DUMBO

If you haven't seen Dumbo in many years, you are in for a bleak treat.

Dumbo, originally released in 1941, sits snugly in the reverent pantheon of classic Disney animated films from the early years, so it is interesting to revisit the movie with a critical eye. So, upon rewatching Dumbo, do you know what I found? Dumbo is a sad, depressing, and a bit erratic movie, not to mention it is, at times, downright weird.

Maybe as an adult I'm more sensitive. Or maybe modern society is a bit less receptive to the abuse of circus animals and the hijinks of mean drunk clowns... but there were parts of Dumbo that just didn't seem to, well, fly like they used to.

A baby elephant, initially named Jumbo, Jr., is dropped by a stork into the pen of Mrs. Jumbo, a traveling circus elephant. The baby is as cute as, well, a baby cartoon elephant (CUTE), but as soon as the kid shakes out his huge ears, the other lady elephants (who are a bunch of bitches), mockingly dub him "Dumbo" instead. How's that for elephant-yard taunting? If that isn't enough, a bunch of thuggish human boys swing by to mock the baby's ears, so Mrs. Jumbo flips out to defend her lil' pachyderm. Before you can say whips and spiked elephant prods, Mrs. Jumbo is chained up and isolated "in the clink" for the rest of the film.

The most touching moment of the many scenes of poor little Dumbo weeping big wet tears from being separated from his mom (aka basically the entire film) is when Timothy Mouse takes his little elephant buddy to visit his mom at the "Mad Elephant" house where she is imprisoned, chained so that she can barely move. Though they can't see each other, Mrs. Jumbo reaches her trunk through the bars to caress her elephant child, even cradling him, rocking his curled little body back and forth to soothe his loneliness and pain. It just breaks your heart.

Shoot, pretty much the whole movie breaks your heart! If you cried reading Water for Elephants, Dumbo feels like an animated visualization of those good ol' days passed off as children's entertainment. If basically being orphaned isn't bad enough, Dumbo is forced to become a "clown"—being the butt of clown-hijinks that involve him jumping off the top story of a burning building into a trampoline that breaks under him when he lands (wahoo! heeeeeelarious!).

After about 3/4ths of a movie filled with sadness and animal abuse... suddenly Dumbo and Timothy the Mouse get drunk, have a completely bizarre and extended hallucination scene of "Pink Elephants on Parade" ("I could stand the sight of worms / And look at microscopic germs / But technicolor pachyderms / Is really much for me"). They wake up in a tree, meet a bunch of wacky, minstrel crows (who are one of the true lights of the film), and our elephant hero learns to fly by flapping his ears. He has one more triumphant show by jumping off the burning building down to the jeering clowns, and he shows them by taking off and soaring! So, basically, in the last 5 minutes Dumbo learns to fly and becomes world famous. The End. Bam. Wait... what?

DVD AND BLU-RAY NOTES

Despite the fact that I've decided that I don't really *like* Dumbo (sorry!), I have to admit that Disney knows how to pack their Blu-Rays with goodies. The 70th Anniversary Edition includes such treats as deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, a short piece where Dumbo fans crow about the Dumbo ride at Disneyland, some games, and a couple of animated shorts ("The Flying Mouse" and "Elmer Elephant") among other treats. My favorite was a short about sound design for "The Reluctant Dragon", which is a funny and earnest 1941 look at how sound effects are made for animated films. Good fun!