A few years ago, our friends from Zimbabwe gave me a small pink elephant — it’s really pretty cool, it was hand made in Zimbabwe and I have it sitting on a shelf in my office. At the time I received it, I thought it was kind of a strange gift, but my friends said, “we thought you’d appreciate it. You’ve probably seen a few of these,” I remembered that “seeing pink elephants” was, and is, an euphemism for drunken hallucination caused by intoxication or withdrawal.
I remember hearing the expression when I was younger, but I hadn’t heard it much recently. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I heard it.
But, as I am want to do sometimes, I decided to find out how the phrase came to be a part of our language. Like a lot of things, there’s no clear answer and at least a few “theories” as to how pink elephants became one of the more popular things to hallucinate about rather than snakes, giraffes, monkeys or other animals of various colors.
One theory is that is was fueled by the 1941 Disney film Dumbo. The film contained a scene of Dumbo’s champagne-fueled psychedelic hallucination of Pink Elephants on Parade. The problem with that theory is that before Dumbo saw them in 1941, people had been seeing pink elephants for many years.
Many people think that the phrase became popular in 1884 when P.T. Barnum attempted — and failed — to bring a white elephant to the United States. The “white elephant” was heavily hyped but was a big disappointment to most people — it turned out to be more of a “pink elephant.”
Another interesting story goes like this… in the December 1938 edition of Action Comics #7, Superman lifts an elephant over his head while performing at the circus. As with most stories, there has to be a non-believer in the crowd and in this case, it’s a drunk. Upon witnessing Superman’s feat of strength, the drunk says, “I don’t mind seeing pink elephants, but (hic) this is too much!”
Nonetheless, over the years, drunk people are often said to “see pink elephants” — although alcohol rarely induces hallucinations.
But do pink elephants really exist? As a matter of fact, yes. Albino-elephants — that are far more common in Asian elephants than African elephants — are reddish-brown or pink. In Thailand, they are called chang phueak, which, when translated, is pink elephant. I should also probably add that desert elephants in Africa sometimes give themselves a dust-bath, which makes them “look” pink.
Another interesting fact uncovered by my extensive research is that elephants (especially Asiatic elephants) are known to turn nasty on people who smell of alcohol. There have been a couple of cases of drunks being killed by circus elephants. So — if you’re drunk and you see an elephant of any color, it might be safest to keep away — just in case….
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