Pink elephant

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The expression pink elephants can mean:

• "Seeing pink elephants" is a euphemism for drunken hallucination caused by delirium tremens.
  • Jack London, describing one sort of alcoholic in the autobiographical John Barleycorn, writes that he "is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers."
  • A reference to pink elephants occurs in the 1941 Disney animated classic Dumbo. Dumbo, having taken a drink of water from a bucket spiked with moonshine, begins to hallucinate singing and dancing "Pink Elephants on Parade."
  • Jazz musician Sun Ra performed this Disney song often with his band the Arkestra in the 1970s, and said that he did so because humanity needed calming to prevent nuclear war.
  • In The Simpsons episode "D'oh-in' in the Wind", Barney Gumble, under the influence of Peyote, has a hallucination about a monster. He quickly drinks a beer, which causes a pink elephant to appear and destroy the monster.
  • The phrase is also used in Maakies, a comic strip by Tony Millionaire, in a strip entitled "It's The Early Bird! Run!!"
  • A slight variation on the pink elephant appeared in a Looney Tunes cartoon, in which a drunk spots a tiny (but grey) elephant, looks at his watch, and proclaims to the elephant "You're late!" He then staggers away, commenting "He always used to be pink."
  • The Huyghe Brewery in Melle, Belgium brews several beers, including Delerium Tremens, which feature pink elephants on the label.
• "Pink Elephants" may also be used as a slang term for LSD, as it was a pattern used on blotter paper in the late 90s, no doubt inspired by the above.
• "Pink elephants" is one common name of the North American plant Pedicularis groenlandica because of the shape of its flowers.
• "Pink elephant" is one version of "the elephant in the room" (something that everyone is aware of but won't speak of).
• A 'Pink Elephant' is an oratory phenomena, and rhetorical error. The speaker denies something without yet being accused of it. This invites the audience to draw the link between the speaker and that which is being denied - a link they might not have drawn otherwise. The speaker thus effectively accuses themselves. For example, when a person is asked where they got particularly expensive jacket and they respond, 'I definitely didn't steal it'. Another example is Richard Nixon's well-known disavowal regarding the Watergate scandal, 'I am not a crook'.
• Pink Elephants, The. An international group of political activists dedicated to advancing the dual causes of Atlanticism and sexual progressivism across the globe.
• "Pink elephant" is also a term for females in the republican party. Also, less often Log Cabin Republicans (gay Republicans). The symbol of the U.S. Republican party is the elephant, and pink is a symbol of homosexuality (as in the pink triangle) and a stereotypically effeminate version of the color red, used to signify the party since 2000.
• Pink Elephant is a Dutch record label, well known in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Shocking Blue is one of their artists.
• Pink Elephant is a Dutch IT company, which introduced the best practices ITIL and Prince2 into the Dutch IT market. Although Pink Elephant is now renamed and part of Getronics PinkRoccade, its Canadian subsidiary still carries the original and best-known name, and is a leader in the North American IT process-management market.
• Pink Elephants are what the spots on your vision are called. (Eg from a bright light.)
• Pink Elephant is a popular New York nightclub.
• Pink Elephant is a song by The Cherry Poppin' Daddies on the album Zoot Suit Riot.
• 17 Pink Sugar Elephants is a song by Vashti Bunyan.
• Pink Elephant is also a group that has a track on Tiesto's CD, In Search of Sunrise 5, with a track called "LAX."
• Pink Elephants are also included in Kid Pix Stampies
• Pink Elephant is the name of the co-star in El Normo Gone Wild.
• Pink Elephants is a part of a Madonna Song called: "Dear Jessie" (Written by Madonna and Patrick Leonard).
• Pink Elephants (fanball) are a fantasy football team