The Pink Elephants are hallucinations that Dumbo and Timothy Mouse experience in Disney's 1941 film, Dumbo.
Appearances[]
Dumbo[]
During the film, the clowns that Dumbo has worked with are changing into their casual clothes and celebrating a successful fireman act with champagne. They come up with a plan for their next act, and while they are leaving to tell their boss, one accidentally hits the table with the bottle of champagne which drops into Dumbo's water bucket, which is right outside their break tent. Dumbo and Timothy drink the spiked water and become instantly and heavily drunk. Dumbo blows some bubbles for Timothy to play with, and at Timothy's request, he blows a "great big one".
Then, Dumbo and Timothy start to hallucinate. The bubble transforms into an elephant, who eventually gets up on its hind legs and then blows another one out of its trunk. This process is repeated until there are four. They start blowing their trunks like trumpets, and the trunks merge into a yellow giant trumpet, which then explodes, releasing dozens of elephants.
A large elephant marches behind a small elephant as part of their marching band. The large one is playing his trunk, while the small one is shaking two cowbells. The fat one repeatedly steps on the small one, until he becomes irritated. He sneaks up behind the fat one and kicks him in the buttocks, causing him to become three elephants that mock the small one by blowing their trunks in his face like horns. He gets furious and grows massive as his cowbells become cymbals, slamming the three elephants into them. The three elephants erupt into a swarm of tiny elephants that march away and surround Dumbo. They swell up and decrease in number as they march, until there is absolutely no space and they explode.
Many elephants march in through windows and downstairs, eventually marching with yellow glowing skeletons around the bed of a terrified elephant calf, who hides under the covers as his bed and the elephants spiral off into the distance. Two white elephant heads appear from the bottom and top of the screen. They become aware of one another and flee, startled.
A male and a female worm pass each other, and the male tips his top hat to the female. They are revealed to be two elephant trunks walking right through each other. However, their buttocks become entangled and they snap back into each other, exploding into a rainbow of colors that transforms into a small elephant. The elephant dances as five more elephants of various colors emerge from him, and the screen shuffles them together to form an elephant with six heads. The camera pans in on his eyes, which transform into pyramids.
A camel-elephant emerges from behind one of the pyramids and begins walking, smiling at the viewer. Nonetheless, one of the pyramids she walks past turn out to be an elephant in disguise, who blows a flute at her, causing her to transform into a snake (the transformation is clearly involuntary, as she appears terrified when it occurs). The snake sways to the music and transforms into a belly dancer, who then fades away except for her belly and transforms into an eye.
Four elephants blow their trumpets, signaling the beginning of a performance as the trumpeting elephants are revealed to be made of curtains with elephant versions of traditional theatrical comedy and tragedy masks. They've been ripped apart, and a male and female elephant are dancing in one spotlight.
The male reaches for the female's trunk, but she pulls away, and he transforms into a staircase. She ascends the stairs and leaps into the ground, which transforms into a lake. The male transforms his legs into a canoe and paddles around the lake, using his trunk as a telescope, but only until the female emerges from the lake, posing as a statue fountain. He examines her through his telescope, and she squirts him with water, then flees and begins ice skating.
The male skates behind her and nearly falls, but she catches him and they skate away. They return on skis and descend a mountain, covering themselves in snow. They shake the snow off and dance until their trunks collide and spark a lightning bolt. The male grabs it while the female continues to dance. He rubs it on his buttocks, then turns it back into a lightning bolt and hurls it at the female. It hits her in the head, and she explodes into a swarm of dancing elephants.
The elephants transform into vehicles and race around until they collide, causing an explosion that launches them into the air. As the alcohol wears off and Dumbo recovers from his hallucination, they fall and transform into clouds.
House of Mouse[]
The Pink Elephants appear in a few episodes of the series.
Their most notable appearance was in the episode "Mickey and Minnie's Big Vacation," while Donald and Daisy are in charge of the club, they saw the Pink Elephants being created by Mrs. Potts as one of their faulty acts (along with 101 Dragons). They cause havoc to the guests, such as drinking Clarabelle's milk, knocking Timon into Goofy's dirty dishes, acting as a canoe for Pocahontas, being weights for Hercules (eventually causing him to fall through the floor), throwing Ursula on top of Goofy, stealing Pooh's honey (a reference to Heffalumps), and frightening Dumbo. Fortunately, Timothy was able to get rid of the technicolor creatures by scaring them away with a wooden sign that had the word "Boo!" written on it.
In "Ask Von Drake", the Pink Elephants were seen during the musical headcount of the character guests.
Live-action appearances[]
Dumbo (2019)[]
The Pink Elephants appear in the 2019 remake but under very different circumstances. The alcohol-induced dream sequence is not present. Instead, they appear as bubbles during the circus at Dreamland as the act prior to Dumbo's first performance in the park. Several performers create bubbles using bubble wands, which then combine into Pink Elephants. Dumbo watches the performance, and rather than being scared like in the original film, he finds the act amusing, bobbing his head to the music.
Video games[]
Epic Mickey[]
In the original storyboard, one of the Pink Elephants was planned to be one of the Beetleworx enemies in the game, but that idea was scrapped in the final game.
Epic Mickey 2[]
Though difficult to find in the game's main hub city, Mean Street, if one were to go to the construction area, a patch of walling can be thinned out to reveal the Pink Elephants, a still picture identical to the one present above.
Disney Parks[]
A Pink Elephant in Animagique at Walt Disney Studios Park.
Disneyland Resort[]
Pink Elephants appear in the Disneyland version of Fantasmic!, where they were dancing to their song.
In the 2017 update, they appear at the end of the show's jungle-themed act, which then transitions into a reworked version of the Pink Elephants segment from the original show.
Projections of Pink Elephants could be found in the show Disneyland Forever. Interestingly though, they appeared during the Heffalumps and Woozles scene, alongside some Heffalumps that closely resemble the Pink Elephants from Dumbo.
Walt Disney World[]
The Pink Elephants are part of Dumbo's spell card for Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. The title of the card is "Dumbo's Pink Elephant Parade".
Disneyland Paris[]
The Pink Elephants are the first set of characters Donald Duck encounters in the former show, Animagique. When they first appear before him, they perform a shortened version of the original Pink Elephants song. After that, Donald thanks them, and watches them exit.
Trivia[]
- "Seeing pink elephants" is a euphemism for drunken hallucination caused by alcoholic hallucinosis or delirium tremens. The term dates back to the early 20th century, emerging from earlier idioms about snakes and other creatures.
- The Pink Elephants' musical number is very controversial due to the inclusion of alcohol and drunkenness. Because of this, several book adaptations of the film often cut out their scene and sometimes replace it with a new scene of Dumbo falling asleep and dreaming about flying.
- The Guardian columnist Henry Barnes wrote that the role of alcohol in unlocking Dumbo's gift was "a terrible, adult message". He praised the sequence but argued that "Drunken pink elephants have no place in a children's movie".
- The Pink Elephants are spoofed in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures when Plucky Duck gets Einstein's smarts.
- They are also parodied in the Bob's Burgers episode "Art Crawl" and in South Park in the episode "Doubling Down".
- A Pink Elephant made a cameo on The Simpsons where it crushes a goblin hallucination Barney was experiencing that was caused by a peyote-laced organic drink. Afterward, Barney thanks it and claims that it's always been there for him.
- Part of the Pink Elephants' parade was heard playing on TV in Disney's 2007 film Enchanted.
- The Pink Elephants' theme music is played in the Donald Duck short Tea for Two Hundred, when the ants are marching to steal Donald's picnic food.
- Recycled footage of the elephants was used in the "Heffalumps and Woozles" musical number from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
.webp "Pink Elephant Camel (1941).webp (25 KB)")
.png "Elephant curtains (WIP).png (2.44 MB)")
Miscellaneous[]
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