October 20th, 2021 
Michael Lyons 
There’s a scene in director Steven Spielberg’s oft-maligned comedy film 1941, where a hardened General, played by Robert Stack, goes into a movie theater that’s showing Dumbo. The staunch General’s joy at walking into the theater, his singing along with one of the film’s songs and his tears at watching a certain sequence are all played for laughs… but, in so many ways, it reflects how audiences felt about Dumbo then and how we still feel about Dumbo eighty years later.
Dumbo started life as something called a “Roll-A-Book.” These were published like a scroll in a box by a small company in Syracuse, NY. When the images on the scroll were “rolled,” the story unfurled for the reader.
The original book for DUMBO
Grant had a remarkable, one-of-a-kind career at Disney, working on some the original, classic films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia. He left the studio in 1949 but returned in 1989 for a second career at Disney, contributing to such renaissance films of the ’90s as The Lion King and Mulan.
Sadly, Grant passed away in 2005 at the age of 96. In a 1999 interview, the Disney Legend recalled how Dumbo first “took flight” at Disney when he and Huemer first were given that “Roll-A-Book.”
“There was something like six or eight pages in it,” recalled Grant. “Walt gave it to us and said, ‘See what you can do with this.’”
We took it into a room and figured that it can’t be a bad idea, although it’s skimpy. There was a handicapped elephant and a circus background, so we knew that there had to be a story in there somewhere. That was really how it began.”
And from that came one of the most beloved Disney animated features ever made, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this month.
Clocking in at just over an hour-long, Dumbo is one of the studio’s shortest feature films, which is perfect, as the film is modest in so many ways, and is just one of its many charms. Grant and Huemer fashioned a simple story that packs quite the emotional wallop.
Dumbo, the young elephant, is born into the circus to Mrs. Jumbo. However, Dumbo has oversized ears and is soon ridiculed by the other elephants and circus guests. He is forced into the degrading life of a clown until he is befriended by Timothy Mouse (the wonderful, tough-guy voice of character actor Edward Brophy), who teaches Dumbo to believe in himself (with the help of a “magic feather’). Soon, Dumbo learns that his ears can help him fly and he becomes the star attraction of the circus.
The character animation in Dumbo is some of the finest to ever come out of the studio. The bond that we see between Dumbo and his mother is heartwarming, and, later in the film, when the two are forced apart and reunited briefly (in the now-iconic “Baby Mine” sequence), it is emotionally crushing.
Master animator Vladimir Tytla (who had animated Chernabog in Fantasia just before this film) was the supervising animator for the title character in Dumbo. The artist based the expressions and movements of Dumbo on those of his young son, which brought an element of rich personality to the film.
The story plays out against a humbler backdrop than previous Disney animated features, but no less artistically impressive. Supervising Director Ben Sharpsteen brings the film to life through impressively efficient filmmaking. The film’s opening, in which storks fly above the circus winter headquarters in Florida, delivering bundles of babies via tiny parachutes, is bursting with detail. And “The Clown Song, (A/K/A “We’re Going to Hit the Big Boss for a Raise),” plays out entirely in silhouette, making it even more fascinating.
It’s one of several songs in Dumbo, by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace, that includes the film’s most famous, “When I See an Elephant Fly,” sung, with excellent wordplay, by the group of Crows, when they meet up with Dumbo and Timothy.
Those characters have also been a controversial element in Dumbo through the years, as they have been seen as African American stereotypes. Others feel that the Crows are some of the most positive characters in the film who, along with Timothy, take the time to help Dumbo. Understandably, the sequence remains a sensitive moment in Disney and film history.
Dumbo opened on October 23rd, 1941, and was immediately embraced by critics and audiences. The film was to be featured on the cover of Time magazine during the first week of December, but the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, changed the world and, rightfully so, “bumped” Dumbo from the cover (the story did eventually run later in the month).
Dumbo has joined many Disney films that have an enduring legacy that goes beyond the screen and grows with each passing generation. The attraction “Dumbo, The Flying Elephant” opened at Disneyland shortly after the theme park’s debut in 1955 and has gone on to be a part of all of the other Disney theme parks around the globe.
In 2019, Dumbo received the live-action remake treatment, with the story re-imagined as a feature film directed by one-time Disney animator Tim Burton.
Eighty years later, the world’s continued connection to Dumbo is precisely like that of the General in Spielberg’s 1941.
Film critic Cecelia Ager summed up why the film is so beloved in her review from when Dumbo first debuted:
“Dumbo is the nicest, kindest Disney yet. It has the most heart, taste, beauty, compassion, skill, restraint. It marks a return to Disney’s first principles, the animal kingdom – that happy land where Disney workers turn into artists; where their imagination, playfulness, ingenuity, daring flourish freest; where, in short, they’re home.”
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