![]() ![]() After Dumbo's mother closes the door to their stalls, she wraps up Dumbo in his own ears, and they rest peacefully. As soon as his big ears are revealed, he is teased by the other female elephants, who call him "Dumbo". The baby elephant then sneezes after the Elephant Matriarch tickles him on his trunk and reveals that his ears are much larger than average. Jumbo, and all the other female elephants remark on his cute looks. In his debut, after being delivered by a stork, he is named "Jumbo, Jr." by his mother Mrs. Dumbo wears a small yellow conical hat, which Timothy uses as a seat to ride the elephant standing inside the brim, and a red clown collar with a yellow central stripe. He has a small proboscis with two large nostrils at the end of it. His ears are very large (which the other elephants don't like), but he uses them to fly. His skin is gray, his eyes are blue, and his tail is very small. However, in Dumbo's Circus, he does talk when he's a teenager.ĭumbo is a small Asian elephant. However, he is also very open-hearted, such as with Timothy and the Crows, and never seemed to express any true anger or resentment toward those who tease him.Īs he is only a baby in his first appearance, he does not talk during the film, save for some quick squeaks. Dumbo is also very easily scared, evidenced by his encounters with the clowns, the pink elephants, and, like all elephants, Timothy Mouse. He is somewhat naïve, as he did not realize Smitty and his gang were taunting him or that the " magic feather" was simply a way of thinking. He is playful, innocent, fun-loving, and loves being around his mother and hates being alone. Unfortunately, this one is for viewing only-you'll have to travel to a Disney theme park if you want to ride a flying elephant.Dumbo has the personality of a small child. "The amazing thing is that Disney did send a fellow to wax it and as he was waxing I said, 'Don’t make it look so new.' And how you can tell its age is if you see where the metal pole attaches to the body of the elephant, there are elements of rust that shows the age of the car."ĭumbo was donated to the Smithsonian by the Walt Disney Company in 2005 on the occasion of Disneyland's 50th anniversary and you can currently see him on the third floor of the American History Museum. One of the things I had asked Disney was that if they had any of the ones with the articulated ears and they said, 'No, they all broke and we would not have kept anything like that.'"Īnd in spite of its age, the artifact looks pristine. So they redesigned them to have permanently aloft ears. The Dumbo car on display at the American History museum dates to around 1956. "The reason we know that," Bowers says, "is that the first Dumbos designed for the ride had articulated ears and they broke very frequently and required constant repair. However, this visual conceit was rethought and the actual ride has always sported the classically gray fiberglass pachyderms. The elephant-shaped gondolas were originally planned to be pink, recalling a scene in the film where Dumbo and his mouse pal Timothy accidentally imbibe a bucket full of champagne and experience hallucinations of neon-colored elephants on parade. The Dumbo theme park attraction is based on the 1941 Disney film about a baby elephant whose unusually large ears incur ridicule from his fellow circus animals, but he learns that they give him the uncanny ability to glide through the air and he ultimately attains celebrity status. ![]() And I think that says something about the rags-to-riches undercurrent in American culture and that Dumbo’s journey from lowly circus animal to big top hero is a triumph of the American dream." "He encounters unspeakable roadblocks and yet he triumphs. ![]() "The character itself represents the underdog," Bowers says. And if that's the idea behind the theme park, Dumbo could not be a more apropos poster boy. "Disneyland deals a lot with the idea of wish fulfillment and fantasy in American life and both of those play a role in the American psyche," says American History Museum curator of popular culture Dwight Blocker Bowers. Though it's easy to cynically write it off as a perennial cash cow for an entertainment empire, the theme park is indeed a culturally meaningful piece of Americana. And the truth is, I have-well, only at the Disneyland theme park courtesy of the Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride, which was built shortly after the park opened 55 years ago this weekend on July 17, 1955. I know I've done and seen about everything when I see an elephant fly. ![]()
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