Headscratchers / Babar

• In the cartoon and movies, how do Babar and his family (not to mention the other elephants) don't seem to have problems holding stuffs with fingerless hands. They aren't exactly dexterous compared to human hands, so how can Babar, for example, tie his bowtie? Are there tiny little fingers there we're not seeing? Are their paws sticky or something like that? Makes you wonder how they could've constructed Celesteville...
  • They seem to use their trunks for most things that require dexterity, at least in the earlier seasons of the show. There is some truth to this, as elephants can use their trunks to complete fairly delicate tasks in real life. As for the "hands" they do have toes, stubby as they are. In this case it is probably best to just chalk it up to cartoon logic.
  • A Wizard Did It.
• If Babar was the first civilized elephant, how is it that Cornelius already wears glasses and Pompadour has a monocle when they are still savage?
  • Maybe some man-made objects did make it into the savage elephant society. Note that humans in this universe seem to be aware that large mammals are sentient, so maybe they traded the glasses with the elephants for some other goods.
  • In the 1999 movie, Cornelius doesn't get glasses until Babar returns.
• In the It's a Wonderful Plot episode "A Charmed Life" when Babar wishes never to be king and he is transported to a parallel universe with Rataxes ruling the elephants and no one knows Babar... shouldn't all of them be still wild animals? Babar was the one introducing civilization among all the jungle animals including the use of clothes and housing.
  • It is possible that animals in this universe were going to be civilized sooner or later, as they are clearly sentient and humans seem to already know that, what change is that Babar wasn’t the first and that causes a different type of society.
• Shouldn't Jules Verne be more surprise while meeting the animals? Yes, it is obvious in this universe everyone knows that animals, or at least large vertebrates, are sentient judging by how Babar is treated in Paris and how no one reacts strange at seeing a talking elephant. But Verne was from like two centuries in the past and civilized animals shouldn't be something normal for him as Babar was supposed to be the first.
  • If Verne have a time machine he probably already traveled to other points on history where animals where already civilized. Babar is received as a foreign dignitary in Paris in an episode so clearly in the future the animal kingdoms are part of the international community.
• Pompadour is an adult, male elephant in a society where all adult elephants, male and female, have tusks. He has been shown to have been an adult since Babar was born, so why doesn't he have any tusks? He is the only adult in the series to have no tusks, and not only is this never explained, none of the other characters ever even mention it.
  • They were left out of Arthur's adult design, too.
  • In Arthur's case it's probably the case of the Grandfather Clause. Arthur is a child or teenager in most of the books, and lacks tusks to look more youthful than his older sister Celeste - and the cartoon left off the tusks from his adult design too, to keep him recognizable. In Pompadour's case… maybe he's just from the shallow end of the gene pool and isn't able to grow tusks, but the other elephants are too polite to mock him for it.
  • Truth in Television, interestingly elephants are now been born without tusks as what is probably a natural selection process that help them survive poaching.