48 Fun Facts About Dumbo

Which was Walt Disney's first animated feature, four years before Dumbo?

Snow White. Dumbo itself was first planned as a short cartoon, until the people making it decided the story could carry a full-length feature.

What is Dumbo's real name?

Jumbo Jr. is the name his mother gives him; the other circus elephants, laughing at his enormous ears, rename him Dumbo.

Which Oscar-nominated lullaby plays as Dumbo's caged mother cradles him in her trunk?

Baby Mine. His mother has been locked in a wagon for spanking a boy who pulled Dumbo's ears, so she can only reach her trunk through the bars to rock him.

What comes crashing down when Dumbo trips over his ears during the elephant pyramid stunt?

The big top. The stunt was his mouse friend's idea, whispered into the sleeping ringmaster's ear, and its failure gets Dumbo demoted to the clowns' act.

Which European film festival gave Dumbo its top prize for animation in 1947?

Cannes. War had delayed the festival's launch until 1946, so the six-year-old Dumbo competed at only its second edition and won the Grand Prix for animated film.

Which two earlier Disney features lost money, prompting Dumbo to be made cheaply?

Pinocchio and Fantasia. Both were costly, and the war in Europe shut them out of overseas cinemas, so Disney needed a film that was quick and cheap to make.

Animator Bill Tytla based his drawings of baby Dumbo on which real-life model?

His own young son. Tytla used little Peter as his reference because he wanted the elephant to have the personality of a real child.

Dumbo's only Academy Award win honoured which part of the film?

Its musical score. Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace won for the scoring; the Academy had no award for animated features themselves until 2002.

What is the name of the circus train in Dumbo?

Casey Jr. The little engine 'talks' thanks to the Sonovox, a device pressed against a performer's throat that shaped recorded train noises into words.

In which US state does Dumbo's circus spend its winter off-season?

Florida. That was true to life: the famous Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had moved its headquarters to the state in 1927.

After she spanks a bully, the warning sign on Dumbo's mother's wagon calls her what kind of elephant?

Mad. The sign warns of a 'Mad Elephant', and she stays locked up until her son's flying act makes him a star and wins her release.

Dumbo is demoted to the clowns' act, in which he must do what?

Jump from a burning platform. He lands in a tub far below, and the act goes over so well that the clowns decide to raise the platform even higher.

What do Dumbo and his mouse friend accidentally drink, triggering the famous hallucination sequence?

Water spiked with champagne. The clowns had been toasting plans for a bigger act, and a bottle ends up in the tub Dumbo drinks from to cure his hiccups.

What parades past Dumbo and his mouse friend in the film's most surreal scene?

Pink elephants. The phrase was already slang for a drunkard's visions, used by Jack London in 1913, long before Disney set it marching to music.

Who gives the mouse the "magic feather" to convince Dumbo he can fly?

The crows. Won over after mocking the pair, their leader hands over an ordinary feather as a confidence trick, and Dumbo later proves he can fly without it.

Cliff Edwards, the voice of Dumbo's lead crow, also voiced which character in Pinocchio?

Jiminy Cricket. Edwards's crow has long been known as Jim Crow, a name that Disney's own listings replace with Dandy Crow.

Sterling Holloway, a voice in Dumbo, later voiced which Disney character?

Winnie the Pooh. The small Dumbo part opened a long Disney career for Holloway: the Cheshire Cat came before Pooh and the snake Kaa after.

Which composer wrote the score for the 2019 live-action Dumbo?

Danny Elfman. His new score slips in nods to the best-loved tunes of the 1941 cartoon.

Verna Felton, the voice of Dumbo's pompous elephant matriarch, later voiced which Cinderella character?

The Fairy Godmother. A year after that kindly role, the same voice turned tyrant as the head-chopping Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

Which US institution chose Dumbo in 2017 for its National Film Registry of films worth preserving?

The Library of Congress. Anyone may nominate a film, and each year its Librarian picks 25 after weighing the public's choices and an expert board's advice.

What historic event interrupted Dumbo's production in May 1941?

The Disney animators' strike. Staff walked out on May 29 in a bitter fight over union recognition, and it ended only after federal mediators stepped in and the studio signed with the cartoonists' guild.

Which event bumped Dumbo from a planned Time magazine cover as 'Mammal of the Year'?

The attack on Pearl Harbor. War news took over the cover, though Time still ran its tribute to the 'Mammal of the Year' inside the magazine before 1941 was out.

Verna Felton, Dumbo's elephant matriarch, voiced another elephant in which Disney film released after her death?

The Jungle Book. Felton died on December 14, 1966, a day before Walt Disney himself, so neither lived to see the film reach cinemas.

Which studio distributed Dumbo in 1941, when Disney still had no distributor of its own?

RKO Radio Pictures. When it balked at a nature documentary, The Living Desert, Walt and Roy Disney set up their own distributor, Buena Vista, in 1953.

Which Pinocchio song won Dumbo's lyricist an Oscar?

When You Wish Upon a Star. It became the Disney company's unofficial anthem, and Ned Washington's words for Dumbo earned him another Oscar nomination a year later.

At the end of Dumbo, what does his mouse manager sign on the flying elephant's behalf?

A Hollywood contract. A newspaper headline announces the deal, and the film ends with Dumbo and his freed mother riding in their own private coach on the circus train.

What restriction did Disney+ place on Dumbo in 2021?

Hid it from kids' profiles. Disney+ pulled it from children's accounts along with Peter Pan and The Aristocats, saying some of its characters echo racist minstrel shows; adults still get it uncut.

On which TV program did Dumbo have its heavily edited television premiere in 1955?

Disneyland. Walt had created the ABC series to help pay for his theme park, and it aired a cut-down Dumbo in September 1955, two months after the park opened.

What was Dumbo's Circus, which aired on The Disney Channel in the 1980s?

A live-action puppet series. Performers in full-body animal suits played a grown-up Dumbo and his new troupe, and unlike in the 1941 film, this Dumbo could talk.

Disney gave an elephant from its Dumbo ride to which museum in 2005?

The Smithsonian. Its National Museum of American History made the fibreglass elephant a landmark exhibit when it reopened in 2008, as an emblem of American entertainment.

The original Dumbo ride was rebuilt in 1990 with elephants first made for Disney's park in which city?

Paris. The new elephants were finished before the French park needed them, so California got them first and a second set was built in time for its 1992 opening.

Who directed the 2019 live-action Dumbo?

Tim Burton. He rebuilt the story around the circus's human performers, so none of his animals talk.

Who plays ringmaster Max Medici in the 2019 Dumbo?

Danny DeVito. His cash-strapped circus boss sells Dumbo's mother after her rampage, then joins his troupe's scheme to break her out.

In 2019's Dumbo, Colin Farrell's Holt Farrier returns from World War I having lost what?

An arm. He also finds the horses from his riding act sold off, so the former star is put to work minding the circus's elephants instead.

In 2019's Dumbo, what is the name of the villain's Coney Island-style amusement park?

Dreamland. It shares its name with a real Coney Island park that burned down in 1911, and the film's version goes up in flames too.

The 2019 Dumbo opens in 1919 in which city, later nicknamed 'Circus City'?

Sarasota. The nickname followed John Ringling's decision to move his circus's headquarters there in 1927, eight years after the film's fictional Medici troupe is shown in the town.

How does the 2019 Dumbo end for the circus?

It gives up wild animal acts. Dumbo and his mother are sent home to live free, and the renamed Medici Family Circus puts its human performers in animal costumes instead.

At the end of the 2019 Dumbo, a ship carries the elephant and his mother home to which country?

India. His human friends get the pair to the harbour, and the last scene shows Dumbo flying over a herd in the jungle, where the 1941 cartoon left him the star of the circus.

Which fight announcer cameos as a ringmaster in 2019's Dumbo?

Michael Buffer. He plays Baritone Bates, ringmaster at the tycoon's amusement park, and introduces the flying elephant with a twist on his famous 'Let's get ready to rumble!'

How does Timothy the mouse first come to Dumbo's defence?

He scares the other elephants. Outraged by their gossip about the baby's ears, he sends the whole herd scrambling, then coaxes the frightened Dumbo into trusting him.

Who plays the ruthless amusement-park owner V. A. Vandevere in the 2019 Dumbo?

Michael Keaton. His smiling tycoon takes over the whole struggling circus just to get its flying elephant for his own theme park.

Which paint, rarely used for Disney features, was used to render Dumbo's backgrounds?

Watercolour. Disney's features gave it up for gouache in the 1940s, and it stayed out of use for decades until Lilo & Stitch revived the look in 2002.

Which star was first in talks to play the father in the 2019 Dumbo before passing on the role?

Will Smith. His talks with Disney broke off, scheduling among the reasons, yet he still turned up in a 2019 Disney remake, as the Genie in Aladdin.

In 2019's Dumbo, Eva Green plays Colette Marchant, a French performer of what kind?

Trapeze artist. The tycoon's star aerialist is paired with Dumbo for a flying double act, and ends up helping the circus folk set him free.

Dumbo led off Disney's 2019 remakes; which July release made over $1.6 billion?

The Lion King. Dumbo had opened the year's run of remakes but took $353 million worldwide on a $170 million budget, less than a quarter of the lion's haul.

In the 2002 game Kingdom Hearts, Dumbo appears in what role?

A summoned ally. Players who find the right gem can call Dumbo into a fight, as they can Simba and Mushu.

Who cancelled the planned sequel Dumbo II soon after taking charge of Disney Animation in 2006?

John Lasseter. Arriving with the Pixar takeover, he felt that cheap follow-ups undercut the classics they were based on and called a halt to the whole line.

Nico Parker, who plays young Milly in 2019's Dumbo, is the daughter of which actress?

Thandiwe Newton. Dumbo was Parker's first film, and it launched a career that soon brought her the part of Joel's daughter Sarah in The Last of Us.