The Evolution of Elephant Characters

Until very recently Wifey had no idea what a heffalump was. Either she is very out of touch with the modern five year old or I am much too versed in Pooh lore. An informal survey of my coworkers seems to suggest Wifey needs to bone up on her knowledge of childhood cartoon characters if she hopes to converse with Little J in a few years.

Anyway, this is the way my mind works. A brief discussion relating to Pooh the other day led me to think about heffalumps and how they were originally imaginary elephant-like characters attributable to a Tigger sugar high. Ultimately, heffalumps became more and more real until they were featured in thier own Pooh movie a few years ago.

In my mind I saw a suspicious corrollary from the heffalumps to Snuffleupagus, the strangely earless imaginary elephant of Sesame Street fame. Again, you have a character that was originally an imaginary friend only visible by an eight foot bird.

So what's with this? Some Freudian lesson involving animals with really long appendages? I don't really have the answer to that one. Although, it seems like there is a bit of a story behind why Snuffy eventually became visible and part of the regular Sesame Street cast. People criticized Sesame Street for Snuffy because kids could be discouraged about talking about their friendly "sex offenders" by Sesame street. If the cast couldn't believe Big Bird, who would ever believe these poor kids if they talked about someone abusing them. Hence, Snuffy had to become real to everyone. Younger people don't even know that he used to belong only to Big Bird.

One more elephant thought. People really do kill these majestic beasts just for the decorative value of their bones. Rather sad. Don't support the illegal ivory trade.