Casey Junior

Casey Junior is a fictional anthropomorphic steam locomotive and among the more memorable characters of the 1941 Disney film, "Dumbo", but has also appeared in other Walt Disney productions. His name is a reference to Casey Jones, the famed railroad engineer who died in a train collision in 1900.

Dumbo

In the film "Dumbo", Casey Junior is the tender engine hauling the circus train, and even has his own song and for the early part of the film. Casey appears frequently throughout the film, and is shown to be somewhat sapient. For example, when the Ringmasters calls for all aboard, Casey's whistle can be heard tooting:

"All aboard! Let's go!"

As is the case with most Disney vehicles, Casey Junior has the ability to move more fluidly and cartoonish unlike actual locomotives, and his boiler is often seen bending and twisting like rubber when in motion.

In addition, he can twist and flex their metal body to express motion. He uses his steam cylinders like limbs, giving him the ability to shrug, point and make other gestures.

Although a male (according to Casey's song, being referenced as "he" or "him"), Casey was voiced by Margaret Wright, and he is currently voiced by Cathy Cavadini. While the sound of the voice resembles that of a voice processed through a vocoder, it was actually done with a more primitive device, a Sonovox, which uses one or two small loudspeakers in contact with the throat, which allowed Wright to "speak" by modulating an artificially produced sound with her mouth.

Earlier Work

According to a cartoon done before Dumbo, Casey was in fact formerly a passenger train. He unfortunately crashed after an effort to jump the chasm left by a broken bridge in a storm. In this video he was of different wheel arrangement, 2-4-0 with the main rod on the forward driving wheel and a bell on the top of his cab. He also had a bell and wasn't quite as stubby. In his circus work he was a 2-4-0, but his rod arrangement changed to the back wheel, and his bell was removed, and he became more stubby. This leads us to think he was overhauled after the accident and bought by the circus.

Appearance

Casey Junior has a 2-4-0 wheel arrangement, a small four-wheeled tender at the back, a big tall funnel, a little lamp hat, a short stumpy boiler, a short stumpy dome with a whistle on the top and a small cowcatcher at his front.

Disney Meta-reference

*Casey Junior makes a breif cameo in the 1988 film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".
*In the film "Kronk's New Groove", a sequel to "The Emperor's New Groove", Kronk has a miniature model train set of Casey Junior in his new home, complete with scaled-down models of the carriages featured in "Dumbo".

External links

*The video can be found [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEH_LIXIUkg here.]