A couple of months ago, after a rather grueling week, my girlfriend and i decided to zone out and watch an old Disney film. After some debate, we settled on Dumbo. When the “pink elephants on parade” scene came on, we both sat there in disbelief. “This is a kids movie!? From the 40s!? Whaaaa?” But then i realized that kids would probably enjoy it too, and probably wouldn’t need any special substances to do so.
I suspect there are numerous other Disney films that could contend, whether accidental or not.
The OP may have nailed it. Pink Elephants remains a remarkable piece–inventive, funny, brilliant animation, clearly ahead of its time, and incredibly trippy. Not the first cartoon to employ surrealistic imagery, but the first to take full advantage of color and a no-holds-barred approach to what could’ve been a predictable “dream sequence”.
Things like Willie Wonka or the stargate sequence in 2001 are honorable mentions, but it’s one thing to be influenced by psychadelic culture and it’s another to anticipate it decades in advance.
Wow, it’s been at least 10 years since I saw that, and I’d forgotten how strange it really is. Somehow I don’t think it would make it into any of Disney’s modern day offerings.
“Red man-panties, gun-vomiting hot air balloon stone heads, flying books on fishing line, neat-o dance numbers (or at least ballroom catharsis), magic marker facial hair, elitist-hippie government, inexplicable backward-masking (check out Friend in the kitchen), the ugliest bride in the history of cinema, cool jewelry, the Internet before the Internet was the Internet (or even computerized), Big Brother, HAL, and David Niven merged into one, lots of flowy sheer curtains, EXCELLENT decorating ideas, nifty forms of mass transit, a profound sense of anatomy, and, perhaps most chillingly, an apocalyptic warning that, if we do not change our ways, we face a future COMPLETELY DEVOID OF UNDERGARMENTS.”
Woah. I don’t think I’m old enough to see that.