30 Day Film Challenge-Day 1

Welcome to day 1 of the 30 Day Film Challenge. I'm excited to get going and introduce my first film!

The First Film I Remember Watching

Dumbo (1941)
I originally listed another Disney classic (Fantasia) for this first category, but when I started writing this post, I realized there was an even earlier movie from my memory. So, what I'm about to relate gets a little foggy, but here is the story behind Dumbo being my earliest movie memory.

When I was four years old, my family took a cross country road trhip in the old station wagon (yes, just like the Vacation movies, but it was blue, not green with wood panels). We set off from upstate New York, traveling generally west and south across a dozen or so states before finally ending up in Los Angeles and San Diego. This doesn't do justice to the trip that actually took several weeks and included stops in St. Louis, the Grand Canyon, and many other tourist locations across the country. After a visit to Disneyland, we made our way up the west coast to San Francisco as we began our return trip across the northern part of the country.

Unfortunately, the trip was cut short when our car was in an accident as we were getting on the highway one day. Everyone was fine, but the car was damaged enough that we flew home soon after. Some days or weeks later, the station wagon made its way home on a car carrier and got dropped off to us in a retail plaza near our home.

I hear what you're thinking, what does all this have to do with Dumbo? It so happened that Dumbo was airing on The Wonderful World of Disney the same night we were to pick up the car. Being the awesome parents they were, my mom and dad taped Dumbo, along with the preceding shorts "Lambert" and "Mickey and the Beanstalk" off the television so I could watch them later.

I'm pretty sure I wore out that tape completely with the number of times I watched it during my younger years. It was standard viewing whenever I was home sick from school and I knew the order of every commercial on that recording, even down to the classic Big Mac jingle about the special sauce.

While the tape itself may be long gone by now (or buried in my parents basement) I still have the Dumbo plush that we got the next year at Disney World. Dumbo remained one of my favorite films for many years before being supplanted by newer releases like Aladdin and The Lion King.

The film itself was highly successful and has enjoyed critical praise over the last 80 years. At just over an hour, it's a perfect film for young audiences with short attention spans.

Dumbo is available on Disney+.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the next movie.

Day 2: Film I like that starts with the first letter of my name

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