Pink Elephants on Parade
Pink Elephants on Parade is the name of a segment, and the song played therein, from the Disney animated feature film Dumbo in which Dumbo and Timothy Q. Mouse, after accidentally becoming intoxicated (after drinking water spiked with Champagne), see pink elephants sing, dance, and play marching band instruments during a hallucination sequence.
The song was written by Oliver Wallace and Ned Washington[1] and sung by The Sportsmen. The segment was directed by Norman Ferguson, laid out by Ken O'Connor and animated by Hicks Lokey, Frank Thomas and Howard Swift.[2]
After the sequence, Dumbo and Timothy wake up hungover in a tree. It's at this point that they realise that Dumbo can fly. The Guardian columnist Henry Barnes wrote that the role of alcohol in unlocking Dumbo's gift was "a terrible, adult message". He praised the sequence but argued that, "Drunken pink elephants have no place in a children's movie".[3]
Covers
- The song was covered by Sun Ra. A recording of this arrangement is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists, and produced by Hal Willner. The song was also covered by Circus Contraption and Lee Press-on and the Nails.
- Daladubz samples the song in his dubstep song entitled Pink Elephants VIP.
- This song was re-recorded by Chicago based electronic/industrial rock band V is for Villains.
Appearances in other media and theme parks
- Part of the song is played during "HalloWishes" at Walt Disney World's Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.
- The Song is parodied by Bugs Bunny in the short The Big Snooze in Elmer's nightmare, as "The Rabbits Are Coming, Hooray, Hooray".
- The sequence is used in a scene in Fantasmic! projected on the water screens played to a rock cover of the song.
- In Enchanted, the song can be heard briefly as Prince Edward watches television.
- This song is parodied in the Bob's Burgers episode "Art Crawl."
- In The Simpsons episode "D'oh-in in the Wind," Barney is saved from a monster drug hallucination by a Pink Elephant he conjures with alcohol.
- The Pink Elephants appear in the House of Mouse episode "Mickey & Minnie's Big Vacation" when Daisy and Donald accidentally invite them for entertainment and cause trouble until Timothy Q. Mouse scares them away.
- The song is parodied in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Never Too Late to Loon", with Plucky Duck in place of Dumbo and Albert Einstien in place of the Pink Elephants.
- The Pink Elephants from the Sequence also appear in Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
- This song is parodied by Mark Parsons in The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction 2 as "The Spoon Song". The song also parodies Heffalumps and Woozles near the end.
See also
References
- ^ The American Film Institute (1971). The American Film Institute catalog of motion pictures produced in the United States, Volume 1 University of California Press. pp. 663. ISBN 978-0-520-21521-4
- ^ Langer, Mark, Film History, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1990). Regionalism in Disney Animation: Pink Elephants and Dumbo , pp. 305-321
- ^ Henry Barnes (16 August 2013). "Why I love ... Dumbo's pink elephants". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
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