Set in Florida, Dumbo appropriately opens in the sky. That adds character and makes it stand out from the other classics with their more fantastical and conventional designs. Dumbo is simpler, shorter, and more sentimental than its predecessors and almost all of the Disney animated features that have come since. A toy prototype didn't seem like the logical next choice after The Brothers Grimm, Carlo Collodi, and the compositions of Bach, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky, but Disney story men Joe Grant and Dick Huemer would flesh out the short story into the enduring and endearing tale everyone knows today whether or not they've seen the movie. The inspiration for this movie was Disney animation's least familiar source to date: a children's story that briefly married couple Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl wrote for a short-lived, scroll-based device called a Roll-A-Book. The movie was well-received and its ambitions had been scaled back enough to make it profitable. How would things have played out if circumstances had not compelled Disney to move to an internationally-flavored anthology format that renders the remainder of the 1940s the least heralded period in studio history? Dumbo provided some promise for the future. One wonders how a different political climate would have changed the course of the studio. There is no question that Bambi, arriving August 1942, ended Walt's first and most special Golden Age. Along with everything else, World War II took a clear toll on the output of Disney animation. The world was just weeks away from changing, with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor driving the US into the escalating global conflict. Then came Dumbo, opening in the States in late October 1941. Pinocchio and Fantasia, both released in 1940, failed to earn back their substantial costs in their initial engagements. So, it is pretty crazy to think that the company had difficulty reigniting audiences after the record-setting smash debut, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The first five animated features made by Walt Disney and his studio remain supremely iconic, universally beloved, and celebrated as the gold standard of the medium some seventy years later. Stork", "Casey Junior", "Song of the Roustabouts", "Baby Mine", "Pink Elephants on Parade", "When I See an Elephant Fly" Stork), Herman Bing (The Ringmaster), Margaret Wright (Casey Jr.), Malcolm Hutton (Skinny), John McLeish (Narrator) Jumbo), Cliff Edwards (Jim Crow), Noreen Gammill (Catty Elephant), Dorothy Scott (Giddy Elephant), Sarah Selby (Prissy Elephant), Sterling Holloway (Mr. Mouse), Verna Felton (The Elephant Matriarch, Mrs. Voice Cast (uncredited): Edward Brophy (Timothy Q. Theatrical Release: Octo/ Running Time: 64 Minutes / Rating: GÄirector: Ben Sharpsteen / Writers: Helen Aberson, Harold Pearl (book) Joe Grant, Dick Huemer (screen story) Otto Englander (story direction) Bill Peet, Aurie Battaglia, Joe Rinaldi, George Stallings, Webb Smith (story development)
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