Word: dumbo
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Many a man with big ears has become famous,* and Dumbo, who can wrap himself up and go to sleep in his, is no exception. The advent of war made him more than ever a superb expression of the democratic way of life. He could only have happened here. Among all the grim and forboding visages of A.D. 1941, his guileless, homely face is the face of a true man of good will. The most appealing new character of this year of war, he is almost sure to end up in the exclusive kingdom of children's classics...
...Baby. Dumbo is already a legend at the Disney studios. He arrived there in manuscript form (authors: Helen Aberson & Harold Pearl) in the spring of 1939. Everyone was feeling out of sorts. They had shot the works on Pinocchio and Fantasia. Disney's artists were tired of tracing blueprints for their prodigal perfectionist boss. They wanted a chance to express themselves...
...Dumbo turned out to be their chance. Dreaming of further epics, Disney couldn't get interested in the little fellow. He tried to make a short out of him. At length he turned the little elephant over to one of his best writers, moody, sad-eyed Joe Grant, to see what he could...
...Grant-Huemer script, which had the germ of every important episode of the final screen version, gave Dumbo a voice, but it was quickly evident that the way to insure the taupe-colored little elephant's appeal was to keep him mute. He is, except for a few burps after he has inadvertently imbibed champagne and an occasional infantile...
Able Director Ben Sharpsteen and his staff fretted over Dumbo's characterization and form, had about decided to give him a head shaped like a human's when Artist Vladimir ("Bill") Tytla asserted himself. Dark, ponderous Tytla is generally assigned to the "heavies," created the devil-giant for Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain. Since he was doing the big elephants, he had to draw a Dumbo stand-in for the sequence in which Mrs. Jumbo receives her baby via stork...