Tear Jerker / Dumbo

If there's one thing Disney is notorious for, it's for having tons of sad moments in their movies, but even then, Dumbo is considered one of their most tearjerking movies.

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• The beginning of the movie with the storks dropping the new babies off. Dumbo's mother is eagerly awaiting her baby's arrival, and is heartbroken into the next day when Dumbo doesn't come the first night. As she's being loaded onto the train, she's still watching the sky.
• The "Baby Mine" sequence, with Dumbo's mother barely able to reach her baby with her trunk through the bars of her tiny cage, is heartbreaking.
  • The music alone is beautiful.
  • It doesn't help that they mix Dumbo not being able to be with his mom with scenes of all the other baby animals being rocked to sleep by their mothers. Even Timothy sheds a Single Tear at this sight.
    • Speaking of Timothy, ever wonder if he was probably thinking about his own mother at that moment?
  • There's a reason animation historian Michael Barrier has praised this sequence—the emotions in the scene are so real, you can't help but share your sympathy with Ms. Jumbo and Dumbo.
  • It's a famous enough tearjerker to became the subject of a gag in another movie. In Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979), one of the characters (General Stilwell) goes to see Dumbo in theaters, 1941 being the year the film came out. There's the inevitable scene of him crying when "Baby Mine" starts.
  • The fates of unmanageable elephants back in those times and the very real possibility that Mrs. Jumbo knows this. If things hadn't worked out the way they did, these could have very easily been their last moments together.
  • The end of the sequence, when Dumbo and his mother are forced to part ways, and hold onto each other's trunks until they can't anymore. He waves goodbye even as he's walking away, and she in turn races around to the other cage window so she can wave just a little longer.
  • If that weren't sad enough, there's also this movie poster depicting the scene, and shows all three characters (Dumbo, Mrs. Jumbo, and Timothy) crying.
  • The song takes on a whole new meaning when you consider that this movie was released only a couple months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. When America entered World War II, many children would end up relating to Dumbo; their fathers would all be off fighting in the war (many of them would be killed in action, and thus never come back to their families), and their mothers would be working in the factories to take their husbands' place, too busy to be at home with their children. Even children today, especially ones who have parents that are either in prison or have a job that takes them far away from home, can relate to this scene and the song.
• The establishing shot of Casey Jr slowly pulling the circus train through a nightly rainstorm after Dumbo's destruction of the big top: While not even slightly comparable to the above in terms of sadness, it can be interpreted as a realization that the circus has been dealt an enormous blow, remembering the terrible damage caused inadvertently. It can also be viewed as a foreshadowing of the tear-jerking scenes to come as Casey (or the chorus) hums a few mournful bars.
• Right after Mrs Jumbo is locked, Dumbo comes over to the other elephants who block him out! They really deserved to be scared by Timothy!
• The movie in general is a true tearjerker because it shows Dumbo being mistreated and humiliated for having big ears. It goes From Bad to Worse as he was later separated from his mom for trying to protect her son. This movie can bring back unpleasant memories of being mistreated for being different, parent separation, and rejected by people. Sure, he has a happy ending but still...
• A minor, but important one: Timothy calls the crows out for ridiculing Dumbo, noting how Dumbo's been ostracized for his ears. During the speech, each crow sheds a tear. Being patterned after black stereotypes (aka Jim Crow, the leader's original name), they probably sympathize with Dumbo because they also know what discrimination is like.
  Timothy: You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. A bunch of big guys like you, picking on a poor little orphan like him! Suppose you was torn away from your mother when you was just a baby. Nobody to tuck you in at nights. No warm, soft, caressing trunk to snuzzle inta. How would you like to be left out alone, in a cold, cruel, heartless world? And why? I ask ya, why?! Just because he's got those big ears, they called him a freak! A laughingstock at the circus! And when his mother tried to protect him, they threw her in the clink. And on top of that, they made him a clown! Socially, he's washed up! Oh but what's the use of talking to you cold-hearted birds? Go on ahead. Have your fun. Laugh at him! KICK HIM NOW THAT HE'S DOWN! GO ON!! ...We don't care.
  • This goes even further, as earlier in the film, the roustabouts whom are setting up the circus alongside the elephants are all shown to be black. Not only that, but they are forced to work in awful working conditions in the rain. This heavily reinforces the point.
  • The fat crow putting his arm on the shoulder of the young bespectacled one who appears the be the crying harder (albeit silently) than the rest of the crows. Being probably the Tagalong Kid of the group he understands a child's pain more than the others.
  • When Timothy says "They made him a clown !" one of the crows, visibly the older one, bows his head in cringe and disgust.
  • The parallels get even worse than that as shown under Fridge Brilliance in the Fridge page for this movie. Dumbo is the interracial offspring from his mother (who is an Asian elephant) and his father (who was an African elephant). So the main reason the other Asian elephants in the circus shun Dumbo is because he is different from them... Wow.
• Before Dumbo's mother is locked away, everyone - the other elephants, the crowd watching him trip over in the circus parade, the boys in the circus - laughs at and ridicules Dumbo for his ears. He's just a baby. Plus the fact that he doesn't comprehend the jeering - being a baby, probably not even knowing what condescension and mocking and sadness is - and laughs along and wiggles his ears, and they laugh at him more...
  • From Dumbo’s perspective, there’s no reason why his mother went all crazy and was taken away.
  • Him all alone with tears dripping down his trunk without his mother, especially when the other elephants offer absolutely no comfort whatsoever.
• Dumbo crying after being humiliated by the clowns during a performance.
  • The worst part of the performance? One clown dressed as a parody of Mrs. Jumbo.
• In the beginning, when the other elephants call him Dumbo for the first time. Dumbo looks up at them and smiles because they're laughing and he's too innocent to understand that they're laughing at him.