History Main / ElephantsNeverForget

* Alongside [[CleverCrows crows]], elephants are among a handful of non-human animals that are known to hold grudges. Thus, an elephant never forgets, but it never forgives, either.

* As a brick joke, an elephant in the [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Merrie Melodies]] cartoon "The Major Lied 'Til Dawn" appears sporadically trying to remember something. As the end he does. He remembers to say "That's all, folks!"

* In Paramount's Modern Madcap "Disguise the Limit," an elephant collides with the quick-change thief Mike the Masquerader who had just robbed a bank. The police keep the elephant in protective custody certain they have a case as "an elephant never forgets." After Mike tries several times to off the elephant, the critter now suddenly doesn't know who he is. Mike thinks he's scot free until the elephant, who admits his memory is lousy, reveals he keeps all his memories on a tape recorder and he happened to record Mike saying "Don't you remember me bumpin' into you when I robbed that bank?" which he played back to the police.

* In Paramount's Modern Madcap "Disguise the Limit," an elephant collides with the quick-change thief Mike the Masquerader who had just robbed a bank. The police keep the elephant in protective custody certain they have a case as "an elephant never forgets." After Mike tries several times to off the elephant, the critter now suddenly doesn't know who he is. Mike thinks he's scot free until the elephant reveals he keeps all his memories on a tape recorder and he happened to record Mike saying "Don't you remember me bumpin' into you when I robbed that bank?" which he played back to the police.

* In Paramount's Modern Madcap "Disguise the Limit," an elephant collides with the quick-change thief Mike the Masquerader who had just robbed a bank. The police keep the elephant in protective custody certain they have a case as "an elephant never forgets." After Mike tries several times to off the elephant, the critter now suddenly doesn't know who he is. Mike thinks he's scot free until the elephant reveals he keeps all his memories on a tape recorder and he happened to record Mike saying "Don't you remember me bumpin' into you when I robbed that bank?"

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'': A variant with an elephant's ancestor. Buck tries to get Manny (a woolly mammoth) to repeat his number one rule (to always follow Buck's lead) and mocks him by saying, "Come on, mammoth! You're supposed to have a good memory!"

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge3DawnOfTheDinosaurs'': A variant with an elephant's ancestor. Buck tries to get Manny (a woolly mammoth) to repeat his number one rule (to always follow Buck's lead) and mocks him by saying, "Come on, mammoth! You're supposed to have a good memory!"

* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'': In "[[Recap/ThomasTheTankEngineS20E1SidneySings Sydney Sings]]", Sidney starts forgetting things. Whiff tells him that elephants never forget anything, which makes Sidney believe that he has to pick up an elephant from the Animal Park.

Elephants have a reputation in fiction for possessing excellent memories. This is, to a degree, TruthInTelevision -- elephants are very intelligent animals with long lives and good long-term memory, archetypally embodied in the aged matriarch who during a drought leads her herd to a distant watering hole she visited once in her youth. This is also a matter of concern for zookeepers, as elephants will very much remember an individual human who mistreated them and are very likely to get back at them, sometimes fatally, [[BestServedCold potentially quite a long way down the road]].

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': In a story included in the beginning of ''The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes'', Calvin turns himself into an elephant with the transmogrifier to make learning his English homework easier, reasoning that since elephants never forget he can just look through it once and remember it perfectly afterwards. This works perfectly well, as Calvin's new memory is just as strong as he expected... until he has to turn back, at which point his memory is no better than it usually is and he forgets most of what he memorized, forcing him to go through it again once his dad quizzes him and finds him unprepared.
* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': One strip has a dejected elephant sitting at bar, bemoaning that although he drinks and drinks, he never forgets. In another, an Elephant confronts the man who shot at him during a hunting trip, reminding him of the exact date that it occurred.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967'': Played with. While Colonel Hathi, the leader of the elephants, is leading his heard away from Bagheera and Mowgli, his wife, Winifred, asks him if he's forgetting something. Hathi assures her that as an elephant, he never forgets anything, but she points out to him that he forgot their son, Junior, who had stayed behind to talk with Mowgli. Hathi then leads the elephants back to get Junior and scold him for not following the rest of the herd. Unfortunately, [[HumanTrafficJam the rest of the herd ends up crashing into Hathi]] because as Junior points out, he forgot to say "Halt!". This amuses Mowgli, but not Bagheera.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'': In "The Morning Report", as Zazu is referencing a bunch of animal puns and stereotypes, he also touches on the elephants' stereotype of having excellent memory.
--->"The tick birds are pecking on the elephants. I ''told'' the elephants to forget it, but they ''can't''..." (original spoken version)\\

* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'': In "[[Recap/ThomasTheTankEngineS20E1SidneySings Sydney Sings]]", Sidney starts forgetting things. Whiff tells him that elephants never forget anything, which makes Sidney believe that he has to pick up an elephant from the Animal Park.

Elephants have a reputation in fiction for possessing excellent memories. This is, to a degree, TruthInTelevision -- elephants are very intelligent animals with long lives and good long-term memory, archetypally embodied in the aged matriarch who during a drought leads her herd to a distant watering hole she visited once in her youth. This is also a matter of concern for zookeepers, as elephants will very much remember an individual human who mistreated them and are very likely to get back to them, sometimes fatally, [[BestServedCold potentially quite a long way down the road]].

This is occasionally extended to elephants being intellectual, and even analytical, creatures (also not far from reality, as Elephants are some of the very smartest animals on the planet). Such as the case of Ganesha of Myth/HinduMythology, an elephant-headed deity of wisdom and knowledge.

This is occasionally extended to elephants being intellectual, and even analytical, creatures. Such as the case of Ganesha of Myth/HinduMythology, an elephant-headed deity of wisdom and knowledge.

* A TV ad for Nestlé Rolo chocolate caramels features a boy offering his last one to a young zoo elephant, before yanking it away and eating it with a "nah nananah nah". TimeSkip to the boy as an adult, again eating Rolos while watching a parade, when a trunk taps him on the shoulder then smacks him in the head; the angle shifts to show the adult parade elephant walking way while trumpeting its own "nah nananah nah" as the man [[TapOnTheHead collapses]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Cattivik}}'': Parodied in the story "The Cruise", where Cattivik ends up releasing several wild animals from the ship's hold and they proceed to wreak havoc on the ship. We see a guest telling his female friend how he once wounded an elephant during an hunting trip in Africa but couldn't finish him off, and gave up hunting, fearing the elephant's revenge and quoting their prodigious memory. [[TemptingFate As soon as the woman mocks this rumor as superstition]], the escaped elephant runs by, trampling the man.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967'': Played with. Colonel Hathi, the leader of the elephants, claims that an elephant never forgets. However, after a conversation with Bagheera, who is trying to bring Mowgli to the Man Village since Shere Khan has returned to the jungle and is trying to hunt him down, Hathi's son, Junior, befriends Mowgli and stays behind as Hathi leads the rest of the herd away. As Hathi leads his herd, his wife, Winifred, asks him if he's forgetting something. Hathi assures her that as an elephant, he never forgets anything, but she reminds him that he forgot their son. As Hathi goes back to Junior to scold him for not following the rest of the herd, [[HumanTrafficJam the rest of the herd crashes into Hathi]] because as Junior points out, he forgot to say "Halt!". This amuses Mowgli, but not Bagheera.

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!!Examples

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-->'''Countess''': "Looks like your native guide was right, Baron!"\\
'''Baron''': "[[MajorInjuryUnderreaction Never underestimate the native's experience, Countess]]."

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** Done with actual elephants [[https://www.offthemark.com/DailyCartoon?prod_id=1422 here]], [[https://www.offthemark.com/DailyCartoon?prod_id=754 here]], and [[https://www.offthemark.com/DailyCartoon?prod_id=1264 here]].

* ''ComicStrip/OffTheMark'': While [[https://www.offthemark.com/DailyCartoon?prod_id=1477 this strip]] doesn't feature any actual elephants, the trope is referenced by an "ultimate memory" plug-in shaped like a trunk.

--->'''Countess''': "Looks like your native guide was right, Baron!"\\