Disney animator Ward Kimball felt that "Disney cartoon reached its zenith with Dumbo. Every story element meshes into place, held together with the great fantasy of a flying elephant."

The feature originated with the galleys of a story by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl, adapted for the screen by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer. Production of the feature took just a year and a half, and although the three preceding features had cost in excess of two million dollars each, Dumbo cost just $812,000.

Its low cost and popular appeal made Dumbo a much-needed financial success for the

Disney Studio. The critical reaction was positive too, since many critics of the day felt that Dumbo was a return to roots for Disney after growing increasingly "arty" with Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. "Dumbo's the most enchanting and endearing of their output," wrote Cecilia Ager in PM, "because it's the least pretentious of their works, the least self-conscious."

Dumbo had been scheduled as the cover story for Time magazine at the time of its general release in December, 1941, but a more momentous story-the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor-supplanted Dumbo with Japanese general Yamamoto.

Dumbo has remained a favorite over the years and was the first Disney animated feature shown on television (in 1955), as well as one of the first released to home video, where it has remained in release since 1981.

In Dumbo, the fantasy of talking animals is played out against the backdrop of a circus. The human characters are marginalized, for the most part, to lend greater credibility to the animal characters. Circus workmen are kept in shadow, and the clowns are seen in silhouette. The spare story and concise characters inspired a style in Dumbo that is predominantly visual. Dumbo never speaks, nor does his mother. Leonard Maltin has noted "as delightful as the sound track is, especially with Timothy's dialog, one could turn it off and still follow every scene."

The musical score of Dumbo also gained much attention, garnering the Academy Award(r) for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture and a nomination for Best Song ("Baby Mine"). One song in particular, "Pink Elephants on Parade," inspired some of the most creative and outrageous animation ever created by Disney The surreal, dreamlike qualities of the sequence evoked a wacky quality unlike the work considered "typically Disney."

Joe Grant, co-writer of the Dumbo screen story, returned to Disney in the late 1980's, and was integral in the story development of Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996).