Disney’s Dumbo is 70 Years Old Today
On October 23, 1941 the elephant who could use his ears to fly stepped onto the silver screen. Expectations were set low for the film as it was intended originally to be a short, and was done on a low budget to make up for the financial losses from Fantasia. Even though they weren’t trying to push the edge with Dumbo, the strong focus on storytelling and strong characters won over critics. What I love about this film is that Disney wasn’t trying to be realistic as with Snow White, so there’s a great deal of the silly cartoony look which harkened back to their shorts:
And here is a character design sheet which shows how much work when into making an elephant ultra cute:
