Sunday Night Tomfoolery (7)

Well good evening one and all. Tonight's Tomfoolery is about elephas maximus or loxodonta (cyclotis or africana). Yes, it is elephants, or more specifically elephants on YouTube.

Now YouTube has many differnt videos about elephants. A lot of them relate to either circus tricks (and how elephants are "taught" to perform) or documentary extracts about the normal lives of elephants. Now both topics, whilst interesting in themselves, are not what Tomfooleries are about. I am looking for the weird and wonderful.

So, to start off with, here are some baby elephants playing soccer (or football, for those outside Australia). This is as a part of a BBC documentary about orphaned elephants in Africa.



Next is a short Youtube about a baby African elephant sneezing. Short, but funny.



This next YouTube is quite special. It shows an elephant painting a picture of an elephant. These are Indian elephants (in Thailand) that have either been taught, or naturally have, a special ability to paint pictures. See more at The Elephant Art Gallery. I would not have believed it before seeing the video. By the way, this, and other elephant paintings, can be purchased here.



From here on in it is all fantasy. The next YouTube is a short movie CGI about a particularly acrobatic elephant:



The next two YouTubes are connected to one of the earliest, and one of my favourite, Disney movies, Dumbo the Elephant. This movie is about a baby elephant, in a travelling circus, that was able to fly using his large ears as wings. There are many great scenes and songs in this movie, from Dumbo flying, the three crows and Casey Junior the circus train. But one of the most striking scenes in this movie is when Dumbo gets drunk (weird, I know, for a kid's movie) and starts seeing "pink elephants". This is that scene, with the catchy Pink Elephants on Parade as the accompanying song:



This is now the same scene, with a current variation on the original song.



The next two YouTubes are variations on the song Baby Elephant's Walk. This piece was composed by Henry Mancini (see my previous Pink Panther Blog) for the movie Hatari (starring legendary actor John Wayne). The first version, a funky little number, is performed by Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.



This next version is performed by USA marching band, Shieks of Morocco. I could say a lot about marching bands, but for the moment choose not to:



The final video connects my past with my present. As a young 'un, I watched a lot of Sesame Street. A lot of well known actors and musicians have performed on Sesame Street, and this will be the topic of our next Tomfoolery. This particular video features Natalie Portman (very high up on my list of current favorite actresses) with Elmo in a performance of The Princess and the Elephant (no, I don't know it either).



Have a good week.