The Disney Animated Canon: From Small beginnings to House of Mouse: Dumbo

 

  Disney. No one name holds as much power over business and the world of Animation as much as Walter Elias Disney. Whether it was making the first animated motion picture in the English world, further revolutionizing the field of animation, or making one of the most powerful media companies in the world, Disney managed to become a titan of industry and media. Nowadays, we joke about the House of Mouse and its’ lasting impact in today’s world…but without Disney, much of the animated world today…well…wouldn’t be.

Dumbo: The iconic inbetweener

Not wanting a repeat performance of his last two films, Walt Disney decided to go back to what he was used to doing and refused to do any other “artsy” pieces. He was in the middle of pushing production for the next entry of his, Bambi, when he realized his studio was running out of money and he needed something quick to tide his studio over until he could finish. Out of luck, he found a short children’s book called Dumbo, and decided he’d make it into a movie.

The story of the movie is as follows:

In the middle of its’ running between cities, the circus is visited by storks on their annual baby delivery stops. Our story begins with Mrs Jumbo, one of the elephants, waiting for hers. The stork finally delivers in the morning, and we meet little, adorable Jumbo Jr. Unfortunately for him, he was born with massively oversized ears that get him nothing but ridicule and the new nickname “Dumbo”. After an incident where a boy bullies Dumbo and Dumbo’s mother intervenes, she is sent away and locked up and Dumbo, through a not well thought out idea by a mouse trying to help, Timothy Q. Mouse, is reduced to being a clown.

After accidently getting drunk, and the first instance of the Disney Acid trip sequence, Dumbo finds himself up in a tree and has no idea what got him there. A few crows sort him out and after, at first, mocking him for “being an elephant that flies”, decide to help him out after hearing his circumstances. As long as he’s got the “magic feather”, it works…right?

At the performance, Dumbo loses it midflight, and proves he doesn’t need it when he becomes the star attraction and regains his respect and his mother.

Sounds short? Well, it is. It’s actually the shortest Disney film at about an hour and four minutes. There’s a few good reasons for this…because the film had a few hiccups in production. As mentioned before, it was made on a lower budget to recover costs from the last few films and save money for Bambi. Then came the 1941 strike in which most of the staff protested the atrocious working conditions and the only ones who worked on it were junior animators who weren’t well financially, and a few who crossed the picket lines because they knew without this movie, the studio would close. It opened to overwhelming success, but it certainly left a sour taste for Walt…who then reported all those who struck as potential communists, ending more than a few careers.

This was also a change of pace for one of the animators, Vladimir “Bill” Tytla. We know him best as the man who animated Grumpy, Stromboli, and Chernabog. However, here he animated Dumbo because he didn’t want to be typecast as just animating the heavy guys. This was also the film that Disney recognized Stirling Holloway’s (the voice of the stork) potential, and invited him back many times for roles.