One of the most magical films in the Walt Disney animated feature canon is Dumbo, written about at length on this very site mere weeks ago. This isn’t to suggest that Dumbo is a perfect piece of animation; arguably, flaws like its expedited and forcibly inexpensive production process contribute to its charms. (As ever, the inclusion of a crow named Jim, voiced by a white actor, does not.) But Dumbo is widely considered to be one of the crown jewels of Disney animation, with its title character having become something of an icon in the intervening decades. In some respects, because it was one of the first five Disney animated features, Dumbo has been fairly untouchable for a long time. Like Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, there has never been a direct-to-DVD sequel of Dumbo, though there were rumors that such a film would be willed into existence had John Lasseter and Ed Catmull not taken charge of Disney’s animation department in the mid-2000s. (Bambi, sadly, was not so lucky.) [Read more…]