History Trivia / Dumbo

* TributeToFido: It is implied that [[DisappearedDad Dumbo's father]] is Jumbo, a famous elephant that appeared first at the London Zoo then at the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Dumbo was supposed to be named Jumbo Junior, but ended up being known by a mocking nickname instead.

* TroubledProduction: This was Disney's first seriously problematic production. They had to make it on a lower than usual budget due to the studio's financial troubles, and then things really hit the fan when most of the studio's animation staff went on strike over atrocious working conditions, resulting in a lot of the film being completed by junior animators who weren't financially secure enough to go on strike, plus a few more experienced animators who crossed the picket lines knowing that the studio would more than likely be forced to close down if they didn't get ''Dumbo'' out on time, though even then only produced work that met the bare minimum standard that Disney would accept. Like ''Fantasia'' and ''Pinocchio'', this film did not come close to as a big hit at the box office, but the end product was the biggest critical success Disney had since ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs''; however, Walt Disney himself looked back on it with disdain afterwards, and to really stick the boot in, reported all the animators who had gone on strike as potential communists, resulting in more than a few careers being put on hold, if not ended permanently.

* SleeperHit: Disney didn't expect this movie to be particularly successful, and intended it to be a low-budget "filler" movie after the initial financial failures of ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' (which have since been VindicatedByHistory). It would go on to be Disney's biggest hit since ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'' and their most financially successful movie of the 1940s.
* StillbornFranchise: A DirectToVideo sequel began production in 2001. ''Dumbo II'' would have involved Dumbo and the other baby animals of the circus getting stranded in New York City and having to find their way back to their travelling home. The project went into DevelopmentHell and was supposedly canned, but not before having teasers in the 60th Anniversary rerelease.

* CreatorBacklash: Walt wasn't a fan of the movie, as he produced this and ''Film/TheReluctantDragon'' on a whim to recover money from 1940's failures, and there was also the fact that it was made during the devastating 1941 studio strike--Walt also left to travel during UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica during the bulk of the movie's production, giving him less hands-on involvement with the movie like he had with his previous films. He sent it to television rather early, and this was why ''Dumbo'', along with ''Alice In Wonderland'', were the only single-story animated films to be released on [[Creator/WaltDisneyHomeVideo video]] prior to the 1984 management shift that saw Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells arrive at Disney. Ironically, ''Dumbo's'' [[MagnumOpusDissonance one of the most popular Disney Animated Classics with both audiences and critics.]]

* CreatorBacklash: Walt wasn't a fan of the movie, as he produced this and ''Film/TheReluctantDragon'' on a whim to recover money from 1940's failures, and there was also the fact that it was made during the devastating 1941 studio strike--Walt also left to travel during South America during the bulk of the movie's production, giving him less hands-on involvement with the movie like he had with his previous films. He sent it to television rather early, and this was why ''Dumbo'', along with ''Alice In Wonderland'', were the only single-story animated films to be released on [[Creator/WaltDisneyHomeVideo video]] prior to the 1984 management shift that saw Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells arrive at Disney. Ironically, ''Dumbo's'' [[MagnumOpusDissonance one of the most popular Disney Animated Classics with both audiences and critics.]]

* OldShame: Was this to Walt, who produced this and ''The Reluctant Dragon'' on a whim to recover money from 1940's failures, and there was also the fact that it was made during the devastating 1941 studio strike--Walt also left to travel during South America during the bulk of the movie's production, giving him less hands-on involvement with the movie like he had with his previous films. He sent it to television rather early, and this was why ''Dumbo'', along with ''Alice In Wonderland'', were the only single-story animated films to be released on [[Creator/WaltDisneyHomeVideo video]] prior to the 1984 management shift that saw Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells arrive at Disney. Ironically, ''Dumbo's'' [[MagnumOpusDissonance one of the most popular Disney Animated Classics with both audiences and critics.]]

* DeletedScene: Storyboards and concept art exist of Timothy explaining to Dumbo why elephants are so terrified of mice. It's because an elephant never forgets, and back in prehistoric times, mice were ''gigantic'' [[{{Kaiju}} Kaiju-level]] creatures that always used to play, tease and torment the [[AlwaysABiggerFish helpless pachyderms]]. It was cut due to running time constraints, and that it made Timothy out to be a little too antagonist, when he's developing a BigBrotherInstinct over the outcast baby.

* NamesTheSame: A meta example of this happens in the 1985 Japanese dub used for all home video releases of the film: The Preacher Crow is voiced by a much older voice actor named ''Yuuichi Nakamura''. He's completely unrelated with the [[Creator/YuuichiNakamura much younger one]] and with ''Yuichi'' Nakamura, a TV actor who played Yuto Sakurai/Kamen Rider Zeronos in ''Series/KamenRiderDenO''.

* TroubledProduction: This was Disney's first seriously problematic production. They had to make it on a lower than usual budget due to the studio's financial troubles, and then things really hit the fan when most of the studio's animation staff went on strike over atrocious working conditions, resulting in a lot of the film being completed by junior animators who weren't financially secure enough to go on strike, plus a few more experienced animators who crossed the picket lines knowing that the studio would more than likely be forced to close down if they didn't get ''Dumbo'' out on time, though even then only produced work that met the bare minimum standard that Disney would accept. Like ''Fantasia'' and ''Pinocchio'', this film did not come close to as a big hit at the box office, but end product was the biggest critical success Disney had since ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs''; however, Walt Disney himself looked back on it with disdain afterwards, and to really stick the boot in, reported all the animators who had gone on strike as potential communists, resulting in more than a few careers being put on hold, if not ended permanently.

** A DirectToVideo sequel began production in 2001. ''Dumbo II'' would have involved Dumbo and the other baby animals of the circus getting stranded in New York City and having to find their way back to their travelling home. The project went into DevelopmentHell and was supposedly canned, but not before having teasers in the 60th Anniversary rerelease. There is a petition on change.org asking for Disney to finish this sequel, and it so far has more than a hundred signatures.

* LateExportForYou: The film wasn't released in Finland until 1948 (7 years after the original US release) due to the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet union in 1941-1944.

* DevelopmentHell: ''Dumbo II'' began concept stages in 2001 with interviews and teasers released on the 60th Anniversary rerelease of the original film. It was left on hiatus since then, and supposedly shelved with the other remaining Direct-To-Video sequels after Creator/JohnLasseter's restructuring in 2007.

* At 64 minutes, this is the third shortest film period (behind ''WesternAnimation/WinnieThePooh'' by one minute) and the shortest single-story in the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon.

* At 64 minutes, this is the second shortest film period and the shortest single-story in the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon.