While most of the series offers "slice of life" morality lessons, complete with anthropomorphism, a number of the earlier episodes dealt with rather frightening and even violent issues.
Original books:
- Babar's mother gets shot by a hunter on the second page of the first book, The Story of Babar, The Little Elephant.
- The first book also has an illustration showing the old King of the Elephants taking the poisonous mushroom that killed him and then writhing on the ground, his skin a livid green.
- There is a memorable Nightmare Sequence in Babar the King with Misfortune and her beastly minions threatening Babar.
TV Series:
- "Babar's First Step", in which a viewer is introduced to the merry elephant tribe before Babar grew up and "civilized" them, in which Babar's blissful times of playing in ponds with other baby elephants and his mother are ended by a hunter with a rifle. He gets no name...he is "the Hunter". The elephants don't know what the sound of his rifle blasting means, and the elders assume it is a "monster". Babar's mother is eventually shot while the herd are fleeing the Hunter, complete with Babar being thrown from her back and screaming and crying for her in the mud after she is shot.
- Then getting to watch her make a last, desperate attempt to cover their escape by charging the Hunter; she gets fatally shot and falls over on screen, close range.
- Made in 1989, elephant cognition (funerals included) had already received considerable publicity. You could not tell your children that this was "just a cartoon".
- Even if he deserved it, the fate of the Hunter is surprisingly horrifying. In "Babar's Triumph", the Hunter sets a fire in the jungle to help him and his men fight Babar and the other animals, but the fire gets out of control and starts sweeping back over the camp. His men, understandably, freak out and drive off in a jeep, being so panicked that they actually drive straight through the closed gate in their justified haste to get away. The Hunter, however, refuses to leave, fruitlessly demanding they come back, then doing a Skyward Scream about how he won't run and furiously vows to destroy the animals... which then trails off into a Scream Discretion Shot of incoherent, enraged wailing as flames simply sweep over the screen. "Boys Will Be Boys" has a flashback to this scene as Babar talks to Rataxes about the past, and he mentions casually to Rataxes that this was the last that was ever seen of the Hunter.Hunter: They can't run! I WON'T RUN! I'LL DESTROY THEM ALL! (screams as he burns alive)
- The episode "The City of Elephants". Halfway through the episode, Babar has this twisted nightmare where he gets confronted by "The Beast of Misfortune", a giant red elephant that laughs/growls etc. in a very deep voice, and "The Beast of Haste", a small white ghost elephant thing capable of contorting itself into various shapes.
- The episode "Conga the Terrible" is a Trapped-with-Monster Plot taking place on an Isle of Giant Horrors. Babar and his friends (along with Rataxes and Basil) get shipwrecked on an island (named Skull Island) that is home to a Kaiju-sized Killer Gorilla with a fearsome reputation, who proceeds to menace them several times over the course of the episode. It is not until the very end of the episode where Cornelius decides to stand up against the ape and learns that he's actually a Gentle Giant who just plays up the monstrous act to keep away hostile people from his island.
- "My Dinner with Rataxes" has the tunnels, these huge, winding, maze-like tunnels with tons of dead-ends and bottomless pits to boot. Even worse, Babar's kids and Rataxes' son Victor discover them while playing football, and they end up getting lost, as do Babar and Rataxes themselves when they look for them. If Celeste and Louise didn't come to their rescue, Rataxes would've taken his, Babar's, as well as their own children's lives, which almost surely would have triggered a war between the elephant and rhino nations.
- Rataxes intended to use the tunnels to launch a surprise attack on Celesteville, and lets it slip.Basil: You ordered these tunnels done years ago, during the, uh, (whispers in Rataxes' ear) hostile period.Rataxes: Oh yeah. (chuckles) I was going to use this to launch a surprise attack on... (Babar overhears before Rataxes finishes the sentence. Rataxes stammers) The-the pelicans.Basil: Yes, that's right. Those pesky pelicans.
- Rataxes intended to use the tunnels to launch a surprise attack on Celesteville, and lets it slip.
- The episode "Witches Potion" deals with Flora being bitten by a Purple Night Shadow, a incredibly deadly venomous snake. While we don't see it bite her, we do hear the sound of it hissing, followed by her slumped unconscious on the ground. Making this already scary scenario worse: there is no known medical treatment for this snake's bite, with the doctor grimly telling Babar and Celeste that all they can do is keep her on life support and hope she overcomes the venom, an outcome implied to be so unlikely as to be outright miraculous. If Alexander hadn't risked life and limb to seek out the legendary hermit known as Winifred the Witch, and if she hadn't turned out to have discovered an herbal remedy for the venom, Flora probably would have died.
