would draw and paint circus scenes anytime one came to town. In his autobiography, Peet wrote, “I was a circus buff, so Dumbo was a great chance for me to get in and do a lot of boards. That was the first time Walt really noticed my work. Since I knew the circus, and had done so much sketching at the circus, the old big top circus, I just loved working on that thing.”
The composers of the film’s musical score were Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. Churchill had worked on Snow White and would work on Bambi. Wallace had worked on several Disney cartoon shorts and Dumbo would be his first animated feature film. Ned Washington was assigned to write the lyrics.
Heumer recalled the process for writing the Baby Mine lullaby. “We would say, ‘Let’s write a song … a mother song for when she’s chained up and Dumbo comes to visit her.’ Well, naturally there’s some heartbreaking type of lyric indicated, and Ned Washington came up with ‘Baby mine, don’t you cry … ‘ A heartbreaker.”
Ward Kimball, who was assigned to Dumbo because his animation style did not fit Bambi and the realism Walt was hoping to achieve in that film, worked on the five crows. Each crow had its own personality and expression. Kimball based them on African-American performers popular in Harlem. During the storyboarding process, this sequence was intended to be a homage celebrating the performers and their song and dance style to entertain audiences of the time.
Said Ward Kimball on creating the crows: “I was in charge of the crows, [and] I wanted to try something different; I wanted to make each crow a separate character. One example was the little crow with the big horn-rimmed glasses. When he rolled his eyes, the eyes went out beyond the head mass, they rolled around inside the big glasses.”
The crows were partially influenced by the Hal Johnson Choir who was a choral ensemble based in New York who had often performed on Broadway, in touring stage productions, and on radio, television, and films. Johnson was an honored composer and arranger of African-American spirituals. The Hal Johnson Choir sang “When I See an Elephant Fly” and voiced all the crows with the exception of their leader voiced by Cliff Edwards who was the voice of Jiminy Cricket. Another influence was the song and dance team of Eugene and Frankie Jackson who were known for their highly-skilled tap dancing and use of props. They were well known in West Coast cabaret and vaudeville theaters.
Kimball was a huge fan of swing, jazz, and African-American spiritual music, and wanted his animation to portray the crows not as silly or mocking characters, rather as sympathetic and encouraging characters. Along with Timothy, the crows are heroic figures in Dumbo’s life who motivate him and teach him to fly and give him the courage to believe in himself. Along with Dumbo’s mother and Timothy, the crows give love and friendship to Dumbo when he is at his lowest.
Work on Dumbo moved along swiftly compared to other Disney films of this era. For example, story meetings for Bambi began in 1937 with the film being released in 1942. The story meetings for Alice in Wonderland began in 1938 with the film’s release in 1951. Walt and Roy purchased the story rights to Dumbo in 1939 and the film was released in 1941.
Film critic reviews of Dumbo were overwhelmingly positive. Time Magazine was so impressed with the film, it wanted to feature Dumbo on its cover of the December 29, 1941, issue as “Mammal of the Year” as a riff on its annual “Man of the Year” selection. Tragically for the United States, due to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor three weeks prior to the release of that issue of the magazine, Dumbo was replaced on the cover with General Douglas MacArthur.
Despite the start of World War II, Dumbo was the most financially successful film the studio had. At a cost of $950,000, half the cost of Snow White and less than a third of Pinocchio, it grossed more than $1.3 million in its initial release which the studio desperately needed. Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace, the film’s composers, won the 1942 Academy Award for Best Original Musical Score and “Baby Mine” was nominated for Best Song.
Dumbo has gone on to become a film beloved by many with the song “Baby Mine” bringing a tear to the eyes of those who have had children in their lives. Perhaps one of the most beloved tributes to the film is the Dumbo the Flying Elephant attraction that can be found in every Disney castle park around the world. Over the generations, Dumbo has been the traditional first attraction for many children to ride during their first visit to a Disney theme park.
Dumbo is one of five films considered to be the first Golden Age of Walt Disney Animation along with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. Each one is unique. Snow White for being the first full-length animated film, Pinocchio for its detailed craftsmanship, Fantasia for turning animation into an art form, Bambi for its beauty and realism, and Dumbo for its simplicity, strong emotions, and heart.
If you would like to hear more behind-the-scenes stories about the production of Dumbo, how it was affected by the Animators’ Strike and World War II, the controversies it later generated, and more, you’ll enjoy these two episodes of Connecting with Walt in which I share many stories about Walt Disney and Dumbo.
Connecting with Walt: The History of Walt Disney’s Dumbo Part 1
Connecting with Walt: The History of Walt Disney’s Dumbo Part 2
And look for past episodes of Connecting with Walt in which we share behind-the-scenes stories about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi. Do you have a favorite?
