- “March, march, march! My feet are killing me.”
- ―Winifred
Winifred is an elephant and a minor character who appears in Disney's 1967 animated feature film The Jungle Book. She is the mate of Colonel Hathi and the mother of their son, Hathi, Jr.
Background[]
Personality[]
Winifred is a female Indian Elephant and a member of the Jungle Patrol. Unlike most Disney mothers, Winifred is snarky and sarcastic, and she never hesitates to remind Hathi of his faults and forgetfulness. However, she is also caring and compassionate for others to the point of worrying aboutMowgli's welfare, and she and their son convince Hathi to initiate a search party.
Appearances[]
The Jungle Book[]
Winifred's appearances are during the two Jungle Patrol scenes in the film. In her first appearance, she is shown marching behind Hathi most of the time. After they stop marching, she complains to the elephant standing next to her about her feet killing her from all the marching. The elephant answers that he's putting in a transfer to another herd.
She participated in drills and inspections, and Hathi even smacked her behind for her back legs not being straight. She even complains to the elephant standing next to her about Hathi launching into one of his repetitious stories about having received the Victoria Cross. After the elephant herd leaves to resume their cross-country march, she asks Hathi if he forgot something, and Hathi insists that "an elephant never forgets," and Winifred tells him that he just forgot their son, Hathi, Jr. He sees their son talking to Mowgli, and he orders an immediate about-face, and he grabs his son and scolds him. Unfortunately, all the elephants crash into each other, and his son tells him he forgot to say "Halt!"
Winifred appears later, when Bagheera interrupts the herd during their cross-country march in order to seek their help in finding Mowgli, who was lost and ran away. Bagheera also tells Hathi that Shere Khan, the tiger returned to their part of the jungle, and he was sure to pick up his trail. Hathi refuses to help, and this angers Winifred and their son into breaking ranks in order to set him straight. She calls Hathi "a pompous old windbag," and she asks Hathi how he would like to have their son lost and alone in the jungle, and Hathi tells her that's an entirely different matter. Winifred answers that Mowgli is no different from their own son, and she tells Hathi to help find Mowgli or she's taking over command, and Hathi is shocked and says that a female leading his herd is utterly preposterous. Their son then tells Hathi that he and Mowgli are friends, and he'll get hurt if they don't find him, and this convinces Hathi to help find Mowgli.
Jungle Cubs[]
Winifred appears as a supporting character in the film's prequel series Jungle Cubs. In this series, Winifred is a young, domesticated elephant who has been separated from her herd by a fire. She meets Hathi soon after. In a lead up to the first film, the young Hathi develops a crush on her. It is also shown that she used to have a mop of brown hair just like their son. She appears only twice in both seasons and in the second season, her hair is a darker brown color and more clean.
She also appears as an adult in the international VHS release of Jungle Cubs: Once Upon a Vine, recalling the events of her meeting with Hathi in "Hathi Meets His Match".
Cameos[]
In Fantasia 2000, an elephant that is believed to resemble Winifred makes a cameo along with another elephant that is believed to be Colonel Hathi during the "Pomp and Circumstance" segment of the film.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Verna Felton, Winifred's original voice actress, also voiced The Elephant Matriarch and Mrs. Jumbo in Dumbo, which were her first two Disney roles. Ironically, Winifred was also Felton's final acting role ever, due to her death before the film was released (a day before Walt Disney), therefore bringing her entire acting career at Disney full circle.
- Winifred is not present in the original Rudyard Kipling novel. The character was conceived entirely by Disney for the film.
- Elephants have a matriarchal society, so Winifred's threat of taking over command from Hathi is legitimate.
- In the Finnish 1993 and French dubs of the film, her first two lines ("March, march, march... my feet are killing me!" and "Here it comes... the Victoria Cross bit again...") are erroneously voiced by male voice actors, presumably due to those aforementioned dubs mistaking her as one of the male elephants. The rest of her lines in both dubs are voiced by women, after being established as Hathi's wife.
- Due to recycled animation there are moments where Winifred mistakenly has tusks.
