The beloved tale of a baby circus elephant mocked for his enormous ears who discovers, with the help of a mouse named Timothy, that his "disability" is the gift of flight. Bill Peet's storyboarding and character designs were central to the film's warmth and visual comedy.
Bill was involved in the storyboarding of the film and did a lot of the model sheets, which show what the characters look like in various poses. His infant son, Bill Jr., was a "definite influence in the way I drew the baby elephant."
His contribution
"The thing was, I was a circus buff, so Dumbo was a great chance for me to get in and do a lot of boards. That was the first time Walt really noticed my work. Since I knew the circus, and had done so much sketching at the circus, the old big top circus, I just loved working on that thing." (Bill Peet, interview with Mike Barrier, 1978) Bill rescued a faltering sequence originally assigned to the great animator Bill Tytla, redrawing the key footage to Walt's delight. He developed Dumbo's final character design, with his infant son Bill Jr. serving as a reference for the baby elephant's expressions and proportion.
Story sketches
- RELEASED
- October 23, 1941
- DIRECTOR
- Ben Sharpsteen
- BILL'S ROLE
- Storyboarding, Character Design
- RUNTIME
- 64 min