Dumbo is the main character in the movie. He is a fictional anthropomorphic elephant who has really big ears. He can fly using his big ears. Similar to Dopey from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and Gideon in "Pinocchio", Dumbo has no spoken dialogue. However, in the live-action/puppet television series "Dumbo's Circus", Dumbo was voiced by Katie Leigh.
In the movie, Dumbo is delivered by Mr. Stork, and is made fun of for the strange size of his ears. As his mother, Mrs. Jumbo, beats up the bullies who pick on her baby, the ringmaster has his helpers chain her up and lock her up in a trailer, which says: "MAD ELEPHANT". It is then that Timothy Q. Mouse looks after Dumbo. The two of them try to make Dumbo famous and get his mother free. Thanks to the help of a "magic feather" from some crows￼￼, Dumbo flies to fame, and gets his mother free.
Timothy Q. Mouse is a mouse who became the only friend of elephants Dumbo and his mother Mrs. Jumbo. He teaches Dumbo how to become the ninth wonder of the universe, and the only flying elephant in the whole world.
Mrs. Jumbo is Dumbo's mother. Deeply depressed at not having her baby delivered, she loves her son more than anything. She becomes angry when the boys pick on him.
Other characters include the other elephants who also make fun of Dumbo, the Ringmaster, the clowns of the circus, the Pink Elephants, Mr. Stork and the Crows who give Dumbo the "magic feather" and teach him to fly.
Even though World War II was going on, "Dumbo" was still the most financially successful Disney movie of the 1940s. This was one of the first of Disney's animated movies to be broadcast, albeit severely edited, on television, as part of Disney's anthology series. The movie then received another distinction of note in 1981, when it was the first of Disney's canon of animated movies to be released on home video and also was released in the "Walt Disney Classics" Video Collection in 1985. That release was followed by remastered versions in: 1986, 1989, 1991 (Classics), and 1994 (Masterpiece). In 2001, a 60th Anniversary Special Edition was released that has original RKO titles. In 2006, a "Big Top Edition" of the movie was released on DVD that also has original RKO titles. A UK Special Edition was released in May 2007 and was a successful Disney release.
The movie received very good reviews and did well at the box office despite being released less than 2 months before "World War II".
It also has been known as both a classic and a masterpiece, and has received a Special Edition 60th Anniversary Disney DVD on October 23, 2001, exatly 60 years after its first release. That release featured a sneak peek of a direct-to-video sequel called Dumbo II. The preview showed a lot of sketches and storyboard ideas. The main story has to do with Dumbo and his new friends getting separated from the rest of the circus as they wonder into the big city. Dumbo's new friends are Claude and Lolly the twin bears who leave chaos everywhere they go, Dot the curious zebra, Godfrey the hippo who is older and wants to do things for himself, and Penny the adventurous ostrich. Timothy returns as well. The story was supposed to be as if the first Dumbo ended and this one started the next day. The project seems to have been canceled,as no further announcements have been made since, plus the fact that The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, Tinker Bell, and its sequels, were to be the last projests for DisneyToon Studios.
The crow characters in the movie are often seen as African-American stereotypes.
The leader crow voiced by Cliff Edwards was originally named "Jim Crow" for script purposes. The other crows are all voiced by African-American actors and singers, all members of the Hall Johnson Choir: Nick Stewart, James Baskett, Jim Carmichael and Hall Johnson. The late famous duo of African-American dancers Freddie and Eugene Jackson were invited and hired by Disney to work as live-action reference and models for the animators of the characters, like the chief-animator and Disney Legend Ward Kimball, improvising dances and movements then used in the iconic musical sequence "When I See An Elephant Fly". Despite suggestions of racism by writers like Richard Schickel, many historians, critics, writers, pundits and personalities such as John Grant, Leonard Maltin, John Canemaker, Floyd Norman, Eric Goldberg, Alex Wainer, Michael Wilmington, Whoopi Goldberg and Neal Gabler reject these claims. For instance, the crows are noted as forming the majority of the characters in the movie who are empathetic and sympathetic to Dumbo's plight (the others are Timothy Q. Mouse and Mrs Jumbo), they are free spirits who serve nobody, and intelligent characters aware of the power of self-confidence and of what means being ostracized and marginalized, unlike the Stepin Fetchit stereotype common at that time and in the previous decade. Furthermore, their song "When I See An Elephant Fly" is more orientated to mocking Timothy Mouse than Dumbo's large ears.
"Dumbo's Circus" was a live-action puppet television programme for preschool audiences that aired on The Disney Channel in the 1980s. Unlike in the movie, Dumbo spoke on the show. Each character would perform a special act, which ranged from dancing and singing to telling knock knock jokes.
Dumbo the Flying Elephant is a popular ride that appears in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Park (Paris), and Hong Kong Disneyland.
Dumbo appears as a hero in the game Kingdom Hearts. Sora, the main character, flies on him and Dumbo splashes enemies with water from his trunk.
(NOTE: Most of the above titles were later renamed simply "Dumbo".)
Bertolt Brecht
Brecht went to school in Augsburg, where his father was the director of a paper factory.
He completed his degree in 1917.
Afterwards he studied sciences, medicine and literature at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He had to take a break in his studies because he had to join the army.
In the 1920s, Brecht went to Berlin and became a part of the cultural scene. He met his second wife Helene Weigel in Berlin and married her, after divorcing his first wife. It was with his second wife that Brecht had another son.
In Berlin he met a lot of artists and intellectuals of the Weimar Republic.
His works became very critical about the capitalistic society (e.g. "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny" (1930)). Many of his friends were communists, but he never joined the KPD.
His most famous work was from that time, the "Dreigroschenoper".
In 1933 the Nazis prohibited playing some of his works and arrested some of his friends.
After the Reichstag fire, he travelled from Germany to Prague, Vienna, Switzerland and Denmark.
For the next five years he lived in Denmark. In 1938 he wrote "Das Leben des Galilei" (The Life of Galilei) about Galileo Galilei, who was hunted by the Holy Inquisition because he wanted to tell the scientific truth.
When Germany occupied Denmark he had to flee once again.
He went to Sweden, then to Finland and finally to Moscow in the Soviet Union.
Even under Stalin he was not safe. He therefore flew through China to the United States.
He lived and worked in California and translated a lot of text.
In 1947, in the McCarthy era, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated him, because they suspected him of being a communist.
He gave a statement and said that he had never been a member of the communist party.
He then flew back to Switzerland - the only place he could go to at the time.
In 1948 he was allowed to return to Berlin, East Berlin.
He was an important writer and director for the young East Germany.
After the workers' protest on June 17 1953, Brecht complained about the Eastern German government which landed him into some trouble. From that point on he got more and more isolated.
Brecht died of a heart attack in 1956 at the age of 58 years in Berlin.
Dramas (chronological)
One act dramas
Lyrics
Lyric cycles