On October 23rd, 1941, the legendary Walt Disney released the iconic animated film’ Dumbo.’ It was Walt’s 4th animated feature film, and it was released by ‘RKO Radio Pictures.’
‘Dumbo’ is based on the storyline written by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl. The plot centers around an elephant nicknamed ‘Dumbo.’ He is picked on for his big ears, which actually allow him to fly later in the story.
His unlikely friend, Timothy, is a mouse. Dumbo is clumsy because of his large, floppy ears. He is made into a sideshow attraction and separated from his mother. After receiving a magic feather, Dumbo can fly and frees his mother.
Walt Disney suffered some theatrical setbacks when ‘Pinocchio’ and ‘Fantasia’ failed at the box office due to foreign markets and World War II. Dumbo was expected to be low-budget, so Disney could recover some revenue.
Watercolor paints were used to render the backgrounds similar to ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Disney tried his best to keep costs down while producing the film. Given a chance to add 10 more minutes to the film, Walt decided it would cost too much, so ‘Dumbo’ maintained its short runtime of 64 minutes.
‘Dumbo’ became the most financially successful Disney film of the 1940s. It cost half as much as ‘Snow White’ to produce and a third of the cost of ‘Pinocchio.’ The total production came in at $950,000, and the box office grossed over 1.3 million.
The tale of the elephant who could fly made Disney a healthy profit and allowed him to continue his animation projects. He followed ‘Dumbo’ with ‘Bambi’ in 1942 and ‘Cinderella’ in 1950.
