History Main / ElephantsAreScaredOfMice

* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'': In the episode 'Junk in the Trunk", Lumpy's elephant gets scared when Lifty holds Cuddles' mouse up to his face, causing him to back up and knock Shifty out of the windshield of Lifty and Shifty's van.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone'': Pictured above. During their WizardDuel, Madam Mim turns into an elephant to try to defeat Merlin. He deals with this by turning into a mouse, scaring her into changing forms.

* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'': In the episode 'Junk in the Trunk", Lumpty's elephant gets scared when Lifty held Cuddles' mouse up to his face, causing him to back up and knock Shifty out of the windshield of Lifty and Shifty's van.

It is a common belief that elephants, the largest land-dwelling mammals on Earth, are terrified of mice, some of the very smallest. This often takes the form of elephant characters sharing a chronic phobia of small rodents, flying into panic at the mere sight of them. This also tends to be treated as something comical and absurd, as the elephants' phobia is seen as ridiculous and senseless (though that's probably a bit hypocritical coming from humans who fears all sorts of much smaller animals, including bugs).

* ''VideoGame/LooneyTunes'' games:

** ''VideoGame/BugsBunnyAndTazTimeBusters'': Taz has to save a druid trapped under an elephant by getting a mouse to scare the elephant. It gets into BlackComedy territory as while the druid does give a prize gear after the elephant is sent flying upward upon being scared by the mouse, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome the elephant returns from the sky seconds later to crush him again]], seemingly killing him this time!

* ''WesternAnimation/JourneyBackToOz'' has the returned Dorothy scaring off Witch Mombi's elephant army with a herd of magical white mice.

* ''WebAnimation/Musophobia2012'': The main character is an anthropomorphic elephant who's deadly afraid of small rodents, as indicted by the fact they have loads of mousetraps surrounding their bed and they end up having an surreal nightmare relating to those rodents which ends up horrifying them, such as when a mouse-like being vomits dozens of rodents onto them and all they can do is cower in fear.

See also DogsHateSquirrels for the similar interactions between rodents and larger mammals.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCountryMouseAndCityMouseAdventures: Defied in "World's Fair Mice". Alexander tries to get an elephant's attention by attempting to scare it, but the elephant just takes one glance and ignores him. Emily reminds him that this trope is just a myth.

-->'''Tweety''': That mouse sure knows how to get a rise out of that elephant, doesn't he?

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Subverted at Apu's wedding in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E7TheTwoMrsNahasapeemapetilons The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons]]". When a mouse runs out in the elephant's path, the elephant recoils for a moment... and then proceeds to deliberately step on it.

It is a common belief that elephants, the largest land-dwelling mammals on Earth, are terrified of mice, some of the very smallest. This often takes the form of elephant characters sharing a chronic phobia of small rodents, flying into panic at the mere sight of them. This also tends to be treated as something comical and absurd, as the elephants' phobia is seen as ridiculous and senseless (though that's probably a bit hypocritical coming from us spider-fearing humans).

* ''Videogame/SimonTheSorcerer'' references this; after Simon wins a ShapeshifterDuel against a witch, the witch has one final move to make and transforms into a dragon. If Simon attempts to counter this with a mouse transformation, the witch declares "How can you hope to defeat me with a mouse? I'm not an elephant, you know!"

->''They hate the mouse worst of living creatures, and if they see one merely touch the fodder placed in their stall they refuse it with disgust.''

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'': [[NiceMice Timothy Q. Mouse]] uses this to his advantage against the [[CruelElephant cruel female elephants]]. Sure, those "over-stuffed hay-bags" can be mean to a little elephant with super-huge ears, but when facing Timothy, they're scared to near-stampeding. Wonderfully subverted with Dumbo himself, who befriends Timothy for being the first creature to be nice to him.

* In ''The King With Six Friends'', the second person whom the king protagonist rescues is a man who can [[VoluntaryShapeshifting change into an elephant]] and is found in that form being scared by a mouse. But as he puts it, "When I am a man, I am just as frightened of mice as when I am an elephant."
* Lampshaded and averted in the ''Literature/FrannyKStein'' book ''The Fran That Time Forgot'', where Franny tries to free herself from the grip of one of the five-eyed elephant monsters created by her evil teenage future self by getting a fistful of cheese from her voice-activated cheese cannon. Teen Franny comes to the conclusion that her younger self intends to use the cheese to summon some mice to scare the elephant monster away and mockingly points out that elephants being afraid of mice and mice liking cheese are not accurate facts. The younger Franny responds that her actual plan was to get the elephant monster to let go of her by [[NoseShove shoving the cheese up the creature's trunk]].